Chapter 2 — Old Street Corner Gold Shop

Mr. Co Van Thinh and Ms. Thi Ngoc Hoa came to the shop on a Saturday morning, when Ngan Lu street was still sparsely populated. The two men walked in hand in hand, walking slowly like people in their seventies, but their eyes lit up like a young couple in love when they saw Vy standing behind the counter.

"My dear, this year we celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary," Mrs. Ngoc Hoa began, her voice trembling because of emotion, not because of her age. "My grandparents want to redo their wedding rings. The old rings they wore in 1976 are now almost worn out, and the engravings inside are faded and cannot be read anymore."

Vy invited them to sit down, brewed a pot of hot tea according to the polite manners that people in the old town still maintain, and then carefully took the two rings from Mrs. Ngoc Hoa's hand. She placed them on the black velvet and looked at them under the table lamp. Both rings have become noticeably thinner, the rim of the ring concave in the shape of the finger worn for half a century, as a silent testament to the passage of time.

"Where did you buy this pair of rings?" Vy asked, even though she already guessed the answer in her heart.

"Bought it at this store," Mr. Van Thinh smiled, revealing a few lost teeth. "At that time, my grandfather was very young, had only opened the shop for a few years. We were poor, we only had enough money to buy a tael of gold and divide it into two thin rings. Mr. Phat said something to my grandparents at that time, which he still remembers to this day: 'It doesn't matter whether the ring is thin or thick, what matters is how long you two wear it.'"

Vy was silent for a moment, her finger gently touching the inside of the ring, where a few faint engravings remained - perhaps the initials of the two grandparents. She had never heard this story, but it made her feel closer to her grandfather, as if he was still somewhere in this shop, quietly watching his granddaughter's work.

"I will make a new pair of rings, but I want to keep the old gold to melt and recast. That way the new rings still carry in them the rings my grandparents wore from their wedding day, not something completely new," Vy suggested.

Mrs. Ngoc Hoa held her husband's hand tightly, her eyes were red. "You said it exactly like your grandfather used to say. My grandparents trusted me."

After seeing the couple off, Vy sat at the workbench and placed two old rings in a small ceramic bowl used to melt gold. She lit the torch, blue flames spewed out from the tip of the tube, pointing straight into the bowl. The gold began to flow softly, sparkling like honey, then gradually turned into a bright liquid puddle. This is the moment she always finds most sacred in her profession - witnessing a solid object, carrying half a human life within it, melting and then being reborn into a new form, but still retaining its essence.

"Do this carefully, don't let it burn too much," Mr. Thinh reminded from the rattan chair, his eyes still glued to his daughter's every move. "Old gold ages better than new gold, and is easily brittle if overheated."

"I know, Dad. I watch the temperature by color, not by time." Vy replied, not taking her eyes off the tiny bubbling pool of liquid gold.

This is exactly what industrial machinery cannot do - feel the ripeness of metal through the color of reflected firelight, through the viscosity when gently stirring with a graphite stick, through the characteristic faint scent when gold reaches the perfect melting point. Grandfather once said that a mass casting machine can produce a thousand identical rings in an hour, but no machine knows that the pair of rings it is casting was once worn on the hands of a poor couple who got married in 1976, having witnessed fifty years of their sadness and happiness.

Vy poured liquid gold into a rough mold, let it cool, then began the process of rolling, spinning, and shaping. She passed the gold bar through a mechanical hand-crank rolling machine, each rotation was regular, the distance between the two shafts gradually tightened with each turn so that the thickness decreased exactly as calculated. This is a seemingly simple step, but it requires absolute concentration - rolling too fast, the metal will micro crack inside, and over time it will break right at the place of wear; If rolled too slowly, the golden grain will be uneven, and the light reflected on the surface will be patchy rather than smooth. Vy rolled and listened to the sound of metal screeching through the shaft, a sound that only a skilled worker could distinguish between a normal squeak and a sign that the gold was about to break.

Work lasted all afternoon. By the time the sunlight began to fade, she had in her hands two rough rings, unpolished, but with the basic shape of the final product. She placed them side by side on the velvet, her eyes softening. Tomorrow she will engrave the first two letters of the names of Mr. and Mrs. Van Thinh - Ngoc Hoa on the inside, in the same position as the faint engravings on the old pair of rings, so that fifty years later, if someone takes off the ring and looks under the light, they will still see the traces of both successive generations of jewelers preserving a small love story in the heart of the old town.

Thanh Tra came to the shop after school, as usual, and stood next to the worker's table watching Vy work with fascinated eyes.

"Sister, why don't you use a wax molding machine to make it faster? I studied at school and saw that big factories now all use CNC machines to engrave patterns, ten times faster than making them by hand," Thanh Tra asked, not to criticize but really curious.

Vy stopped and looked at her student for a moment. "The CNC machine can make identical, even patterns, much faster. But think about it, if I used a machine to recast the rings of Mr. and Mrs. Thinh - Hoa, would the new ring have any connection with the old ring? The gold is still the same gold, but its soul - the fifty-year memory - I think only human hands can pass it on, through each blow of the hammer, each line of rolling, but not the machine."

Thanh Tra nodded silently, it seemed like this answer touched something deeper than what she learned in books at school. "So why when you first accepted me as an apprentice, you didn't teach me how to use 3D design software first, but made me practice touching from the beginning?"

"Because if you don't understand how metal reacts under each real chisel, you will never be able to design anything meaningful, whether on the computer or by hand," Vy replied, then handed Thanh Tra a flat piece of silver. "Now continue practicing the chrysanthemum carving exercise I told you to do yesterday. Don't rush, just slow and steady."

In the evening, after Thanh Tra returned, Mr. Thinh called Vy to the small table next to the window, where he often sat and read the newspaper every night with his thick glasses.

"I heard that Hao Kim recruits dozens of sales staff, whose salary is twice as high as that of a skilled jeweler," he said, his voice filled with a bit of unconcealed worry. "After Thanh Tra finishes school, will he stay with us, or will he go over there to sell goods?"

Her father's question made Vy pause. She had never thought about that scenario, but now that she heard her father say it, her worries suddenly became more concrete and closer than ever. Not only may customers abandon the shop for cheaper goods at Hao Kim, but even the apprentice, to whom she is trying to pass on her grandfather's fire, may be drawn in by the lure of high wages and more leisurely work.

"I don't know, dad," Vy said honestly. "But I think if Thanh Tra really loves her job, she will stay. But if she just sees this as a job to make a living, then I can't blame her for choosing a higher-paying place."

Mr. Thinh nodded, but his eyes were still full of confidence. "I'm not afraid of losing customers, I'm not afraid of losing revenue as much as I'm afraid that one day no one will want to learn this profession anymore. Your grandfather worked in this profession forty years, passed it down to me ten years ago when I got sick, now I'm passing it on to you. If you can't pass it on to anyone, this profession is over."

Vy didn't answer, just sat down next to her father, looking out the window where the construction site lights across the street were still bright even though it was late, the sound of machinery assembling furniture echoed steadily. In just over a week, Hao Kim Jewelry will officially open. She didn't know exactly what was waiting for her small gold shop, but she felt a big change approaching, as if the whole Ngan Lu street was waiting with bated breath.

That night, before going upstairs to sleep, Vy returned to the workbench, picked up two rough rings belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Van Thinh - Ngoc Hoa and looked at them under the dim light. She imagined that fifty years later, another old couple would bring back this pair of rings and tell a young jeweler their love story, just like Mrs. Ngoc Hoa had just told her today. That's the only thing that makes Vy believe that, no matter how big Hao Kim opens, no matter how modern their designs are and how cheap their prices are, there will still be people who come to a place like Tan Phat gold shop - where each piece of jewelry has a story, not just a number on the price list.

She turned off the lights, locked the shop, walked upstairs in the twilight, carrying in her heart both faith and a vague nameless worry - like a small fire burning in the midst of an oncoming big wind.