Chapter 3 — Music Sent After School

Music without sender

An Nhien has never seen a line of text on a cracked screen that can silence someone for so long.

Duy stared at the last four words, still holding the lid of the device. He didn't ask her if she knew the sender. That question was too direct, and the room was too dark. From the school yard came the sound of the guard pulling the gate, each iron ring sliding on the cement floor like a slow bass beat.

“Is this your device?” Nhien asked.

“Of the club.”

“So how does it know my name?”

Duy picked up the device and removed the battery. Screen turns off. “Maybe someone entered it before.”

"Who?"

“Don't know yet.”

“Do you usually answer in three words?”

“When there is no data.”

“This is about people, not spreadsheets.”

Duy looked at her. “That's why we need data.”

Lam called at that moment. Her voice echoed from the end of the line, breathing heavily: "Are you two still in the room? Don't say there's a ghost. If there's a ghost, tell him to fill out the club registration form first."

Turn on speakerphone. "There's no ghost. There's a strange device attached to the speaker."

“Isn't the strange device beautiful?”

"Are not."

“So it's definitely a male student in the engineering class.”

Duy removed the silver stamp still attached to the player. The back has the code H-AU-17-04, below is a streak of blue ink. Nhien recognized that code format. Ha Audio uses production codes by date, room and technician. But she had never seen this device in the current catalog.

“You know this code?” Duy asked.

Nhien hesitated. She said she knew how to tune music, not to mention her father owned the company. The name Ha An Nhien sounds quite common, but she intentionally used her mother's last name at school. If you say it now, the stamp will turn into a different story.

“I've seen similar coding before.”

"Where?"

“A studio.”

Duy does not force. He placed the player in a zip bag. The two left the room and went down the stairs. On the first floor, Nhien came across an old notice board: **Dawn Sound Festival — 2014**. The person standing in the middle of the photo is a skinny boy, holding a guitar, with the name Pham Quoc Duy written below.

“Have you ever attended a festival?”

“I don't remember.”

“The photo has your name on it.”

“The same name is fine.”

“You're very good at avoiding talking about yourself.”

“And you hide yourself very well.”

Nhien stood still. He didn't say it loudly, but that sentence hit what she hadn't been prepared for. Duy doesn't know her identity, he only sees confusion. She wanted to refute, but no words were clean enough.

The next morning, the music played again right before second period. Not from the 3C room speakers, but from the entire school's sound system. Thirty seconds of piano and guitar pouring down the hallway, interrupting the sound of the supervisor telling class 10B to line up. Students raised their heads. Some took their phones back. Others clapped along to the beat even though they didn't know the name of the song.

The school board sent a notice: **The radio club temporarily stopped playing music until the source was determined.**

Lam read the message and frowned. “Does pausing music mean it can only play speech?”

“Maybe,” Ms. Mai replied. “You guys need an explanation.”

“We didn't press play.”

“I know. But adults are often afraid of things they cannot control.”

Duy brought the transmitter to the computer lab. Khang connected it to his old computer and used memory testing software. There are no complete music files; only one audio clip is played through the clipboard. The file name that appears is a string of characters: after_school_03.

“The name is the same as the program number,” Khang said.

“Or human-like send wants us to think so,” Duy replied.

Lam sat and turned his chair. “If the perpetrator is someone in the school, why did he send Duy's music? If it's Nhien's company, why do we have to use old speakers? If it's a ghost, why does the ghost know how to name files in English?

“Lam,” Ms. Mai reminded.

“I'm formulating a methodical hypothesis.”

Looking at the data. The buffer has three segments: two minutes and forty-eight seconds of music, three seconds of silence, and then the voice is pulled back. The silence is not completely silent; There was a very small sound there, like the sound of a mechanical clock.

“Let me hear the middle part.”

Khanh increases gain. The ticking sound is clearly visible. Duy suddenly took off his headphones.

“The clock hangs at Aunt Huong's counter.”

“Why is the sound at the counter in the music?” Nhien asked.

“My father used to record sound tests there. Aunt Huong said he liked the sound of a clock because it runs faster than human speech."

Lam crossed his arms. “So the music could be an old tape taken from the counter?”

"Are not. Processed sound. Someone uploaded it to the player.”

Duy wanted to leave the room immediately. Nhien held his sleeve.

“Before you leave, you must inform Miss Mai.”

“If reported, the school board will confiscate the phone.”

“If they don't report it, they will think the club is hiding the story.”

“I don't want a group of adults crushing this in a meeting.”

“Then let's save the evidence first.”

Duy looked at her for a few seconds then nodded. Khang copied data to three USB drives. Lam named the folder **Not a Ghost**. Ms. Mai knew but didn't laugh, just asked everyone to write down the time and who was present.

That afternoon, Nhien was invited into the principal's office. The principal placed a stack of papers in front of her and said in a gentle voice: "You are a new student and have audio skills. The school wants to know if you are related to the music.”

“I didn't hand it out.”

“Is anyone in the club handing it out?”

“Duy is checking the equipment.”

“I call her by her first name quite closely.”

Nhien heard the emphasis in the question. She replied: “We worked on the same project.”

The principal nodded and gave her a copy of the regulations for using the speaker system. Read carefully. Section 7 states: any sound played on campus must have a responsible person. Section 9 states: copyright-related content must be verified before broadcasting.

“If the music is someone else's old version, the school can file a complaint,” he said.

“Then help us identify it.”

“That's what adults do.”

“But the announcer is a student.”

He looked at her, seemingly surprised by the answer. “One week. If there is no conclusion, the room will be locked.”

On the way home, Nhien received a text message from an unknown number: **Don't let them sell your father's song.**

She read it again and again. The message was not sent to her but to Duy? The sender may have mistaken the number, or deliberately chose her because he knew she was in the same group. Nhien passed the screenshot to Duy. He replied after two minutes: **Delete.**

“Why?”

**Because they want us to react.**

“Do you know who they are?”

**No. But reactions are not evidence.**

Nhien looked at the screen and saw that the answer was both cold and correct. She put away her phone and walked through the school gate. A black car parked opposite. On the car door is the Ha Audio logo, silver in color so small that normal people may not notice it.

The person in the car did not get out. The car just started, then left slowly.

That night, Nhien came home later than usual. The living room is brightly lit. Her father sat at the piano, a book in front of him thin profile. He did not ask about the school first. He just said:

“Tomorrow the company will announce a sponsorship program for student clubs.”

“My company sponsors Binh Minh school?”

"Maybe."

“What is the name of the program?”

“SoundSeed.”

Nhien heard three ticking sounds from the music in his head. She tightened her backpack strap.

“Do you know if the school's radio room has a device with code H-AU-17-04?”

His fingers stopped on the keys.

“Who told you?”

“I see for myself.”

A silence fell between father and son. Then he stood up and went to the filing cabinet, which was locked with a fingerprint.

“You shouldn't touch that.”

"Why?"

“Because there are songs that turn into disasters when people try to listen too closely.”

Nhien had never heard his father say anything so similar to a warning. Before she could ask, he turned away.

That night, Duy's phone received a new audio file. The sender has no name. The file is only three seconds long, including the sound of a ticking clock and a broken voice:

“An Nhien… don't let them…”

The last three seconds were cut off.

Nhien did not ask Duy if he wanted to keep the file or delete it. She placed the phone on the table, between the two of them, so that the decision did not belong to just one person.

“We acknowledge it and then what do we do next?” she asked.

Duy nodded. He took a piece of paper and divided it into three columns: sounds, people who could know, and actions allowed. Lam looked at the board and then wrote a fourth column: "unknown things".

“This column will be the longest,” she said.

“It's okay,” Nhien replied. “Long does not mean bad.”

They recorded the clock sound in the sound column, Aunt Huong and the radio station in the people who can know and ask for advice column before going to the action column. In the unknown column, Lam wrote: who sent it, who cut it, why did Nhien's name appear.

Khang sent them a copy of the log, and Ms. Mai called the administrative office to ask for a gate camera. No one runs after a single clue. The incident for the first time had the appearance of a real project, not a ghost hunting game.

Before leaving, Duy returned to the hallway speakers. He used tape to mark the end of the wire, then wrote on paper: "No power supply if there is no person in charge." Nhien added below: “Don't tell other people's stories without asking.”

Lam took a photo of the paper and posted it on the club's information board. A few students read, then someone asked if they could send the sound of a bicycle. Lam agreed, surprising the other person because even a small sound was considered important.

Nhien realized the way the radio room was changing. It doesn't just play a mysterious song; it teaches people that memories can be saved without being taken away.

At home, she opened a box of old photos. A photo taken in the schoolyard in 2014 shows a yellow umbrella and a boy holding a guitar. Nhien doesn't remember everything, but in the corner of the photo, Aunt Huong's counter clock is clearly visible.

She placed the photo next to her phone. File 03D has not been opened yet. For the first time, Nhien chose to wait.

The next morning, she arrived at school earlier than Lam. She wrote a new sentence on the board: “Not all unknowns need to be filled in right away.” Duy read that sentence, nodded, then placed a cup of ginger tea next to the recorder.

“Auntie Huong sent it,” he said.

“You told me about me?”

“No. I guess.”

Nhien held a cup of tea and heard the classroom gradually fill with people. She understood that waiting wouldn't make the question go away; it just gives them enough time to ask properly.