Chapter 6 — Room 404 Sea View

Dat brought the negative of the photo, after the family agreed to let an independent restoration expert examine it before publishing it. The negative is re-developed with a much higher resolution than the original scan, all details in the background are much clearer.

In the background of the photo, next to door 404, there is a second person wearing a life jacket holding a walkie-talkie, standing a few steps behind Nhi's mother. This person's face was mostly hidden by darkness, but on the shoulder of his shirt one could make out the sea station insignia, a small circle with a stylized lighthouse symbol.

Nhi recognized the way that person stood, even though she couldn't see his face clearly. Her mother always tilted her left shoulder when listening to the walkie-talkie, a habit she had seen many times in her childhood, when she took work calls at home on urgent evenings.

“Do you know who this second person is?” Nhi asked, showing the enlarged printout to Dat.

Dat shook his head and said his cousin, Son, was one of three workers missing when the embankment collapsed, but the figure in the photo was taller than Son according to his family's memory. “It could be another member of the rescue team,” he said. “My family was informed that all three missing people ran to the sea to escape, but no bodies were found afterward, even though search teams searched the area for weeks.”

“You think they're in room 404?” Nhi asked.

“I think someone used this room to gather rescue workers that night,” Dat replied, his voice slow as if he was considering each word. “Then, for some reason, the official record was changed so that no one would be held accountable for what actually happened.”

Vu examined the room floor with a small sampling drill and found two layers of cement that were clearly different in thickness and material composition. The lower layer has imprinted stretcher wheel marks, a type of mark that only forms when the cement is still wet and heavy objects are passed by the wheel many times. The following top layer, with a different composition, was poured to cover all the old traces, the estimated time coincided with the period immediately after the landslide.

“How long are the two classes apart?” Nhi asked.

"Based on the hardness and level of surface carbonization, I estimate it won't take more than a few months," Vu replied, recording the data in the sampling record. “Someone deliberately covered the old foundation right after everything happened, not waiting until the official renovation project began years later.”

Mr. Tu, when asked directly about the new cement layer during a group meeting that afternoon, admitted that he had helped carry a stretcher through the warehouse on the night of the landslide, a detail he had never fully told before. He did not know who the rescued person was, he only remembered that one person was still able to talk when he was taken out of the room, his voice was weak but alert.

“What did that person say?” Dat asked, his voice tense, his hand clenching the pen.

“I don't remember everything clearly,” Mr. Tu replied, his eyes looking at the floor. “I just remember him asking about someone else, a name I can't remember after all these years.”

Nhi asked why he didn't tell this story from the beginning, when she first started asking about the room a few days ago. He said the hotel owner at that time - Mrs. Hanh's father - told everyone to stay quiet to avoid prolonged litigation, affecting the hotel's business in the future, and the official rescue team said they would take care of everything for the families of those involved, without the need for hotel staff to declare further.

Dat was angry, stood up from his chair, voice he grew noticeably taller. "Eighteen years of silence, in exchange for what? A job to keep for a few more years?"

Nhi put her hand on Dat's shoulder, not to defend Mr. Tu, but to keep the conversation from breaking down before they could extract everything he remembered. She understood that Dat's anger was not reserved for Mr. Tu; it is for those who have chosen an easier story to live in, leaving the burden for families like his to bear over the years.

Ms. Hanh, overhearing part of the conversation as she walked past the construction site office, asked Dat to leave the construction site immediately, saying he was putting inappropriate pressure on the hotel's former employee. Dat did not back down. He said that if the hotel reopens without fully disclosing the rescue warehouse and what happened on the night of the landslide, he will publish all the records he has in the newspaper, including the parts that have not been completely authenticated.

Nhi intervened before the situation escalated further. She didn't want the project to turn into a public battle in the media before there was enough solid evidence. She proposed establishing an independent survey team, including structural engineers, neutral lawyers, and representatives of relatives of the missing, operating according to a transparent process fully documented at every step.

“If this group existed,” she said, looking at each person in the room in turn, “every finding would be confirmed by multiple parties before being published, regardless of anyone's narrative, including mine.”

Vu agreed to participate immediately, saying this was exactly the right approach for a case like this with so many overlapping layers of information. Mr. Tu also signed the group's founding minutes, although his hand visibly shook as he held the pen, as if signing meant officially giving up the eighteen years of silence he had tried to keep.

Room 404 is still empty, the steel door is open, the late afternoon light shines through the small window, illuminating the faded yellow paint on the floor. But the list of people who have passed through that room, and who are now learning about it together, begins to grow longer every day, bringing with it a web of responsibilities that none of them can shoulder alone.

After the official survey group was established, Nhi drafted a document describing the scope of activities and sent it to all members for comments before completion. The document clearly stipulates: all findings must be confirmed by at least two independent sources before being recorded in the official report; All witness interviews must be recorded with the consent of the respondent; and no member is allowed to arbitrarily disclose information outside the group before there is general consensus.

Dat read each clause carefully, and finally signed, although he frankly said that he did not promise to keep silent forever if the group chose to delay revealing the truth for too long. “I joined because I believe this approach will find more,” he said. “It's not because I stopped wanting to make things public all at once.”

Nhi nodded and recorded that condition in the minutes. She understands that Dat's patience has a limit, and she needs to respect that limit instead of seeing it as an obstacle to overcome.

In the evening, after everyone had left the construction site, Nhi stayed a while longer to rearrange all the samples she had collected during the day — two-layer cement samples, enlarged prints of photos of people. Second, the record of Mr. Tu's testimony. She labeled each piece, numbered it, and took archival photos following the same process she had applied to all other evidence from the beginning of the project.

Vu stayed with her and helped enter cement sample data into the system. “Do you think the second person in the photo is the one who locked the door from the outside, after your mother and Son went inside?” he asked, his voice careful as if he were touching on a hypothesis that was too fragile to say with any certainty.

“I don't want to predict until I have more data,” Nhi replied, although in her heart she had also thought about that possibility since she saw the enlarged print. “But if that's true, then that person must have known very well that someone was in the room when the door was closed.”

They worked late into the night, not saying much, only the sound of typing on the keyboard and rustling of paper filled the small construction site office space. Before leaving, Nhi looked back at the whiteboard one last time, now covered in sticky notes and red thread, a web of questions that still had more blank spaces than answers.

Vu turned off the office lights and locked the door according to end-of-day security procedures. On the way to the parking lot, he asked her if she wanted to have dinner together before returning to the apartment, a short break between continuous stressful work days. Nhi refused, saying she needed time alone to organize her thoughts before tomorrow starting with the survey team's first official interview.

Vu didn't force her, just nodded and told her to text if she needed anything during the night. Nhi watched the driver leave first, then sat in her car, her headlights illuminating the dark facade of the Hai Dang Hotel one last time before she turned the car toward the city.