Chapter 17 — Shrimp Street Without Name

That weekend, Hai Yen spent two whole days looking for the remaining foster households on the list of seven names marked with the letter D in her father's notebook. She goes with Kien, who takes a leave of absence to support her, giving the excuse to his superiors to visit his family in the countryside, to avoid revealing their connection to anyone who might be watching.

The second household they came to was an old woman named Nam Thin, now in her eighties, living with her grandson in a small house along the canal. Her memory is no longer as clear as before, many passages are mixed up between different timelines, but when Hai Yen mentioned her father's name, her cloudy eyes suddenly lit up.

"Uncle Tien? That guy is very good. When my pond was plagued by an epidemic, he lent me money to buy medicine, no interest." The old woman smiled, then her face suddenly sank. "I don't know why he passed away so early. I heard someone harmed him, poor thing."

"Do you remember what was unusual about our pond back then? A few months before everything happened?" Hai Yen asked, trying to arouse slowly.

Mrs. Nam Thin squinted her eyes, trying to remember. "Yes, there was a strange incident where the pond water changed color, the shrimp's heads floated, and they died. Uncle Tien and my son at that time - Tu, now he has gone to work far away - the two of them went to the pond to take samples, said to check to see if it was brought in by water from the main canal."

"Where is your son now? Can I contact him?"

The old lady shook her head, her voice sad. "He's been working as a worker in Binh Duong for nearly ten years now. He rarely comes home and rarely calls. If you want to ask, let me find the number for you, but he probably doesn't remember more than I do. He was still young at that time, only in his twenties."

Hai Yen wrote down the phone number the old woman found after searching for a while in the family contact book, thanked her, then left with Kien, continuing to the third household on the list. But when they arrived, they only saw an empty plot of land, overgrown with grass, an old land for sale sign, and no trace of any house left.

Asking neighbors, they learned that the old householder, Mr. Ut Bien, had sold the land and moved to another place a long time ago, no one knew where. The neighbor, an old man in his seventies who was sitting mending nets on the porch, added another detail that caught both of their attention.

"Mr. Ut Bien sold the land very quickly, at an unexpectedly low price, everyone was surprised. I heard he had some debt and had to sell it off. But strangely, the person who bought that land, I later saw merged it into the farming area of Ocean Company."

“Do you remember the time Mr. Ut Bien sold land?” Hai Yen asked, trying to keep her voice calm even though her heart was beating fast.

“Let me remember... it seems to have been around the same time after the collapse of the Kenh Ba cooperative, about half a year or so.” The old man scratched his head. "At that time, a lot of land was sold at cheap prices. It wasn't just Mr. Ut Bien. There were several houses in this whole neighborhood selling. Everyone said it was because business was difficult after that incident."

On the way out of the empty lot, Kien spoke up, his voice thoughtful. "You see, with each new piece of the puzzle, the story gets a little bigger. It's not just about a batch of contaminated goods, but about a systematic collection of cheap land after the cooperative collapsed."

“I think this is the real motive,” Hai Yen said, her voice slow as she pieced together the pieces of information in her head. "It's not that someone personally hates or wants to harm my father. It's possible that the cooperative could collapse, regardless of where it started." What is the cause, has become an opportunity for a group of people to collect land and licenses at cheap prices, and they are willing to let it happen, and may even actively promote it to happen.”

They visited two more households on the list before dark, one household had moved away with an unknown whereabouts, another household refused to talk as soon as they heard the name of Kenh Ba cooperative mentioned, slamming the door even though Hai Yen tried to explain that she just wanted to ask about a few things related to her father.

In the middle of the afternoon, when both of them were tired after many hours of visiting from house to house under the hot sun, Kien suggested stopping at a small roadside restaurant, under the shade of an ancient tamarind tree. The owner is a middle-aged woman who brought out two glasses of cool ginseng water without asking, as if she was used to serving passersby who stopped here to rest.

“Are you okay?” Kien asked, looking at Hai Yen with genuine concern, no longer the eyes of a mere colleague at work. "You've been hearing sad stories all day. I think you seem exhausted."

“I'm fine,” Hai Yen replied, although her voice couldn't hide the fatigue. “It's just... every time I hear someone talk about my dad, I find myself knowing a little more about him, but at the same time I realize I haven't known anything about him all these years. I grew up next to him, but now I have to ask strangers to understand how he lived his last days."

Kien was silent for a moment, swirling the glass of water in his hand. “I understand that feeling. It's the same with me. When Khai was still alive, I was so busy with work that I rarely sat down and talked honestly with him. Now every time I find out a new piece of information about its last days, I am both happy to understand more and sad to know these things too late.”

“Maybe that's something common among those who stay,” Hai Yen said softly. “We always think we have more time, until we don't.”

They sat in silence for a while, no one rushing anyone to move on, letting the rare moment of stillness in the middle of a long, stressful day last a little longer. A gentle breeze blew through the tamarind canopy, dropping a few small leaves onto the old wooden table.

“Thank you, for accompanying me these days,” Hai Yen said, her voice sincere. “If it weren't for your help, I don't think I'd have the courage to knock on every door and ask about such sensitive things.”

“You don't need to thank me,” Kien replied, smiling slightly, his eyes lingering on her face for longer than a normal moment. “I do this because I also need answers, not just for you. But I admit, having you with me, everything is much less burdensome than the seven years I spent carrying it alone.”

Hai Yen didn't respond right away, just smiled slightly, feeling a small, rare warmth amid a series of days full of anxiety and suspicion. She knew she shouldn't let personal feelings interfere with an investigation that was already complicated enough, but she also couldn't deny that Kien's presence, his steadfastness and sincerity, had become a fulcrum she didn't expect to need so much.

They paid for the water, thanked the shop owner, then continued on their way to the remaining addresses on the list, carrying with them a new connection that both of them felt but no one had the courage to name it out loud.

That evening, sit down with me Summarizing what they had gathered during the day, both realized that the picture was gradually clearer but also much more complicated than they initially imagined. Not only was the farming area code swapped, not only were the test results altered, but there was also a wave of cheap land sales that took place right after the cooperative collapsed, all leading to the same name: Dai Duong.

“We need to find out who is behind that mass land acquisition,” Hai Yen said, taking notes in her work notebook. “If it can be proven that the acquisition was organized, planned before the co-operative collapsed, and not a random reaction after the fact, that would be evidence that this whole thing could have been arranged from the beginning.”

“That would probably require checking land transfer records at the district cadastral office,” Kien said. “But like you said the other day, you need a legitimate reason to ask for access, you can't suddenly ask to see land records of an entire area.”

“I will think of a way,” Hai Yen replied, although in her heart she could not yet imagine a convincing reason. “But in the short term, I think we have enough to believe that this is no longer just my family's story, but the story of an entire land, of many other families who lost what they had in that same short, turbulent period.”

Before saying goodbye to Kien to return to the motel, she stood silently for a moment next to the car, looking at the dark shrimp ponds stretching out under the faint moonlight. She thought of Mr. Bay Correct, of Mrs. Nam Thin, of Mr. Ut Bien whose whereabouts were unknown, of all the little people who were caught up in a whirlwind of change without them even knowing they were a part of it. If her guess was correct, her father was not the only victim of the incident ten years ago, but just one among many people, but he was the only one who had to pay with his honor and life so that the whole story could have a name, a defendant, a neat ending for those behind it.