Chapter 30 — Seventy-Eight Billion And The President Has No Heir

Khang wants to take me back to my mother's hometown.

He found in an old box a notebook that belonged to my mother, recording the numbers used to buy lottery tickets. That year's ticket wasn't completely random; Mom chose her birthday, the day I went to work, and the number of the first room I rented.

“Do you think mom knew I would win?” I asked.

“No. But I know you need something to believe in.”

We took the night train without booking a separate compartment. Khang brought a lunch box, I brought a laptop and ended up not opening it.

My mother's hometown has no corporate signs, just a dirt road and a house that was sold long ago. My old neighbor gave me a small key. Mom once left a box of mail, asking them to keep it if I returned.

In the letter, mother wrote:

"If you have a lot of money, don't use it to prove you're not poor. Use it to buy a day without fear."

I read the last sentence, tears falling onto the paper.

Khang did not ask if I cried for money or for my mother. I just went to buy two glasses of sugarcane juice.

On the way home, he gave me two plane tickets.

"Where to go?"

"Da Nang. I want to open a third kitchen there."

“Have you decided?”

"I've made a plan. I won't take your money, I'll just use the two kitchen's profits."

I asked him if he wanted me to join. Khang replied:

"If you want. As a person to try and give suggestions, not as an investor forcing me to listen."

I nodded.

Back in the city, Vu sent me an invitation to attend the apprenticeship deposit ceremony. He stood next to an older woman, his mother, who had been receiving treatment abroad for many years. She looked at me for a long time.

“You're the one who put my child back in the chair he didn't want to keep.”

“I just helped him see the person standing below.”

She gave me Vu's father's old silver pin. I refused, but she said it was a gift for the person who had kept the will from turning into an heirloom.

Vu stood beside him, not speaking.

Khang looked at the pin and teased:

“The president's family gave me gifts while my family only gave me plane tickets.”

“Airline tickets are more important.”

That night, Khang and I made an appointment to open a kitchen in Da Nang. And Vu received a call from the lawyer: Khai's case had a new witness.

That person is Duyen.