Chapter 8 — Room 404 Sea View

Mrs. Hanh requested that all mention of room 404 be removed from the official restoration records, and convened a private meeting with Nhi in her office, without Vu or Dat attending. The bank does not want the project to be associated with the old landslide, and the investor has scheduled a site inspection for next weekend, a timeline that cannot be postponed according to the signed contract.

“I need you to understand my position,” Ms. Hanh said, sitting straight behind her desk, her hand resting on a thick financial file. "This hotel owes a large amount of money to the bank. If the investor withdraws because of reputation concerns, I will lose everything, including the opportunity to preserve the rest of the building."

Nhi said that if the room really used to be a rescue warehouse related to missing people, it must be fully safety assessed and preserved properly, and cannot be deleted from the records just for short-term financial reasons. “It's no longer a choice between looking good or looking bad for your profile,” she said. “This is a choice between a complete set of records and a set of records with vulnerabilities that could be discovered at any time later.”

Ms. Hanh replied that the hotel was in debt and could not become a free memorial while still having to pay monthly interest. Nhi, after a moment of silent consideration, asked directly how much insurance money her family had received after the landslide, a question she knew would make the conversation much more tense.

Mrs. Hanh's face changed immediately, the lines on her face stiffened. She said it was her father's private matter, which had been resolved in accordance with the law many years ago, and had nothing to do with the current restoration project that Nhi was in charge of.

“If it's not relevant,” Nhi said, keeping her voice calm even as her heart beat faster, “then you wouldn't mind showing me that file, right?”

Ms. Hanh did not answer that question. She stood up, walked to the office window, looked out at the construction site yard for a long time before turning back.

Dat, immediately after that meeting, sent Nhi Ban a list of insurance compensation he obtained from a source in the insurance finance industry, who worked at the company that paid the compensation that year. The three missing workers were listed as “unknown,” a vague legal expression that is distinct from reporting them as dead or missing in the disaster. The insurance money is divided between the project owner and the families of those involved, according to a ratio not disclosed in detail in Dat's documents.

Vu, when looking through the structural data collected and the map of the landslide area, pointed out that the landslide started from the north embankment, where an old project once opened a drainage pipe without a full geological assessment according to current standards. If the warehouse door on the sea side is closed at that time, the people inside cannot access the exit to the sea, the only way is through the corridor door on the hotel side.

“If the hallway door is also locked,” Vu said, his voice low, “then the people in the room will have almost no way out.”

Nhi couldn't conclude who was responsible right now, even though in her head the pieces of the puzzle were starting to form into a shape she didn't want to believe was true. She requested Ms. Hanh to maintain the status quo of room 404 until the structural and legal survey is completed, and send this request in official writing to have a clear legal basis.

Grandma Hanh said if Nhi continues in this direction, her consulting contract with the project will be canceled within the week. Nhi replied that the contract could end at any time she wanted, but the survey report she had prepared up to this point must clearly state the reason for terminating the contract, so that no one could later say that the project had never detected any unusual problems.

Vu, standing by throughout the rest of the tense exchange, reminded her that the architectural profession is not the profession of judging others, their role is to document and evaluate techniques, not to make moral judgments. Nhi said she clearly understood that limitation, she was just preventing part of the work with evidentiary value from being erased before it was fully measured and recorded according to professional standards.

That afternoon, Nhi received an email notifying her of the cancellation of the next advance payment for the project, sent from Ms. Hanh's finance department, just as the warning had said. She read the email twice, feeling a real financial pressure starting to weigh on her shoulders, but she still decided to stay at the hotel, using part of her personal savings to rent additional measuring equipment needed for the next survey steps.

Linh sent her a short text message right after hearing about the canceled advance: "Don't turn finding your mother into a way to punish yourself." Nhi read the message, her finger hovered over the screen for a long time before typing back a short reply: "I know. But I can't stop here, when everything is getting closer and closer to clarity every day."

Nhi put the phone down on the desk, looking out at the construction site yard that was gradually sinking into darkness at the end of the day. Room 404 is no longer a simple question mark on the drawing board. It had become a career choice, a legal matter, and a family question all at once, with no way to separate them as she had hoped to do when she first started the project.

Vu stopped by the construction site office before leaving and saw Nhi still sitting in front of the computer screen, recalculating the personal budget she could spend on renting equipment in the coming weeks. He placed a cup of coffee from a nearby shop on the table, didn't say much, just sat down in the chair opposite.

“I can contribute to some of the equipment costs,” he said after a moment of silence. “Not out of pity, but because I also want to know the results of this survey to the end, no less than you.”

Nhi looked up and looked at him for a moment. “I don't want to drag you into financial risk because of my family's problems.”

“This isn't just about your family anymore,” Vu replied, his voice firm. "This is a matter of construction safety, a matter of my professional responsibility as a structural engineer. If room 404 is truly involved in the deaths of three people, I cannot sign any report as if it never existed."

Nhi thanked him, although she still intended to pay most of the costs herself with her savings, only accepting Vu's support for truly necessary items that she could not afford on her own.

Late that night, when she was preparing to leave the office, Mr. Tu knocked on the door, carrying a small old paper box. He placed it on the table, said nothing for a moment, then spoke, his voice somewhat hesitant.

“I've kept this for a long time,” he said. “I wanted to bring it back to my mother's family, but I didn't know how, I didn't know Should we bring up the old story or not?"

Nhi opened the box, inside was a women's watch, the glass was cracked, the clock hands stopped at a fixed time. She picked it up, her hands shaking slightly, recognizing the familiar design from old family photos.

“This is my mother's?” she asked, her voice choked.

“I found it near the embankment area, a few days after the landslide, when the cleanup team was collecting debris,” Mr. Tu replied, his eyes red. “I didn't dare turn it in to anyone, afraid of being asked why I was there, afraid of being implicated. I kept it in the closet for eighteen years, Miss Nhi."

Nhi looked at the clock, the hour hand and minute hand stopped at a position she quickly jotted down in her notebook to compare later with the elevator log time table - a small detail, but possibly the most important piece of the puzzle she had found so far, coming from the person who had been silent the longest in the entire story.

“You don't need to apologize for keeping it,” she said, looking at Mr. Tu, her voice softening even though her eyes were already watering. “You kept it safe for eighteen years, instead of letting it be lost forever. It's also a form of protection, though not in the way you imagine.”

Mr. Tu nodded, didn't say anything more, just stood up, patted her shoulder before leaving the office, his back seemed a little more relieved than when he entered.

Nhi sat alone, placed the watch on the table next to the notebook, took photos to store according to evidence preservation procedures before putting it in a separate storage box. She compared the position of the clock hands with the established time table: 04:12 elevator stopped, 04:15 no response, 04:18 power cut. The clock stopped at a time between those two marks, a coincidence that she could not consider a coincidence.

She called Vu and read him the results of the comparison. Her voice trembled slightly with emotion mixed with the professional concentration she was trying to maintain. Vu was silent for a moment on the other end of the line before replying, his voice also lowered: "We need to give this watch to the official survey team and record the receipt as soon as possible, before anyone else knows of its existence."