Chapter 2 — Room 404 Sea View

Nhi checks the drawing version history on the project server, tracking each file save time. The file with the 404 rectangle appeared to come from a copy made three weeks before she joined the project, but the editor's name field had been blanked out — not blank, but overwritten with an empty string, an operation that required system administrator privileges.

She called the software vendor's technical support department, reading the error code displayed on the log screen. The operator said that such a case of overwriting a username usually only happens when someone intentionally deletes traces of editing using a command line tool, not a normal operation through the interface.

“Is there any way to restore the original name?” she asked.

"If there is an offline backup from before that time, maybe. Otherwise, this data is considered lost forever."

Nhi wrote down the answer and added it to her to-do list: contact the IT department of the old project management company and ask about the offline backup policy before she accepted the job.

Vu called an elevator technician to check the old control panel, which had been removed and stored in storage for a long time but had not been liquidated. The old control panel listed floor 4, room 04 in a maintenance log attached to it, even though the hotel elevator only had three official stops: lobby, guest room floor two, guest room floor three.

“Maybe it's an error code,” the technician said, flipping through a few old log pages that had yellowed over the years.

“Which error code requires a room number?” Vu asked again, his voice unable to hide his skepticism.

The other person shrugged and said that the machine's circuit board had been replaced many times through maintenance, and maybe the old code had been mixed with other system codes from an upgrade that no one could remember clearly. He did not dare to confirm, only giving the most reasonable possibility within the scope of his knowledge.

Vu took a photo of each maintenance log page, numbered it by date, and sent a copy to Nhi through the project's shared storage system. He circled the line saying "4th floor, room 04" with a red pen, with a note in the margin: need to compare with the original circuit diagram.

Mr. Tu led Nhi through the north corridor after lunch, his steps were slow but steady, as if he had passed this way thousands of times during his years working here. Newly built wooden partitions cover a section of wall with a doorknob exposed under peeling paint. The door did not open because the hinges were covered with thick paint and hardened over time.

Nhi scraped off a layer of paint with a small carving knife she carried in her tool bag, being careful not to damage the material underneath. Below that is the number 4, and the letter 0 is cut in half, as if someone had used a sharp object to scrape off part of the number before a wooden wall was erected to cover the whole thing.

Ms. Hanh discovered them there when she went to check the progress, walked quickly through the hallway, and asked to stop removing the wall immediately. She said the area was not within the scope of the contracted restoration and could be dangerous without a prior structural survey.

“This area is not on the official drawing,” Nhi replied, keeping her voice calm. "But it really exists, right before our eyes. I need to acknowledge it, not necessarily dismantle it right away."

“Recorded how?” Mrs. Hanh asked, her eyes searching.

"Take photos, measure, compare records. Do not touch the structure."

Nhi asked who built this wooden wall. Mrs. Hanh replied that she did not remember, because it had been there since before she took over the hotel from her father, one thing The transfer took place quietly many years before the hotel officially closed completely.

Vu checked the structural drawing he brought with him and compared it with the actual position of the wooden wall. Behind the wall is a hollow space one step higher than the foundation, but there are no windows according to what the original structural drawing shows. It is impossible to see the sea like the new digitized drawing that was created yesterday morning.

“So room 404 on the new drawing, and the empty space behind this wall,” Vu said, “are two different things?”

“Maybe,” Nhi replied. “Or maybe they are related, I just don't know how yet.”

That night, after returning to her rented apartment near the hotel, Nhi did not sleep deeply. She dreamed of her mother standing at the end of the hallway, an indistinct figure in the dim darkness. She couldn't see her mother's face, only heard the sound of the ruler falling to the floor, a sound of metal hitting tile, very clear, so clear that she woke up and had to check that her laser ruler was still in the tool bag next to the bed.

Her sister, Linh, called the next morning and said dreams often combine memories with new images, especially when one is working in a strongly evocative environment like this hotel. Nhi said the drawing was not a dream, she had photos, measurements, and maintenance logs.

Linh asked her if she had had enough sleep. Her sister's voice carried the familiar professional anxiety of a therapist. Nhi did not answer that question directly. She sent me a photo of the wooden wall and the number 4 cut in half via text message.

Linh recognized the door in the photo as the door to the rescue warehouse at the marine station, where their mother worked before going missing. She said this with obvious caution, as if she was considering carefully before dropping a detail that could send her sister into an uncontrollable direction of investigation.

Nhi zoomed in on the number 4 on the door in the photo editing app, increasing the contrast to see the cut more clearly. The horizontal cut looks like someone tried to erase the rest of the figure with a straight-edged tool, not natural damage due to time or humidity.

She called Vu back, asking him to bring the moisture meter and metal detector to the wooden wall area the next morning, before Mrs. Hanh could further interfere with the work schedule. Vu agreed, asking if she wanted to invite an independent materials expert to participate from the beginning, to avoid the objectivity of the results being questioned later.

“No need,” Nhi replied. "First of all, I want to have enough preliminary data. If anything significant is discovered, I will invite an official expert and take a full record right from the first approach."

The next morning, before dawn, she went to the construction site office earlier than usual to prepare documents. She reopened all the photos of the east wall from the first day, comparing them with photos of the new wooden wall, looking for any commonalities in style, materials, or construction techniques.

Both locations use the same type of plywood and the same way of nailing at regular intervals typical of a single team of workers. Nhi recorded this discovery in her notebook, along with the hypothesis: both cover layers were built at the same time, by the same construction team, likely right after the landslide eighteen years ago.

Mr. Tu stopped by the construction site office with a pot of hot tea, a habit he still keeps every morning for the survey team. He put the teapot on the table and looked Seeing the photos spread out on the table, he was silent for a long time before speaking.

“You found out more than I thought,” he said, his voice a little low.

“Do you know who built these walls?”

Mr. Tu sat down in the chair opposite, his hands clasped together on his knees. "I only know that after the landslide, there was a team of workers hired separately, not the hotel's regular maintenance team. They worked at night, finished their work in three days and then left, no one knew where they came from."

“Who hired them?”

“I have no right to say that,” he replied, avoiding her eyes. "But you're on the right track, Miss Nhi. It's just that this road won't be easy."

Nhi recorded the entire conversation right after Mr. Tu left, placing it next to other technical notes in the same file, marking it as "unofficial testimony, needs further comparison". She knew she didn't have anything solid enough yet to draw any conclusions, but the pieces were starting to fit together in a way she couldn't ignore.

Vu arrived on time, carrying a humidity meter and a handheld metal detector. He scanned along the new wooden wall, and the device beeped steadily as it passed the door handle, confirming there was a large block of metal hidden inside, consistent with a complete door frame, not just a single piece of metal.

“The humidity behind the wall is about fifteen percent higher than the surrounding area,” he read from the device's screen. “It could be because the air hasn't circulated for many years, or there's another source of moisture I haven't identified yet.”

Nhi recorded each number and compared it with the overall humidity map of the fourth floor that she had created last week. The area around the wooden wall stands out clearly from the rest, an anomaly that needs to be explained before the restoration records can be considered complete.

“I need to get an official dismantling permit,” she said. “We cannot continue to rely on clandestine paint removal every time Ms. Hanh is not present.”

Vu nodded and proposed to prepare a complete written request for permission, along with all the collected measurement data, and send it officially to Ms. Hanh and the project management board before the end of the day.