Chapter 2 — Lottery Ticket On The Last Train

The next morning, the station control room had three more strangers.

The person standing in the middle introduced himself as Vinh, the legal representative of the deceased passenger. He said the man's name was Quan, an equipment supplier, and that the ticket belonged to his family. Vinh placed on the table a photocopy of his ID, a ticket purchase receipt and asked An to receive five hundred million to "save time".

An does not touch the envelope.

“I didn't say I had the ticket.”

Vinh smiled, the smile did not reach his eyes. “At this station, nothing stays still for more than ten minutes.”

The station chief asked An to hand over the ticket to the council. An agreed to make a record but insisted there must be a camera to record the entire process. When the technician opened the video file, the segment from 23:35 to 23:52 disappeared. Seventeen empty minutes, the exact time Quan was discovered unconscious.

An brought a copy of the ticket back to her room and called Ly, her sister who was studying nursing. After hearing this, Ly was silent.

“Do you remember Uncle Quan?”

"Are not."

"My father used to repair railroad tracks for his company. After the accident, that company hired a lawyer to testify that father voluntarily abandoned the process."

An opened the old drawer and took out the file his father left behind. Among the oil-stained drawings is a faded train ticket. On it, his father wrote the same serial number: **CV-17B-0419**.

An's phone rings. Strange number.

“Sell tickets,” a man's voice said. “You don't have enough money to pay for a memory.”

“I don't sell.”

"So be careful. The person who died on the ship was only the first."

Call off.

That night, An returned to the station. In the storage room, he discovered the equipment handover book of the year of the accident. One page was torn off, but the carbon underneath still had the words: **brake system — transferred to Hao Logistics — paid by group lottery ticket**.

An took a photo of the page. Behind the shelf, there was a soft sound of metal hitting.

He turned around, only to see the window wide open and a small drop of blood on the handle.

An used a plastic bag to cover the handle before leaving the storage room. He was no longer a curious mechanic; he became the keeper of a chain of evidence that many people wanted erased. On the way home, he passed by Hao Minh dealership. The ticket counter was brightly lit, but the woman in charge immediately recognized him.

“Are you the one who went with Mr. Quan last night?”

“I never met him before the train.”

The woman looked towards the camera and lowered her voice. Quan bought five tickets, not one. Four sheets were deposited in a company's group account, the last sheet he kept separately. When An asked the name of the company, the woman shook her head.

“I only see the word Hao and code 17B on the delivery note.”

An took a photo of the ballot. On the corner of the paper was an embossed railway track mark, the kind of mark his father used to use to confirm that spare parts were up to standard. Hao Logistics has taken that mark for a new shipment, even though the company is no longer licensed to supply railway equipment.

At the station, the station chief called An to his room. He said he was temporarily suspended for taking documents without permission. An asked about the torn book page. He answered that he didn't know, then unconsciously rubbed his right wrist, where there was a blue ink stain similar to Quan's.

An did not argue. He asked for a copy of the suspension decision, then sent it to Hanh. Hanh texted back that the blood stain on the handle was blood type B, matching the test records of a Hao Logistics warehouse employee.

Before leaving the station, An heard the loudspeaker calling his name. Not the name on the documents, but the nickname the name his father used to call him when he was young. Only the family knows that name.

He turned his head. The station platform was empty, only a bus ticket was blown away by the wind.