Chapter 4 — Justice Delayed

Outside the glass window, the sky was a heavy, suffocating shade of gray. After a long, agonizing silence, he finally parted his lips to speak.

"She is dead."

The other end of the line fell into an uneasy stillness. The next second, Song Van Duong burst into even more hysterical sobbing.

"How could this happen?" she cried out. "I didn’t mean to, brother, I truly didn’t mean to…"

Bui Tu Xuyen closed his eyes. He had been hearing that exact sentence for seven long years. In the past, every time those words reached his ears, his heart would soften. But this time, he felt only a biting, absolute cold.

"Song Van Duong," he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. "You had better pray that you truly didn't mean to."

When Bui Tu Xuyen returned to the Bui family estate, the living room had already been meticulously sanitized by the domestic staff. The urn and the shattered porcelain fragments had vanished. The floor was polished to a shine, devoid of even a speck of dust, as if the horrific events of the day had never transpired. His mother sat on the sofa, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, weeping not for the deceased, but for the fright Song Van Duong had endured. His father was on the phone with a lawyer, his voice hushed and urgent.

"Make sure the news about Tinh Dao does not leak," his father commanded. "She already suffered from brain damage; just report it as an accidental fall. As for the waiver document signed by Van Duong, it has been fingerprinted, so there should be no complications."

Standing in the doorway, Bui Tu Xuyen suddenly let out a hollow, bitter laugh. His father turned, saw him, and immediately furrowed his brow.

"You've returned," his father said. "Has the matter at the hospital been handled?"

Bui Tu Xuyen stared at him, his gaze piercing. "Handled? Handled what? The disposal of her corpse, or the cleanup of your collective mess?"

His father’s face darkened instantly. "Tu Xuyen, your emotions are unstable right now. None of us wanted to see Tinh Dao die, but Van Duong is in a fragile state. Do not cause a scene."

His mother chimed in, her voice tremulous. "Indeed, Van Duong has already fainted once from shock. Her hand is still injured. If Tinh Dao were still alive, she surely wouldn't want us to continue pressuring Van Duong."

Bui Tu Xuyen suddenly lifted his head, his eyes mapped with bloodshot veins. "She would want? Since when has any of you ever cared what she wanted?"

The living room fell into a suffocating silence. Bui Tu Xuyen walked, step by heavy step, toward the family shrine. The altar was now barren. His mother’s memorial tablet had been shoved into a corner, with bits of ash still clinging to the wood where it hadn't been wiped clean. He slowly crouched down, carefully gathering the stray ash into his palm. His fingers trembled violently.

"Seven years," he whispered. "Every single night, she slept holding this. She told me her mother was afraid of the dark. And you people used this very thing to force her to sign your papers."

His mother’s face drained of color. "I only meant to frighten her. Who could have known Van Duong’s hand would shake…"

"Her hand shook?" Bui Tu Xuyen spun around, his eyes wild. "The car accident that year was because her hand shook. The urn today was because her hand shook. Every single time, she ‘didn’t mean to.’ But what of Tinh Dao? What did Tinh Dao ever do to deserve this?"

His mother was struck dumb by his outburst. His father’s expression grew menacing. "Enough! What good does it do to blame us now? You were the one who signed that waiver years ago. You were the one who suspended her rehabilitation therapy. You were the one who took her to visit that fake prison every year."

As those words hung in the air, Bui Tu Xuyen froze, his entire frame rigid. His father stared at him with cold, cutting indifference. "Do not forget, Tu Xuyen. Tinh Dao became what she was, and you were a part of it."

The air felt as though it had frozen solid. Bui Tu Xuyen stood motionless, his face drained of every drop of blood. He wanted to refute the accusation, but he found he could not utter a single word of defense. He had been the one to sign the waiver. He had been the one to divert the rehabilitation funds. He had orchestrated the charade of prison visits. For seven long years, he had been the jailer, sealing me within a prison of lies. He had told himself he was protecting me, but in truth, he had been shielding Song Van Duong all along.

Bui Tu Xuyen suddenly lunged toward the study and flung open the heavy safe. Inside lay the case files from seven years ago, copies of the legal waivers, and the records of my institutional expenses. Buried at the bottom were my cognitive assessment reports from the intervening years. The final report, dated ten years ago, was chillingly clear: *The patient shows significant potential for recovery; continued intervention and increased social exposure are strongly advised. Prolonged limitation of information may lead to cognitive fixation.*

Bui Tu Xuyen stared at those words, his fingers digging into the paper until his knuckles turned white. I had not been destined to remain seven years old forever. I had once held a chance at reclaiming my life, yet they had smothered it, terrified that if I regained my clarity, I would hold Song Van Duong accountable for her crimes. They had chosen to keep me broken, to keep me foolish.

At that moment, a tattered sketchbook slid from the desk drawer. It was mine. The pages were filled with amateurish drawings in wax crayon. The first was a portrait of my mother. The second was of Bui Tu Xuyen. The third depicted a gray, grim building, inside of which was trapped Song Van Duong, wearing prison stripes. Beside it, written in shaky, uneven script, were the words: *When the bad person is punished, Mother will not cry.*

He turned to the very last page. It was a drawing finished only yesterday. In the sketch, my mother stood in a place of deep darkness. I was holding her hand. Next to us, I had scrawled: *I am going to stay with Mother.*

Finally, the dam broke. Bui Tu Xuyen collapsed, clutching the sketchbook to his chest as he sank to the floor of the study, sobbing with the uncontrollable, shattered grief of a child who has lost everything.