Chapter 5 — Old Street Corner Gold Shop

During the next few days, Vy spent every spare moment rummaging through the old warehouse at the back of the shop — a small room filled with cardboard boxes, wood-worm cabinets, and decades of dust that had never been thoroughly cleaned. She did this alone, not wanting to make her father worry more, even though in her heart she understood that he was also silently watching his daughter's every move through his eyes every time she walked down to the warehouse.

Thursday evening, after closing the shop, Vy brought a flashlight and sat down on the warehouse floor, carefully opening each carton. Most of them are old, broken tools, broken molds, and a few jewelry catalogs from the eighties that have yellowed most of the pages. But at the bottom of a small wooden chest, locked with a rusty brass padlock, she found something that made her heart beat faster — a worn leather-bound notebook, different from the usual order notebooks.

She gently pried the rusty lock with a small screwdriver, her hands shaking slightly. Inside the notebook were yellowed pages with her grandfather's handwriting - a familiar handwriting she had seen on other order books - but the content was completely different. This is not a business notebook, but seems like a private diary, recording my grandfather's thoughts and confidences over the years.

Vy turned each page carefully, afraid that the paper would rot and crumble under her hands. Most of the content is fragmentary notes about work, about special orders, and about the difficulties in the early stages of opening the store. But near the middle of the notebook, she stopped at a page with much more hasty handwriting than the others, with ink smudged in some places as if the writer had written in a state of panic.

"I don't know what to do tonight. Mrs. Tuong brought the jewelry and begged me to keep it for her, saying her family had to leave urgently at night and couldn't bring it with her for fear of being exposed. I accepted because of my long-standing neighborly friendship, but I didn't expect..."

The paragraph stopped suddenly there, the rest of the page was torn away, leaving only a jagged edge of the paper like a trace of a hasty or intentional deletion. Vy turned to the next page, but the content had changed to a completely different topic - it seemed that a few months later, her grandfather wrote about expanding the shop, without any further mention of "Mrs. Tuong" or the incident that night.

She sat silently in the dim flashlight light, her heart pounding. "Mrs. Tuong" - this name immediately reminded her of the Uong family name that she had heard about somewhere, although she was not sure. She tried to remember, but couldn't find any specific connection in her memory. She closed the notebook and hugged it tightly to her chest as if she were keeping a secret too big to bear alone.

The next morning, Vy brought the notebook up to show her father, hoping he could remember something else. Mr. Thinh held the notebook with trembling hands, his eyes squinted behind his glasses to read each line. When he read the part about "Mrs. Tuong", his face changed color, but he still shook his head.

"I don't remember anyone named Tuong," he said, his voice sounding genuinely confused, not evasive like before. "Maybe it happened before I was born, or when I was too young to remember. Your grandfather never mentioned this name to me, not even once."

"So why was the page torn away, Dad?" Vy asked, filled with doubt.

Mr. Thinh was silent for a long time, and finally could only say one sentence: "I don't know, son. But maybe this is what the recent strangers are looking for."

That whole day, Vy worked in a semi-awake state, her mind wandering around the unfinished story in the diary. She completed the wedding rings of Mr. and Mrs. Van Thinh - Ngoc Hoa, polished them one last time, and engraved the final words on the inside of the rings, but her mind still could not fully concentrate as usual.

Thanh Tra noticed a difference in her teacher. "Miss Vy, you don't seem well today. What's wrong?"

Vy intended to hide it, but then decided to tell Thanh Tra a little, because after all, she had been with the shop for nearly a year and deserved to know part of the truth. "I found some old things of my grandfather's that seem to be related to something that happened a long time ago, back in 1979. I don't quite understand, but it doesn't feel simple."

"Do you need any help?" Thanh Tra asked, her eyes full of concern.

"Thank you, but I think I need to find out for myself first," Vy replied, smiling wryly.

Late in the afternoon, when the sunlight began to turn orange on the old town's tiled roofs, Vy stood at the workbench, holding Mr. and Mrs. Van Thinh's completed wedding ring, watching the sparkling golden light reflected through the window. Even though her heart is still filled with unanswered questions, she still feels a small comfort when looking at the results of her work - proof that no matter how complicated the past is, what she is doing in the present still brings real value to those around her.

She put the diary and the mysterious piece of paper in a separate drawer, locked it carefully, telling herself she would continue to learn when she had time, but in the immediate future she still had to take care of her business, which was having difficulty because of Hao Kim's competition.

Just as she was about to clean up the workbenches to prepare to close, the shop bell suddenly rang, a clear, familiar sound signaling a customer. Vy raised her head and saw a young man, probably in his thirties, entering the store with a calm appearance, neatly dressed in a business style but not too stiff - white shirt with rolled up sleeves, dark pants, a leather briefcase slung over his shoulder.

He stopped for a moment at the door, looked around the shop space with curious eyes mixed with something like nostalgia, then walked up to the counter and gently placed a small wooden box on the glass surface.

"Hello, I heard that this shop specializes in restoring old jewelry, especially old jewelry," he said, his voice was gentle but clear, a bit cautious as if he was considering each word. "I have a ring that belonged to my grandmother. She told me to find a skilled person to repair it, because it has many memories attached to it."

Vy opened the wooden box, inside was an old wedding ring, with a classic design, the gem in the middle was loose, and a few engraved details around it were mostly worn away. She picked up the ring, turned it under the light, and immediately felt that this was an item at least forty or fifty years old, crafted with sophisticated craftsmanship from a bygone era.

"This ring is very beautiful, the engraving of patterns around the edge is a quite special technique, not every craftsman can do it," Vy commented, her eyes shining with the usual professionalism whenever she comes across an item worth putting her heart and soul into. "Do you know where this ring was made?"

The man smiled slightly, his eyes slightly filled with excitement. "My grandmother said she could work on this street, a long time ago. My name is Giang Viet Khoi. My grandmother's name is Ky Thi Doan, she is eighty-nine years old this year."

That name made Vy suddenly freeze, her heart beat faster. Ky Thi Doan. She immediately remembered the faint handwriting behind the old photo in the tin box: "With Doan, spring 1978, before opening day." She looked at the man in front of her, feeling like an invisible thread had just connected the past and present in just a split second.

"You... you said your grandmother's name is Doan, and she used to live in this neighborhood before 1978?" Vy asked, trying to keep her voice calm even though her heart was churning.

Khoi was a bit surprised by her reaction. "That's right, how do you know that year exactly?"

"I just found an old photo of my grandfather, with the name of a friend named Doan written on it, taken in 1978, right in front of this store," Vy explained, trying not to reveal all the worries swirling in her heart. She didn't want to tell everything to a stranger she had just met for the first time, but this coincidence was too great to ignore.

Khoi pondered for a moment, his eyes looking far away as if trying to recall his memories. "My grandmother often tells stories about when she was young and lived around this old town. She mentioned a friend who worked as a jeweler, but she didn't tell much, just briefly. Maybe it was your grandfather. If you don't mind, let me ask my grandmother again, maybe she can remember anything interesting."

"Yes, if that's possible, that would be great," Vy replied, trying to keep her voice calm even though her mind was confused with a series of new questions that arose.

Before leaving, Khoi also told her that he would come back to get the ring after Vy finished, and left her contact phone number. Watching his shadow disappear behind the corner of the street, Vy stood silently for a long time at the counter, still holding Mrs. Doan's old ring, filled with premonitions that she had just met not only a guest, but perhaps an important piece to decipher the mystery surrounding her family. She looked at the man in front of her, feeling like an invisible thread had just connected the past and present in just a split second, and she knew that this seemingly random meeting would not be as simple as a normal jewelry restoration order.