Chapter 8 — Music Sent After School

Rumor has background music

In the morning, Nhien stood in front of the mirror longer than usual. Uniform is the same as usual, hair tied low, no jewelry with company logo. She took off the watch her father gave her and put it in a drawer. Even though no one knew, she still saw it shining like a testimony.

At the school gate, a few people looked at her and then looked down at their phones. An 11th grader asked directly: "Are you the daughter of director Ha Audio?"

Nhien did not answer. Lam appeared, took her arm and pulled her inside.

“Today I won't answer a question without a proper question mark.”

“The last sentence has a question mark.”

“But the attitude is not kind.”

Room 3C was temporarily sealed. Ms. Mai stood outside the door, saying the school board needed time to verify the post. Students still gathered in the hallway, some secretly filming. Lam turned to them, holding up a piece of paper: **Do not shoot other people without permission.**

“When did you print it yourself?” Nhien asked.

"Last night. My printer didn't have ink but I still tried."

Duy did not come. His phone is off. Aunt Huong texted Lam that Duy was at the counter and didn't want to see anyone. Nhien thought about the threat and immediately went down the alley. Lam intended to follow, but Ms. Mai held back to work with the principal.

The radio counter is half closed. Duy sat on a wooden chair, with a tape in front of him. He didn't listen, just looked. Aunt Huong put down the tea and turned to fix a speaker.

“I don't want to drag you in,” Duy said.

“I'm already inside.”

“You can step out.”

“You said this for the third time.”

“Because it's still true.”

Nhien sat opposite. "My dad said the company will sponsor SoundSeed. I don't know if they own the song or not."

“But I know his signature.”

“Knowing the signature does not mean knowing the truth.”

"Correct." Duy looked down at his hands. “So don't defend him before hearing everything.”

Nhien felt pain, but did not object. She understood that Duy didn't say it to hurt her. You just need someone who isn't quick to choose sides.

Lam video calling. The screen shows her face in the teacher's room, behind is Ms. Mai working with the school board.

“Rumor has it there's more background music,” Lam said. "A new account posted a thirty-second clip, combining the part Nhien said in room 3C with Minh Quang's sentence in the tape. It sounds like the sisters actively took Duy's article."

Nhien received the file. The audio is well-matched, but the background sound doesn't match. In the first sentence, the 3C room fan runs at 120 Hz; In the following sentence, the background is the sound of a 60 Hz air conditioner. The person who edited the clip took two different recordings.

“It can be proven by sound spectrum,” Nhien said.

"Prove it to whom? Students don't listen to the sound spectrum."

“Then explain it to them.”

Lam nodded. “Let's do some podcasts on how to recognize spliced sounds.”

Duy looked up. “Don't use my father's cards.”

“Use fan sounds, door sounds, clock sounds,” Nhien said. “Let everyone hear how the background changes.”

“If banned?”

"Play in the hallway using a personal speaker. But we need permission first."

Lam laughed. “The three-minute rule is still alive.”

The school board initially did not agree. Ms. Mai persuaded with a script that did not mention anyone's name, but only guided students to distinguish between the original recording and the composite version. The principal allows some out-of-hours testing, on the condition that listeners are not recorded.

They set up the program in the library. Khang recorded the sound of fans, doors, and chairs. Nhien cut two pieces with different backgrounds and placed them next to each other. Lam speaks more slowly than usual Rules, no jokes. Duy is in charge of technical inspection.

“If the voice is cut off mid-sentence, the breath is also lost,” Nhien explains in the recording. "If the background audio changes suddenly, that's a sign to check. Don't be so quick to share a passage just because it matches what you already believe."

At the end of the show, they played Lam's laughter reversed. Khang wanted to delete it because it sounded weird, but Lam kept it.

“So people remember that sounds can be deceiving.”

At 5:10 p.m., the third number plays in the hallway. Students focus. Some were still holding their phones, but no one was smiling. When hearing the two fan backgrounds suddenly change, one person said: "That's a composite part."

After the program, the mailbox received many questions. Some people asked for instructions, some people said they were interrupted in a clip. A 10th grader sent a bicycle bell ringing, asking the club to measure whether he had a transplant or not.

Lam breathed a sigh of relief. “We haven't solved the rumors, but at least we've taught people to listen.”

Duy looked at Nhien. “That's a good thing.”

On the way back to the counter, he asked, "Are you going to tell dad about the tape?"

"Tonight."

“Don't listen alone.”

“Do you want to come along?”

“No. But if he says anything that makes you doubt yourself, call.”

Nhien smiled. “You talked longer than yesterday.”

“Because there is more data.”

“Data again.”

“It's not always bad.”

That night, Nhien gave the tape to his father. They sat in the family's small listening room. Minh Quang did not look at her as he ran. At the part where he said "this copy will stay in the box forever", he closed his eyes.

“Dad said that?”

"Have."

“Are you going to get the song?”

“I intend to find a way to release it to pay everyone who contributed.”

“But Huy doesn't want to release it.”

“Huy doesn't trust the company.”

“Maybe he has a reason.”

Minh Quang sat up straight. “Do you know anything about running a project?”

"Not much. But I know a person has the right to say no to his own song."

“Huy has signed the contract.”

“The appendix page was torn.”

He was silent. Nhien asked about the three seconds that were cut off. Minh Quang looked at the machine and spoke very slowly:

“Dad doesn't cut it.”

“Who cut it?”

“The last record keeper.”

“Who is it?”

He did not answer. The phone on the table vibrates. A text message from an unknown number sent to Minh Quang:

**If you don't speak, your daughter will hear the last part in public.**

Minh Quang read, his face turned pale.

“Do you know the sender?” Nhien asked.

He stood up and locked the door to the listening room. “From tomorrow, I quit the club.”

"Are not."

“An Nhien.”

"Dad just told me not to cut the bandage. If Dad doesn't do it, I'll have to find someone who did."

“I don't understand the danger.”

“I understand that others make decisions for me.”

Minh Quang placed his hands on the table, his voice lowered. "They don't just want the song. They want to force me to admit to something I've never done."

“What?”

“I can't say yet.”

“Then I will look.”

Nhien left the listening room. Outside in the hallway, the sound of rain began to fall, a steady beat on the glass roof. Her phone lit up with a new file from a hidden account.

File name: **03D — last part**.

Duration: seventeen seconds.

When Nhien clicked to listen, a little girl's voice rang out, clear and confused:

“Dad, that person told me to sign my name.”

Then there was the sound of another man laughing, then the sound of the door locking.

The file ends with a whisper:

“An Nhien, do you remember who was behind the door?”

Minh Quang called back after Nhien left listening room. He did not talk about the new file right away. He asked her if she had dinner yet, a normal question but it made her feel sad.

“You can't have dinner to avoid this,” she said.

“I know.”

“Who is behind the door?”

“Dad can't see his face.”

“But Dad heard the voice.”

Minh Quang said that person was an employee of Moss Records, who often called Vu Tan "brother". Lower Audio does not have call records. He asked security to kick this person out of the warehouse, then access continued through his account.

“Dad, you didn't change your password?”

“I think that would freak everyone out.”

“Everyone was panicking.”

He shut up. Nhien doesn't know what to do with her father's regret; she couldn't fix it with a comforting sentence.

At school, Lam proposed a “Listen Responsibly” bulletin board. Every day, a rule is written: ask for permission, credit the source, keep the original, give the right to withdraw. Students started sending in questions unrelated to the song, like how to record bird sounds without making them fly away.

Duy repaired a microphone for class 10. The girl who sent the 03D file stood and looked, not speaking. When he handed over the microphone, the girl asked: "What if I don't want to hear my voice again?"

“You have the right not to listen.”

“But I already sent it.”

“I have the right to withdraw.”

The girl nodded, then chose to withdraw the file. Khanh deletes the version used in the program but keeps the deletion log. Nhien notes the reason, so everyone can see that the right to withdraw is not a decorative promise.

At the end of the day, Ms. Mai received notice that SoundSeed would suspend its sponsorship. The radio room must operate on its own for a month. Lam looked at the bill and said: "Then let's sell cakes."

Khang replied: "As long as you don't sell your laughter."

Nhien smiled. A small joke, but shows that the group still has a way to go together.

The next morning, the hidden account sent a file containing only breathing sounds. Lam intended to delete it because he thought it was meaningless, but Nhien told him to keep the original version. Khang analyzed and saw the sound of breathing accompanied by the sound of an old air conditioner in the council room.

They don't play files. Ms. Mai said a person's breathing is not proof of where they are; it's just a clue that needs to be tested in another way. Nhien wrote on the board "possible", not "known".

During lunch, Lam made the group play a guessing game. There was the sound of a pen cap, the sound of slippers, and the sound of a chair being pulled. Khang guessed almost everything wrong, Duy guessed correctly by looking at the strings. Nhien realized that the humorous moments helped them remember that they were still students, not a professional investigation team.

In the afternoon, they repaired a speaker for class 10. The girl once pulled out the 03D file to help wrap the wire. She said she was no longer afraid of the microphone, she just wanted to be asked first. Those words made Nhien see that the sound store had begun to create new people.

When the speaker worked, the girl said a very small sentence into the microphone: "I agree." The group did not broadcast that sentence, only saved it as requested. Nhien wrote in the notebook that the right to say "no" always needs to be accompanied by the right to say "yes".