Chapter 20 — Shrimp Street Without Name

News about Hai Yen's true identity, although not officially announced through any media channels, still spread silently throughout the Nam Can area in less than a week, the way stories in this small land always find their way to spread farther than anyone can control. She recognized that change through the strange looks at the market, through the way some old family acquaintances suddenly avoided looking directly at her when they met, and even through the way some complete strangers nodded to her with a meaningful look of scrutiny.

The innkeeper, Mrs. Tu, was the first person to tell her frankly about this. "Are you Uncle Tien's daughter? Oh my God, I heard rumors from the ladies in the market but I couldn't believe it. You hid it so well." Her voice did not sound reproachful, it was simply the surprise mixed with curiosity of someone who lived all her life in a small land where all secrets were eventually revealed in one way or another.

“Yes, I'm sorry for not telling you the truth from the beginning,” Hai Yen replied, mentally preparing for the possibility that Mrs. Tu would be afraid and even want her to move away to avoid trouble.

But Mrs. Tu just waved her hand. "There's nothing to apologize for. Uncle Tien was a good person back then, everyone in the neighborhood knew, it's just that no one dared to say it publicly for fear of offending the big guys. You just stay here, I won't kick you out because of that."

That unexpected support touched Hai Yen more than she thought, like a small signal showing that, although many people choose to stay silent out of fear, not everyone has forgotten the truth about her father, and not everyone is willing to turn their back just because a name is attached to an old case.

But not all reactions were so positive. At the Dai Duong factory, the entire staff's attitude towards her became much more tense and cautious. Every time she and Mr. Duc came to work, it felt like they were entering a space where everyone had been told in advance to keep their distance. Mrs. Hong still maintained an outwardly polite attitude, but the conversations now became dry, meeting minimum standards, without any of the fake openness of previous meetings.

Mr. Bao, since the day her identity was revealed, no longer appears directly in any business meetings, all contact is through Ms. Hong or the legal department. That intentional absence, for Hai Yen, is even more worrying than the previous insinuated warnings - it shows that he is switching to a different strategy, possibly a more cautious, more unpredictable strategy.

That evening, while sitting alone in her room, Hai Yen turned on her phone and scrolled to the anonymous text message she received on the first day she set foot back in Nam Can: "Welcome back, Miss Yen. Long time no see." During the past few weeks, amid a series of events, she had temporarily put aside the question about the identity of the sender of that text message, but now, when her identity was no longer a secret, she felt it was time to find the answer.

She texted back the same old phone number, a short message: "Now I no longer need to hide myself. If you are someone who knows my father, please tell me who you are. I really want to meet."

Message sent, showing received status but no immediate response. Hai Yen put the phone on the table, She didn't expect the answer to come right away, but she felt relieved to finally be proactive instead of continuing to let that question hang unanswered.

Near midnight, when she was about to fall asleep, her phone suddenly lit up. A new message, from the same phone number, contained just a few words: "It's not the right time. But keep the path you're on, don't be discouraged. There are people who are always watching you, even though they can't stand out publicly."

Hai Yen sat up and read the message over and over again. The way she addressed herself as "son" in the text sent chills down her spine — this was not the tone of a stranger, but the tone of someone close enough to her family to use that pronoun naturally, without explanation.

She immediately typed another message, her hand shaking slightly on the screen: "Who are you? Do you know my mother? I need to know, please don't hide it from me anymore."

But this time, no response came, even though she stayed awake until dawn. The person who sent the message, whoever it was, seemed to have said enough of what they wanted to say for tonight, leaving Hai Yen with a feeling of both comfort knowing she was not completely alone in the dark, and added anxiety at a new mystery that had just opened, layered on top of all the other mysteries she was still trying to decipher every day since setting foot back in the land named after her father, who had been associated with her whole life.

She called Kien as soon as it was dawn, knowing that he often got up early to prepare for his shift. After hearing the whole story, he was silent for a moment before speaking.

“That way of saying ‘son’ is remarkable,” he said. "If you are an outsider, people will use 'aunt' or call you by your first name. Using 'son' means that person puts themselves on an equal footing with your parents' generation, someone old enough and close enough."

“I think so too,” Hai Yen replied. "But I couldn't figure out who it was. The people I met — Uncle Tam, Miss Tuyet, Mr. Bay Correct, Mrs. Nam Thin — none of them seemed to be actively making secret communications like this. They were all passive, I had to go and ask them before they would talk."

“Maybe it's a sister I haven't met yet,” Kien suggested. "Someone knows the story but for some reason hasn't dared to appear in person. Do you remember anyone else who was close to your family back then? Besides the names that appeared in Uncle Tien's notebook?"

Hai Yen remained silent, trying to recall her childhood memories, the familiar faces that used to visit her house before everything collapsed. "There was a girl named Ut Phuong, who worked as an accountant for the cooperative at that time. My mother mentioned it once, saying she was also implicated, suspected of complicity even though no one could prove anything. I have never seen her again since that day."

“Do you know where she is now?”

"Not sure. But I think it's time I find out." Hai Yen sat up straight, a familiar feeling of finding a new direction began to creep into her mind, somewhat dispelling the fatigue of an almost sleepless night. “If Ms. Ut Phuong had worked as an accountant, she could have held financial information that even my father did not record in his private notebook.”

“I will ask around a few acquaintances in the commune to see if anyone still knows news about her,” Kien said. “You just focus on the audit work first, let me take care of finding people, to avoid you having to run away running around too much while being noticed.”

“Thank you,” Hai Yen said, her voice steady again after the conversation. “I have a feeling, Ms. Ut Phuong, if found, could be the person who holds an important part of the picture that we are still missing.”

The next morning, when the sun was just rising over the river, Hai Yen sat at the small desk in the motel room, opened a new page, and began listing all the characters she had met during the past month since her return: Ms. Tuyet, Mr. Tam Lanh, Mr. Bay Correct, Ms. Nam Thin, Minh Khang, and now, an anonymous but mysterious name silently following her every step. She underlined the last question on the page, the one that would lead her into the next stage of her journey: among the people she had never thought of, who else was close enough to her family to know things that even her mother had never revealed?

She folded the page and looked out the window where the morning sunlight was spreading a pale yellow layer on the surface of the canal water in front of the inn. A month ago, when she first set foot in the container yard, she thought she was on a routine audit mission, carrying a personal secret that she intended to keep to herself. Now, that secret has become something everyone around her knows, and instead of making her weaker like she once feared, it is gradually becoming a thread connecting her with people she never expected, people who have silently followed her family's story for the past ten years without ever having the opportunity, or courage, to speak up.