Chapter 6 — Floating Market Without Water

Duy set up a large screen in the culture house, next to the boat anchor price notice board.

On the screen was a ten-year water level chart, the red line going down steadily. He talked about reduced rainfall, rising temperatures, water needs and unusual tides. Each number that appears has the factory logo in the right corner.

“There is no data showing that the factory is operating in excess of its license,” Duy concluded. “We have reduced water intake, while also supporting the floating market with bottled water and dredging costs.”

Ms. Sau sat in the front row, her hand on the meeting book. An sat at the back of the room, not carrying a public recorder. Ti stood outside the window, using the camera to take screenshots.

An raised his hand. “The chart starts from the year the plant expanded, but there is no discharge column for M-07. Why?”

Duy clicked to move to another slide. “M-07 is an old item that has been discontinued.”

Khai, standing behind An, moved slightly.

“If it stopped, why does Ti's photo say the valve opened at 2:17?” An asked.

"The photo only records one device. It does not record the internal state."

“You just said M-07 stopped operating.”

“The device may have been illegally tampered with.”

“So does the factory check?”

“Coordinating.”

“Who is responsible for the valve area?”

Duy looked at the economic department staff. This person bent down and flipped the paper.

“We need to distinguish between project management responsibilities and operational responsibilities,” Duy said.

“I'm asking for the name of the unit.”

Duy smiled faintly. “You should let a professional agency answer.”

An noticed how he used phrases without a subject. No one opened. No one took it. Device is affected. The water recedes on its own. In every sentence, the action happens but the doer disappears.

A fruit seller stood up. “Does the factory still pay for electricity for the pumping station?”

Duy replied: "The supports are implemented according to the contract."

“I asked for electricity.”

“Not relevant.”

“If it's not relevant, why did you use the factory diagram to explain the water?”

The meeting room started to get noisy. Ms. Sau knocked on the table and asked everyone to ask in turn. An saw a few people wearing factory worker shirts sitting in the back, silent. They are evening salesmen, boat repairmen, and brothers of boat owners. No one wants to lose their job because of a pipeline.

After the meeting, Duy stopped An in the hallway.

“You know I'm not completely wrong.”

“I know you're partly right.”

“Partial truth is better than rumor.”

“But the data leaves out the important part.”

Duy looked through the window. The dry river bed makes the town lose its beauty that is often featured on tourist posters. The boats lie in the mud, their roofs are tilted, their baskets are damaged. “If the factory closes, Moc Thuy will lose four hundred direct jobs.”

“If the pipeline discharges mud, what does the market lose?”

“Don't mix two things.”

“It was you who included jobs in your answer about returning home.”

Duy exhaled. “I'm trying to keep everything from breaking.”

“By hiding who operated M-07?”

He didn't answer. Before leaving, Duy said:

“Don't turn workers into evidence against their workplace.”

I remember that sentence.

Ti sent her a new photo. He took pictures of the chart slide from many angles. In the bottom corner of the screen, before Duy moved the slide, there was a small line: "South branch traffic - removed from public version".

An zoomed in, but the text was blurred. She asked Ti where he got the photo from.

“I stood near the projector.”

“Who told you to take pictures?”

"No one. I saw it."

Khai looked at the photo. “The male branch is not a statistic factory announced. This is the water data returned.”

“What if the water returned is less than the water taken in?”

“There is water loss in the system. Or go somewhere else.”

An returned to the cooperative room. Ms. Sau is distributing water barrels to support the boats. A boat owner asked for two more barrels because his child had a fever. Mrs. Sau gave it, then wrote it down in the book.

“Did you see Duy's slide?” An asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know the southern branch line?”

Mrs. Sau closed the book. “An, I need to rest.”

“I need answers.”

“The answer is that the market is thirsty.”

"Insufficient."

“Enough for someone who has to share each bottle.”

Be quiet. Her mother called and said the porridge pot had to be abandoned because there was no clean water to wash the pig's intestines. An wanted to say she was working, but hearing her mother's tired voice, she didn't say.

In the evening, Khai went to the newspaper office. He carried a nylon-covered file bag. In there are copies of the old pumping station operating tables. The tables all have the same M-07 opening hours, but the last year has a red “manual adjustment” mark.

“Where did you get it?” An asked.

“My house.”

“How long will you keep it?”

“Since the day off.”

“Why give it now?”

Khai looked at the number lines. “Because I think if I don't say it, people will use my signature to say it instead.”

An turns the last page. The table records the total amount taken in as 1,200 cubic meters, the amount returned as 920. The difference is 280 cubic meters with no explanation column.

“Where does this part go?”

"I do not know."

“I signed.”

“I signed to confirm the shift, not the final data.”

“My signature is below.”

Khai bowed his head. “I know.”

Little sat in the corner of the room, not taking pictures anymore. He heard the sound of the air conditioner and the sound of papers flipping. An realizes that every new discovery pushes them closer to the truth, but also brings along those who have reason to be afraid.

When she scanned the operating panel, the machine displayed a line of faint text under the ink:

“South branch – circulating sludge, not put into market water.”

An looked up.

Khai stood up. “Do not send this file online.”

Outside the door of the newspaper office, a truck started and drove away. On the trunk of the car there are factory letters, but the logo is covered with mud.

An did not follow the car. She stood in front of the newspaper office, recording the direction, the time the car left and the sound of the engine. The editor asked why she didn't stop the car if she believed it was carrying mud. An said she did not have the right to block, only the right to record.

Khai arrived later, carrying a new sample bottle. He said the sample taken from the trench next to the pumping station had the same smell as the sample under M-07, but the color was darker. He did not dare open the lid in the room for fear of contaminating it.

“Do you think the factory discharged?” An asked.

“I think the system allows water from many places to go the same way.”

“That's not the answer.”

“That's what I'm sure of.”

An brought out the data sheet. The difference of 280 cubic meters per shift cannot disappear, but it is unknown whether it is in the tank, leaking underground or following the south branch. She drew three possibilities on the board, writing down who could check and what documents to ask for.

Ti stood and looked. “Isn't it possible that the factory will empty directly into the river?”

“Yes,” An said. “But we have to prove the way.”

“What if everyone knew but still used water?”

“Then we have to write that too.”

Ti bowed his head. He knew his mother was receiving clean water from the factory to cook with. Dependency is not in a right or wrong answer.

Ms. Sau sent a copy of the old meeting minutes. The factory promised to maintain a minimum water level for the market, but did not record the water level. The line “item coordination” is explained with a dash, without an appendix.

An called the person who made the record, Mr said "back then everyone understood".

“Understand the same thing?”

"Don't know."

“Does anyone read it out loud?”

"Maybe."

An wrote down the sentence "maybe" in the notebook.

At night, she went to a temporary residential area with a group of students. They placed bottles to catch the flow of water from the cracks in the wall. A little girl asked An if the water would keep her from going to school. An said he didn't know yet, but would put the house's name on the sampling list.

An adult said not to scare children. An replied that the scariest thing was to say nothing and let them guess.

Khai examined the mud surface. He found small black particles, not pure metal. He did not conclude, just flagged the need for testing.

“You learned this at the station?” An asked.

“I learned not to name substances without a lab.”

“Still learning how to be quiet?”

Khai looked at the water. “That's learned from everyone.”

The next morning, the plant announced that the actual water intake capacity was lower than the license. Duy sent the file to An, but the file lacked data for two night shifts. She asked, he said the storage system was faulty.

“Correct two shifts?” An asked.

"I do not know."

An placed the file in the "incomplete" folder, not used in the article.

Khai called his younger brother. He asked the factory if there were any cars out in the mud last night. The younger brother said there was a cleaning crew, but he didn't know where to go. After the call, Khai sat still for a long time.

“My brother said if I write down the factory name, it will lose shifts,” he said.

“Do you want me to drop your name?”

"Are not."

“So what do you want?”

“I want you to write it correctly so he has a chance to know what he did.”

An looked at the truck on the road. It went, but the mud on the trunk left a black stripe on the dry road.

At the end of the mud strip, a piece of shipping stamp reads “sub-settlement tank – south area”.

An brought the stamp piece to the factory warehouse, but did not go inside. She stood at the gate and asked the security guard when the shipment of "secondary sedimentation tank - male area" left. The guard said not to give out information. An asked for the name of the person on duty and the time; He didn't want to give it, but Duy called out from inside and told him to acknowledge it.

“Are you helping me?” An asked Duy.

“I'm avoiding people saying the factory even hid the car leaving the gate.”

The gate book records a trip at 1:58, but the license plate is missing two numbers. Duy said the gate camera might still be there. The legal department holds the data.

Khai took An to the wharf and pointed out the locations where the discharge tank had previously been passed by mud trucks. Mr. Nam remembers the ground being grayer, but no one measured it. Ti took a photo of the roadbed and wrote "Mr. Nam's memories", not calling it a map.

Ms. Sau asked households to voluntarily share photos, videos, invoices and damaged goods calendars. She set up a community filing cabinet, each item had a delivery person and a date it was received.

“If the factory has better records, why should I do it?” one person asked.

“So that neither side can say the other side has nothing,” she replied.

An realized that the market was starting to create its own data. Slow, messy, but with real people's names.