Chapter 9 — Potters and the Last Fire Season

Mr. Phuc called Linh into the storage room after everyone had left. He took from the bottom of the trunk a notebook with a cloth cover, the edges of the paper yellowed. In it were loans in the name of Linh's deceased uncle, along with his signature guarantee.

The storage room was dark, with only a round light bulb hanging in the middle of the ceiling, yellow light pouring down on the old wooden chest that Mr. Phuc still kept locked carefully in the corner of the room. He squatted in front of the box, his hands shaking slightly as he opened the lid, the musty smell of old paper wafted up when the cloth-covered book was taken out.

“Dad, when did you know about this?” Linh asked, sitting down across from her father on the clay floor.

“Since before I went to school.”

Linh remained silent, mentally calculating that period of time - nearly fifteen years her father had carried a secret, living with it through every meal, every time she asked why the factory was always short of money without receiving a clear answer.

Mr. Phuc admitted that he once signed a contract to save a large batch of goods. The uncle promised to pay after the land was sold, but he died before everything was resolved. Part of the interest was added incorrectly, part of the documents were transferred to Son.

“That year there was a large order from a hotel in the city,” he said, his voice monotonous as if rereading a story he had told himself too many times. "Enough to save the whole factory for three years in a row if it goes well. But we need capital to buy high-quality land, buy imported yeast, and hire more workers. Father doesn't have enough assets to mortgage, so Tan signed for him."

“So what?”

"Then the order was canceled midway because the hotel changed owners. The land and yeast he bought were not used up, part of it had to be sold off at a loss. For the remaining loan, Tan said he would sell a piece of his own land to pay, but before he could sell it, he fell ill."

Linh was angry because for ten years she thought her father was just stubbornly keeping an old stove. It turned out that he kept a whole debt and didn't dare tell his children.

“Why didn't you tell me then?” she asked, her voice choked with a mixture of anger and sorrow. “You go to college in the city while I'm here alone to deal with this?”

“Because you still have to study,” he replied, not looking at her. “I think if you knew, you would drop out of school to help me, and I don't want you to sacrifice your future because of a mistake I made.”

“It wasn't your decision alone to make,” Linh said, her voice shaking. “You take away from me the right to know, the right to choose whether I want to help or not.”

Mr. Phuc bowed his head and did not refute. He knew she was right, but knowing she was right did not lighten the burden of his guilt.

Minh and Ha checked the notebook and copy of the contract. There are signs an appendix page was added after the signing date. Not enough to confirm fraud, but enough to require comparison of original records.

The two were called into the storage room immediately afterward, carrying a flashlight and a small magnifying glass that Minh used to examine the enamel surface. He carefully examined each page, comparing ink color and letter thickness between pages.

"This page," he said, pointing to an addendum sandwiched in the middle of the main contract, "is different from the others. Slightly whiter, less yellowed in the same way. It may have been added later, though it's difficult to say for sure without a professional appraisal."

Ha compared the amount on the appendix with the factory's expense book that year and shook her head. "This does not match any transaction I have recorded in my books. If this is truly a legitimate loan, there should be a record." copy it somewhere.”

Mr. Phuc wanted Linh to ignore it. He was afraid of a lawsuit that would drag the whole village into it. Linh said she did not seek revenge. She just needs to know what debt she is paying, to whom and on what basis.

“If we bring this matter to light,” Mr. Phuc said, his voice filled with worry, “I don't know how many other people in the village will be involved. The person selling the land, the person who did the paperwork, who knows, maybe even the people you don't expect."

“I'm not trying to take anyone to court,” Linh assured her father. “I just want to know the truth, so that if I have to pay, I pay the right amount to the right person. And if someone took advantage of their family's turmoil for personal gain, they also need to be held accountable, not to punish, but to be fair."

Mr. Phuc was silent for a long time, then finally nodded, although his eyes were still heavy with worry.

That night, she took pictures of each page and saved them in two places. Minh sat a table away from her and didn't ask any more questions. For the first time, Linh understood that keeping her job was not just about keeping the fire alive; Sometimes it's also about keeping the truth from being buried under the ashes.

She worked until nearly midnight, rearranging all the documents in chronological order, marking questionable areas with a yellow highlighter pen. Minh stayed to help, even though his job didn't require him to do so, just because he didn't want to leave her alone amid this heavy pile of paperwork.

“You don't have to stay until now,” Linh said, seeing that the clock was almost twelve o'clock at night.

“I know,” Minh replied, not looking up from the page he was reading. “But I want to stay.”

Linh looked at him for a moment, then returned to her work, feeling a small warmth creeping in amid all the heaviness of that night—the feeling of not having to face the darkness of the past alone, no matter how deep and complicated that darkness was.

Near dawn, when the two finished sorting documents, Minh stood up, stretched, and looked out the window where the first light of dawn was glimmering. “We should send this entire file to the lawyer today,” he said. “The sooner the better, before anyone can react.”

Linh nodded, gathered the neatly arranged stack of papers, feeling a strange sense of relief even though the problem was far from resolved — at least now, the truth had come to light, no longer lying dormant in a locked box in a dark warehouse corner.

That morning, before the sun had fully risen, Linh sent all scanned copies of the documents to the district legal consultant, along with a long letter explaining the context - the loan, the suspected fake signature, the suspicious appendix page, and the newly discovered furnace co-ownership clause. She reread the letter three times before sending it, wanting to make sure every detail was correct and not missing any points that might be important later.

The lawyer's response came at noon that day. The consultant suggested an in-person appointment within the week, saying the case had many layers of complexity that needed to be carefully examined — not just the loan, but the possibility of organized fraud being involved if it was true that someone intentionally falsified documents to profit from the family's embarrassment after Uncle Tan's death.

Mr. Phuc, when listening to Linh recount the content of the call, sat thoughtfully for a long time before speaking. “If it is true that someone intentionally deceived,” he said, “then that person must be responsible, not Tan, and not his family. It."

“I think so too,” Linh replied. “That's why I want to clarify everything — not to blame you, but to remove the injustice from your name, if in fact you are just the victim of some conspiracy.”

That sentence made Mr. Phuc look up, his eyes filled with surprise mixed with a gratitude that was hard to name. During all the years he tormented himself for letting his younger brother bear the debt, he never thought the other way around — that perhaps Tan himself was also a victim, no less than his family is now.

In the afternoon, Ha brought another important clue. While reviewing old books to find more evidence, she found the name of a person who had worked as a temporary accountant for the factory the year the loan was signed, a name no one in the family still remembered clearly after all these years.

“This person only worked here for exactly three months,” Ha said, pointing to faint lines in the old salary book. “Then I suddenly quit my job, no one knows where to go.”

“Maybe it's just a coincidence,” Minh said, although he didn't quite believe it.

“Maybe,” Ha replied, her voice still maintaining the familiar caution. “But it's worth checking further to be sure. Three months is enough to access all the factory's records and seals, enough to draft any necessary annexes without anyone noticing."

Linh carefully wrote down the name, promising to send it to the lawyer for further checking that evening. She looked around the table, saw that everyone was playing a small part in tracking down a secret that had been buried for too long, and felt that, whatever the final outcome, at least they were facing it together, no one had to carry it alone like her father had for fifteen long years, silently and alone.