Chapter 5 — Old Painting Restoration Workshop

That night, after Thuy Chi returned, Mien Thu sat alone in the workshop for a long time, the only desk lamp still lit, casting a warm yellow halo on the old wooden table. She opened her laptop, typed the name "Kha Nguyen Vu" into the search box, re-read for the third time what she found - a few professional articles on the history of Vietnamese art in the mid-twentieth century published in an independent art magazine, a short interview on the occasion of him publishing a study on techniques for assessing the age of oil paintings, and a few scattered lines of comments in specialized forums mentioning that he had been an appraiser at Tinh Hoa Auction House before leaving suddenly a while ago. two years.

No one said clearly why he left. Some said it was a professional disagreement, some said it was a personal conflict with the leader, and some said it went further — that he discovered something in a major appraisal case that he disagreed with, and when his opinion was dismissed, he chose to leave instead of staying silent.

Mien Thu read and re-read a passage from the interview where he said: "The appraisal job is not to please anyone. It exists to protect the truth about a work, even if that truth damages someone financially or reputationally. If an appraiser puts the interests of the client above the truth, that person is no longer worthy of this profession."

That sentence, although brief, made her feel a little reassured. If her suspicions about "Vong Nguyet" are true, she needs someone willing to face the truth, even if that truth could harm forces larger than her small Bach Nien factory.

She found a public email address on his personal page — a simple website that listed only articles and research, nothing fancy. She typed out a short letter, deleted it and rewrote it for the fifth time, trying to express it seriously enough so he wouldn't take it lightly, and cautious enough not to reveal too many sensitive details through an unsafe means of communication.

"Dear Mr. Nguyen Vu,

I am To Mien Thu, owner of the Bach Nien painting restoration workshop in Hanoi. Currently, my workshop is restoring an important work under a contract with the Hong Lam Museum of Fine Arts, and during the work, I discovered some unusual technical signs that need to be examined more closely by an independent, experienced and reputable expert. Because of the sensitive nature of the issue, I hope to discuss it directly if you have time. Looking forward to receiving your response.

Sincerely,

To Mien Thu — Bach Nien restoration workshop."

She pressed send before she could change her mind, then sat looking at the screen for a long moment, as if expecting an immediate response, even though she knew that was unreasonable at this hour of the night.

She closed her laptop and turned to look at the painting "Vong Nguyet" again under the pale yellow light. The woman in the painting is still sitting there, quietly, the silver moonlight pouring on her shoulders, her eyes looking into the distance as if waiting for something that has been waiting for sixty years.

She pulled her chair closer, sat down, and opened the bottom drawer of her desk — where her grandfather's stack of personal diaries that she had never finished reading were kept. This time, she did not withdraw her hand.

The first book she opened had a dark brown leather cover, peeling at the corners, with the year 1960 written on the first page in youthful handwriting, more neat than the familiar old handwriting she still remembered. She turned the pages slowly, reading the words written by a twenty-two year old man - a few years younger than her now - telling about the first days of learning the profession, about the difficulties of a poor family struggling to make a living in the midst of war, about the burning passion for painting that he did not dare to reveal to anyone outside the page.

"Today my teacher complimented my sketch," one paragraph reads, "he said I have a rare eye for light, and said that if I practice diligently, one day I will be able to draw paintings that will make viewers cry without knowing why. I don't dare to believe that the compliment is true, but tonight I can't sleep because of happiness."

Mien Thu smiled through the tears that suddenly rose. This was the first time she saw her grandfather in his youth, full of dreams, without the burden of old age and the responsibility of maintaining a workshop. She continued reading, slowly, page by page, following the journey of a young man gradually becoming the most trusted student of a teacher whom he addressed with almost worshipful reverence.

But the more she read, the more she realized one thing - the name "teacher" appeared densely in those diary pages, but not once did her grandfather write down his full name. As if it was a name too sacred, too personal to write down, or—a cold thought suddenly crossed her mind—as if he was deliberately hiding it, in case someone read these diary pages later.

She flipped to the end of the first notebook, where the pages began to become more sparse, the handwriting also became hurried, blurred in some places as if wet by tears or sweat.

"He has become very weak. He coughed up blood three times this week. Ms. Dieu Lan cried all night in the hospital hallway, not daring to let him hear. I don't know what to do to help his family through this hardship."

Mien Thu stopped at the name "Dieu Lan". She read that sentence again, then again, as if to make sure she hadn't read it wrong.

She closed the notebook, her heart beating rapidly. These are no longer generic diary entries about an anonymous teacher. These are the first lines revealing a story with names, people, and a tragedy that is gradually unfolding between the yellowed pages.

She looked at the clock — it was almost one in the morning. She knew she should go to sleep. Tomorrow she still had to continue the restoration work, had to wait for a response from Kha Nguyen Vu, and had to decide how to continue this investigation as cautiously as possible. But she couldn't stop anymore.

She opened the second notebook and found the pages near the end, where her grandfather's handwriting became rushed, with some places crossed out so hard that the paper was torn. A short paragraph, without a clear date, lying alone in the middle of a blank page:

"I don't know if what I did was right or wrong. But if I had to choose again, I would still do it. That's the only thing I can do for my teacher, for Ms. Dieu Lan, and for the family that has supported me in the most difficult years of my life."

Nothing more specific. There was no name of the work, no date, no details so she could be sure this was a confession about "Vong Nguyet". But the premonition in her heart, combined with what she had discovered through the infrared light a few days ago, made each of those words seem to be nailed to her heart.

She sat quietly in the middle of the workshop, surrounded by darkness and the stillness of the late night, only the small table lamp illuminating the old pages and the painting "Vong Nguyet" quietly watching her from the stand. She felt like she was standing at a crossroads with no way out — on one side, boundless love and respect for the grandfather who raised her, on the other side, professional responsibility that required absolute honesty with the history of a work of art.

She placed her hand on the worn leather cover of the diary, closed her eyes, and let the last tears roll down without holding back anymore.

"I will find out the truth, grandpa." She whispered in the dark. "But I promise, whatever that truth is, I won't let it bury your name unfairly."

Outside the window, a gentle breeze blew through Hang But alley, shaking the old trees in front of the workshop. In the silence of the night, her phone suddenly lit up on the table — a new email had just arrived, just a few short lines, from an address she had been waiting for all evening.

"Hello, Ms. Mien Thu. I read the letter you sent. It sounds serious. I can arrange to meet you tomorrow afternoon, if convenient. Looking forward to knowing more details.

Kha Nguyen Vu."

Mien Thu looked at that line for a long time, feeling like the door to a new journey had just opened before her eyes - a journey that she knew, from this moment, there would be no turning back.

She typed a few short lines of response, confirming the appointment for the next afternoon at a small cafe near the museum, where she thought it would be discreet enough to chat without fear of being caught in the middle of the jungle in the small art world where everyone knew everyone. After sending, she put down the phone, but sleep still refused to come. She sat for a while longer, her eyes staring into the space in front of her, her mind reeling with all kinds of scenarios - the scenario of Kha Nguyen Vu confirming her suspicions were correct, the scenario of him laughing at her for deducing too much from a few trivial technical details, the worst scenario was that they both discovered a truth so big that neither of them had enough strength to carry it.

She stood up and put the diary back in the drawer, but this time it didn't lock like before. She wanted to keep them close, as a reminder that whatever the truth, it still belonged to the grandfather she loved most in her life, the man who taught her that every crack in an old painting carries a story, and the restorer's job is not to erase that story, but to learn to read it with respect.

Before turning off the lights and leaving, she stood for a moment in front of "Vong Nguyet", gently touching the edge of the wooden frame with her hand, not touching the painted surface, just a gesture as if to say goodbye, or perhaps a promise.

"Tomorrow," she whispered, "we will begin to find the real answer."

She turned off the lights, locked the factory door, and walked out into the quiet Hang But alley under the faint moonlight of the end of the month. Above her head, the crescent moon hung suspended between the ancient roof tiles, almost identical to the image of the silver moon in the painting she had just left - like a strange coincidence, or like a sign that the story of "Vong Nguyet" and her own story, from tonight, had begun to merge into one.