Chapter 10 — It's Too Late, Doctor Vu

Nearly a week after the conversation in Phung Dac Nguyen's office, Dinh Vu received the call he had been waiting for a long time. It was late at night, after he had just finished a long shift, sitting alone in the break room of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department, trying to get a few rare minutes of sleep amid the busy work schedule that he maintained as a way to not have to face the emptiness of the villa every evening.

"Vu, I have information." Nguyen's voice rang out with excitement over the phone. "Can you go to the coffee shop on the corner near the hospital gate? This shouldn't be discussed over the phone."

Fifteen minutes later, the two sat opposite each other in a hidden corner of an empty coffee shop at this hour. Nguyen placed his laptop on the table and opened a series of documents compiled by his network security expert friend. The small cafe is hidden behind a row of trees, the soft yellow lights and soft music coming from the old speakers create the necessary sense of privacy for a conversation that both understand clearly cannot let out, not even a single word.

"Before we get into the main story, I want to ask you something." Nguyen said, his voice lowered. "Have you contacted Nhi yet? How is little Mien doing these days?"

Dinh Vu shook his head, his eyes slightly sad. "Not yet. Bich Van is determined not to reveal their whereabouts. I can only reassure myself that Nhi is a careful person and will definitely take good care of her child. But to be honest, every night I constantly think about whether she is missing me, asking why dad hasn't come to pick me up."

"It'll be okay." Nguyen patted his friend's shoulder, his eyes comforting. "Once you have enough evidence, all misunderstandings will be cleared up. Now, let's get to the point."

"My acquaintance was able to track down the exact computer that accessed the camera system that night." Nguyen spoke softly, his voice careful even though there was no one around. "It was a computer located in the private office of Vice President Vuong Ba Khiem, using an administrative account that he had access to as a member in charge of supervising the facilities and security of the entire hospital."

"Didn't he use a borrowed account or a public computer to hide this?" Dinh Vu asked again, unable to hide his surprise. "A person who calculated so carefully that he even orchestrated such a plan should have been more careful."

"That's exactly what I was wondering." Nguyen nodded. "But my acquaintance explained that he must have thought about simply deleting the recording, because previously the old system did not store separate login logs. He probably did not know, or had forgotten, that the recent security upgrade — the same upgrade he also signed off on as a facilities manager, to please Meridian's appraisal team — created an independent backup for every administrative access. Perhaps he was too confident in it. position and authority, believing that no one would be reckless enough to turn over the technical records of the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors."

Dinh Vu tightened his grip on the coffee cup in his hand. The vague suspicions he once jotted down in his notebook now had concrete evidence to hold on to. "What about that woman? Have you found out her identity yet?"

"Have." Nguyen nodded, opening another document file on the screen. "I asked an acquaintance to cross-check the data from the security camera of the apartment complex opposite your villa - the public traffic monitoring camera managed by the local police, different from the private system that has been disabled. At about nine o'clock that evening, a car was recorded parked near your gate for a few minutes, the license plate was registered under the name of a woman named Vuong Tuyet Nhung."

"Vuong Tuyet Nhung?" Dinh Vu frowned, trying to search his memory to see if he had ever heard of this name, but was completely unimpressed.

"I learned more about her." Nguyen continued, his voice becoming more serious. "Vuong Tuyet Nhung, twenty-nine years old, works in the event media industry. And most importantly — she is Vuong Ba Khiem's distant cousin, the daughter of an uncle in his mother's family. According to the information I gathered from several contacts in the industry, Tuyet Nhung's family had a failed business and was heavily in debt, and Vuong Ba Khiem was the one who stepped in to help pay off part of her family's debt not long ago."

Dinh Vu sat silently, all the disparate pieces began to fit together into a complete picture, although that picture made him shiver because of the level of cold calculation behind it. "So that means, Vuong Ba Khiem took advantage of that debt of gratitude to force Tuyet Nhung to participate in an orchestrated plan to destroy my marriage."

"That's the most reasonable hypothesis based on what we have." Nguyen nodded. "But the biggest question remains open — what is Vuong Ba Khiem's real motive? He is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, and has the same interests tied to the success of this investment deal as anyone else in the leadership. Why does he want to destroy the very image that the whole hospital is trying to build to attract investors?"

Dinh Vu pondered for a long time, took a sip of cold coffee, trying to organize what he knew about the power structure in the hospital Board of Directors. "Unless... he doesn't really want this deal to succeed the way it is, or he has another plan, another scenario that only benefits him if things don't go well at this sensitive time."

"What are you going to do next?" Nguyen asked, closing his laptop and looking at you questioningly.

"I need to learn more about Vuong Ba Khiem's shareholding structure in the hospital, and about how this investment deal will affect the ownership ratio and voting rights of each board member." Dinh Vu said, his voice had regained its usual calm and sharp look when facing a complicated case that needed careful analysis before coming up with a treatment regimen. "I have an old classmate who is currently working in corporate finance and can help me better understand these numbers without revealing the real purpose of the investigation."

"Be careful, Vu." Nguyen reminded, his voice full of worry. "If Vuong Ba Khiem is really behind this, he has proven that he is willing to do bold and carefully calculated things to achieve his goals. If he finds out you are investigating, I wonder how he will react next."

"I know." Dinh Vu nodded, his eyes became determined. "But I have no other choice. I need to find the truth, not only for myself, but for Nhi, for Mien, and for what I believe in fairness and honesty."

Leaving the coffee shop, Dinh Vu drove back to the villa at night, his mind constantly thinking about the next steps to take. He knows he is entering a dangerous game, where the opponent is not a single individual who is easy to deal with, but a force with position, power and cold calculation within the very place where he has devoted most of his career.

But more than ever, he felt a fierce determination rising in his heart — not only the determination to clear his name, but also the determination to protect what it had taken him so long to realize its true value. He thought of Lam Nhi's face on the wedding day, of baby Mien's laughter every time he returned home, and told himself that no matter how difficult the road ahead was, he would go to the end, so that one day he could stand proudly in front of his wife and children, no longer having to hide or fear anything.

When he got home, he sat down at his desk and began composing a text message to his old classmate who worked in the financial sector, arranging to meet on the weekend to discuss a "personal research project" related to corporate governance structures in the healthcare industry — a reason vague enough to hide the true purpose, but specific enough that his friend was willing to help without asking too many questions.

Before turning off the light to go to bed, he reopened the small wedding photo that was still lying modestly on the bookshelf, where Lam Nhi had stood silently looking before leaving without his knowledge. He picked up the photo frame, his fingers gently ran across the smiling faces of both of them on that important day, his heart filled with a determination even stronger than the pain that was gnawing at him every day. He put the photo frame back in its original position, but this time he did not hide it behind the medical dictionaries, but placed it neatly in the most visible position on the shelf, as a promise to himself that from now on, no matter what the outcome of the investigation, he would never let his family's happiness be hidden in the dark again.

That night, sleep came to him later than usual, but when he finally fell asleep, he dreamed of a summer afternoon many years ago, when Lam Nhi was a timid young nurse, the first time he held her hand in an empty hospital hallway and asked if she wanted to go see a movie with him on the weekend. In that dream, everything was still as simple and pure as the first days, there were no secrets to hide, no pressure from positions or brand images weighed heavily on the shoulders of the two young people in love.