Chapter 5 — Room 404 Sea View

Vu built a structural model of room 404 on the computer, inputting each measurement data collected over the past two days into specialized structural analysis software. There were no columns or beams directly connected to the main frame of the fourth floor, but the floor was reinforced with an old steel frame, an unusual detail for a room less than ten square meters wide.

“This room was added later,” he said, rotating the three-dimensional model on the screen so Nhi could see more clearly the steel frame hidden under the floor. "Not sure why such a small room was reinforced so much. But it certainly couldn't handle the load of a typical living room — no heating, no plumbing, nothing to suggest it was ever designed for long-term human habitation."

Nhi found the materials file while searching the technical archive with Mr. Tu that morning, a thin folder with a leather cover with frayed corners. The steel frame was clearly listed as a "temporary rescue warehouse", installed after a major storm nineteen years ago - exactly one year before the landslide.

Dat looked up the area's rescue list from the archives of the old newspaper where he used to work as a collaborator. That storm happened three months before Nhi's mother went missing, a date he marked on the group's shared timeline. The hotel once lent the fourth floor warehouse to the marine station to store stretchers, lifebuoys and intercoms, according to an informal cooperation agreement between the two sides during storms and floods.

Mrs. Hanh, when asked again in the afternoon, said her family only rented the fourth floor for a short time, approximately a few months. Then the marine station moved because the operating budget was not enough to maintain a separate duty station at the hotel.

“So after the station is moved, will the warehouse be returned to its original state?” Nhi asked, taking notes while Mrs. Hanh answered.

“I don't know,” she replied. “At that time I was still studying far away from home, only coming back on holidays.”

Nhi asked why the warehouse was hidden in the hotel's official drawings, a detail that could not be explained solely by forgetting to update records. Ms. Hanh replied that people at that time wanted the hotel to look clean and professional when preparing to sell to a new investor, and a room associated with rescue operations could evoke negative associations with coastal natural disaster risks.

Vu, while checking the electric cable around the room with a detector, discovered a cable running from the room to the roof, passing through a small drilled hole in the ceiling that had been poorly filled. It used to be connected to a signal light on the sea wall, used to guide ships to avoid dangerous reef areas at night, but the cable has been cut, leaving the end of the wire exposed and not connected to anything.

Nhi picked up the cable to examine it, the cut end was neat, not broken due to weather or natural corrosion. She remembered her mother saying that someone had to turn on the light on the sea at the right time, a vague statement in her memory, not sure under what circumstances it was said. She didn't know if that sentence was a real memory from a specific conversation, or a sentence her mother said in another place, on another occasion, that her memory had mistakenly put into this context.

Linh called while Nhi was taking notes about the cable, reminding her not to work alone in the room, especially at night when no one else was at the construction site. Nhi asked her if she remembered her mother taking her to this hotel, in one sentence She had considered asking for a long time but had not dared to ask directly.

Linh was silent for a long time on the phone, enough for Nhi to clearly hear the sound of wind blowing through the receiver on the other end of the line. “Why do you ask that?” Linh finally spoke, her younger sister's voice somewhat reserved.

“I just want to know what you remember, it doesn't have to be right or exact.”

Linh said she only remembers a very long hallway, weak yellow light, and a stronger smell of sea salt than usual. She doesn't remember the room, she doesn't remember anyone's face, she only remembers the feeling of holding an adult's hand as she walked through a dark space.

Nhi collected paint samples on steel doors using a specialized sampling tool, carefully recording the seal number according to the evidence preservation process she learned from a previous monument restoration project. She doesn't trust memories alone, whether her own or her sister's. She needed materials that could be examined, times that could be compared, and witnesses that could independently confirm each other.

Vu watched her work, standing against the steel door frame, arms crossed over her chest. “Are you going to restore the hotel or restore that night?” he asked, his tone not sarcastic, just a straightforward question between two colleagues.

Nhi stopped and looked out the window at the fading afternoon light on the sea surface. “If the two things can't be separated,” she replied, “I should at least know what I'm fixing, before I sign off on any drawings as complete.”

She packed the paint sample into a preservation bag, labeled it, and then stored it in the evidence box she brought specifically for this project — a hard plastic box, different from the usual construction document boxes, as if she had tacitly admitted to herself that this was no longer simply a restoration project.

Vu helped her pack the signal light cable, carefully rolling it back into its old shape so as not to deform the cut that needed to be inspected. “I will ask my acquaintance at the construction department,” he said. “See if there are any records recording the installation or removal of signal lights in this sea wall area, other than what the hotel itself maintains.”

“Do you think that light will still work until the night of the landslide?” Nhi asked.

“Based on the condition of the cable end, I think it was cut after the incident, not before,” Vu replied, pointing to the neat cut on the wire. "If cut due to landslides, the cut will be fibrous and uneven like this. This is an intentional cut, with a specialized tool."

Nhi recorded this observation in the notebook, asking a new question on the whiteboard that was gradually filling up with words in the construction site office: who cut the signal light cable, and did it happen before or after the rescue team officially left the landslide scene.

In the evening, when returning to her rented apartment, Nhi reopened the box of family memorabilia she brought with her from the day she moved to this coastal city to receive the project. Inside were a few old photos, a faded scarf, and a small notebook her mother used to take notes on work at the sea station.

She flipped through the notebook pages, mostly short notes about duty schedules, weather, and equipment status. On a page near the end, her mother wrote: "The lights on the cliff need to check the wiring, there are signs of flickering during heavy rain." The date noted was about two weeks after the landslide.

Nhi took a photo of the page and sent it to Vu with a note: this could be evidence that the signal light system had a problem before, and her mother was the person directly in charge. Check it out in the final weeks before the disaster.

She put the notebook on the table and looked out the apartment window for a long time. Each new piece of evidence found does not immediately make the picture clearer; it just added another layer of detail, forcing her to redraw the entire time table again, more carefully, more slowly, not letting personal emotions creep into the way she read each number.

Her phone vibrated slightly, a text message from Vu. "I just asked an acquaintance at the construction department. They have records about the signal lights along the cliff, but most of the documents from that period have been transferred to the marine station for management and are no longer kept at the department. Maybe the marine station still keeps the originals."

Nhi replied, promising to join him tomorrow morning in contacting the current sea station - which had moved to a new location after the landslide, no longer located within the Hai Dang hotel grounds as before. She also attached a photo of her mother's notebook page, asking whether the note's content was consistent with the industry's standard signal light maintenance procedures.

Vu responded almost immediately, saying the note's content was very professional, correct in the technical terms used by people in the industry, and not like an impromptu note. That, according to him, further strengthens the possibility that Nhi's mother is the person directly in charge of maintaining the lighting system, not just coincidentally present in that area.

Nhi closed the notebook, placed it next to the scarf in the memorabilia box, then turned off the desk lamp. Before going to sleep, she reopened the notes app on her phone, adding a short line to the part of her personal diary she kept separate, completely separate from the project files: "Mom didn't just happen to be there. She had a responsibility to be there. This changes the way I need to read all the remaining evidence, starting tomorrow."