Chapter 20 — Room 404 Sea View

Hai Dang Hotel reopened the first and second floors early next summer, according to the schedule committed to the bank and the victims' families in the previous dialogue ceremony. The fourth floor has only one hallway open to visitors, leading to room 403 in its original state and warehouse 404-B is maintained as a free memorial space, open at fixed hours with a guide on duty.

The map on the wall at the entrance to the memorial marks the confirmed details in black ink, the parts that are still not fully determined in lighter blue ink, a layout Nhi proposed and was approved by the entire supervisory board after much discussion. The viewer, by this design, is not led to a single, closed conclusion, but is encouraged to understand that some parts of history may forever remain open, unfinished.

Dat continued to investigate records of other coastal projects in the area, applying the methods and experience he had accumulated from the Hai Dang project, discovering a few more cases with similar unusual signs although not as serious. Vu takes on the role of periodically inspecting the entire hotel structural system, ensuring all safety improvements are maintained in accordance with long-term committed standards.

Ms. Hanh transferred part of the management of the memorial fund to the official representatives of the victims' families, a common management mechanism was established in consultation with the Faculty, ensuring that no individual, including herself, could unilaterally decide how to use this fund in the future without the consent of the council.

Linh does not work directly at the hotel, continuing her career as a psychotherapist in the city, but occasionally visits with Nhi on free weekends. The two sisters, over the months, no longer tried to force themselves to remember their mother exactly the same, accepting that each had their own version of the memory, not exactly identical, but equally valid.

Nhi replaced the old drawing of room 404 with a new official floor plan with full annotation 404-B, solemnly hung at the entrance to the memorial area along with her mother's hand-drawn drawing carefully restored and framed. On the sea-view box, the small glass slit used to observe rescue signals, she did not place curtains or any other blocking objects, so that natural light and the view of the sea were always kept as it was.

One afternoon, while Nhi was guiding a small group of visitors through the memorial, a boy in the group looked up at her and asked frankly in the way only children dare to ask: "Is this room haunted?"

Nhi smiled, squatted down to the boy's eye level, and answered slowly and sincerely. “I don't know,” she said. “But you know, there are people who were here, on a very difficult night, and the things they did, whether good or not perfect, have been fully recorded, so that no one will forget them.”

The boy nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer, although perhaps not fully understanding its profound meaning, then ran with his group of friends to see the next display.

Late that afternoon, after the last tour group had left, the sea changed color under the cliff from blue to light orange to dark purple following the familiar rhythm of the sunset. Nhi stood alone in front of the slot small ventilation in room 404-B, hearing the steady sound of waves hitting the stone wall below, a sound she had heard hundreds of times during more than a year of working here but never got tired of it.

She couldn't see her mother in the sparkling water in the distance, nor did she need to see her anymore. The memory of her mother is no longer a vague void that she must try to fill with fragmented, uncertain images. It became a story with a clear shape, built from real evidence, from the testimony of real people, from the mother's own voice on old tape recordings.

The room had been used to save lives on a stormy night eighteen years earlier, only to become a blank space erased from official records for nearly two decades afterward. Now, it exists as a reminder that memory, no matter how important and emotional, is not the only reliable evidence, but physical evidence, no matter how accurate and objective, cannot completely replace the need for people to continue living, continuing to love, continuing to move forward after all the losses.

Nhi locked door 404-B with a new lock installed after the safety renovation, a modern lock that completely replaced the old iron latch that left fateful scratches on the steel door frame. She kept the key in a public box located right at the reception desk, clearly stating the registration process: anyone, whether a researcher, a journalist, or simply someone curious to learn, could register to borrow the key to go in and see for themselves, without having to ask permission from anyone who could arbitrarily refuse.

The door no longer looked out to sea in the mysterious, haunting way of the digitized drawing that had frightened her in the early days of the project. It sees a truth that has been confirmed, carefully documented, and can now stand the light of day, withstand the scrutiny of anyone who wants to learn, without having to hide anymore in the darkness of redacted drawings or blacked out reports.

Vu found her there when it was already dark, carrying two cups of hot coffee from the first floor bar that had just opened to serve customers. He gave her a glass, stood next to her in front of the small window, and they both silently watched the last streaks of sunset fade on the sea surface.

“Tomorrow there will be a group of international journalists coming to learn about this conservation model,” he said. “They wanted to write about how a restoration project became a case study in transparency and accountability.”

“I'm still not used to my family's story being a case study,” Nhi replied, her tone half-joking and half-serious.

“Perhaps that is the greater meaning of everything she has done,” Vu said. “Not just finding the truth for ourselves, but creating a new way of doing it, so that similar stories elsewhere don't have to take eighteen years to be told.”

Nhi took a sip of coffee, looking out at the sea that was gradually sinking into darkness, the lights of the coastal town began to sparkle in the distance. She thought of Mr. Binh and his son, who finally agreed to provide official testimony to the investigation agency after many months of deliberation, even though the DNA test results compared with Dat's family had not yet reached a final conclusion. She thinks of Mr. Tu now regularly visits the memorial site every morning, sitting quietly for a while before leaving, as a private ritual he set for himself.

“Do you plan to stay here for a long time?” she asked, turning to look at Vu, a question she had avoided asking directly for many months.

Vu looked at her, his eyes were sincere. “I have decided,” he replied. "I want to stay, not just because of the routine structural inspections. I want to see how this story, your story, of this hotel, will continue in the years to come."

Nhi smiled, didn't say anything more, just let that moment naturally subside amidst the steady sound of ocean waves echoing from the foot of the cliff, a sound that now no longer carries the haunting of the past, but is simply the sound of the sea, of time continuing to pass, bringing with it both losses and new beginnings, as it always does, regardless of whether people have fully recorded it or not.

Before leaving room 404-B to lock the door for the night, Nhi stopped one last time, looking around the small room that was now clean, illuminated by a newly installed lighting system, the old yellow paint was covered with a transparent protective layer to maintain its original state while still preventing deterioration over time. The rescue box, now placed in a small glass cabinet along with a copy of the piece of paper with the number 04 and the arrow pointing to the sea, becomes the central artifact of the entire display.

She took from her pocket the small notebook she had been carrying throughout the project, now nearly full, flipped to the last blank page, and wrote a short line: "One year after the first day of measuring the east wall. The truth has finally found its place, not in the darkness, but in the light of day, where anyone can come and see."

She closed the book, walked out of the room, locked the door carefully, then walked with Vu along the fourth floor hallway back to the stairs. The hallway light automatically turned on with each step they took, completely dispelling the darkness that had covered this place for eighteen long years.