Chapter 3 — Shrimp Street Without Name

The call from the superior did not last more than two minutes, but it was enough to disturb the entire schedule Hai Yen had arranged in her head. The Head of Audit Department announced that Ocean side, through Chairman Dang Quoc Bao, proactively proposed to hold an open audit meeting that afternoon instead of three days later as scheduled, with the reason "wanting to coordinate transparently and quickly regain credibility for the returned shipment". The Head of Department seemed pleased with this rare proactive cooperation. Hai Yen only saw one question lingering in her mind: a company that she had just secretly sampled independently in the morning was eager to meet her in the afternoon, for what reason.

Dai Duong's executive headquarters is located on a high land about five kilometers from the port, a three-story building with green glass that stands out among the surrounding rows of low factories. The lobby is filled with photos of award ceremonies, certificates of merit for "Typical Enterprise in the Mekong Delta", and a large photo of Mr. Bao shaking hands with provincial leaders during the groundbreaking ceremony to expand the factory.

Hai Yen was led to the meeting room on the second floor, where five people were already waiting: a deputy general in charge of production, a head of quality, two legal officers, and Mr. Dang Quoc Bao himself sat at the head of the table, no longer looking like the chairman who happened to visit the port that morning, but rather someone who ran the meeting with a carefully practiced style.

“Miss Yen, please sit down.” Mr. Bao stood up and personally pulled out a chair to invite her, a gesture that made the two legal officers exchange surprised looks. “I think we should meet in person to clearly understand the problem and avoid wasting time going back and forth on paperwork.”

"Thank you." Hai Yen sat down, opened her laptop, keeping a purely business tone. "I took three independent samples from container DH-0417 this morning, which will be sent to the analysis center laboratory in the next five days. At the same time, I need to review the entire traceability records of the shipment, including the farming areas providing raw materials."

“You just ask, we will provide everything.” Mr. Bao signaled the head of the quality department, a woman named Hong, to push a thick file towards Hai Yen. "Dai Duong is currently affiliated with more than six hundred farming households in the area, divided into many area code clusters. We do not deny that some batches have minor discrepancies in internal recording, but there is absolutely no case of intentional use of banned substances."

"I haven't concluded anything yet, Mr. Bao. I'm just collecting data." Hai Yen quickly flipped through the file, her eyes stopped at a map of the farming area printed in color, divided into dozens of small numbered boxes. She searched for the code KB-07, but that box on the official map did not exist; Instead, the area corresponding to roughly the same coordinates is recorded as “Cluster 12 – Restructuring Area”.

"Why can't I see the KB-07 code on this map that I saw recorded in the shipment's farming area documents this morning?" she asked, pushing the paper towards Mrs. Hong.

A very short silence passed before Ms. Hong spoke, her voice ready. "That is the old code from the pre-merger period, Ms. Yen. When the company took over the farming areas from the old cooperatives that dissolved, some books still used the old code internally because of the habits of long-time workers, and were not fully synchronized with the new system."

“Which old cooperative?” Hai Yen asked, trying to keep her voice unchanged.

“Some small cooperatives dissolved ten years ago, sister No need to worry about details.” Mr. Bao interjected, his voice still gentle but with a certain tension. “The important thing now is the results of the sample I took this morning. If we discover that residue exceeds the true threshold, we will track it down to the farming household and handle it strictly without covering up."

The deputy general in charge of production, a man about Mr. Bao's age but much quieter, spoke up, his voice somewhat impatient. “Miss Yen, I just want to add, if the audit lasts more than a week, we will miss the next train to Europe, having a knock-on effect on the purchasing schedule of hundreds of households waiting for money. I'm not urging you to act rashly, I just want you to understand the time pressure we are under."

“I understand that pressure,” Hai Yen replied, not revealing her emotions. “But I cannot shorten the inspection process just because of the train schedule. If the company wants to speed up, the only way is to cooperate in providing complete and accurate documents that I request, without making me have to come back and ask more times."

One of the two legal officers, the younger one, coughed slightly and glanced at Mr. Bao as if searching for ideas before saying more. “From a legal perspective, we would like to note that all audit conclusions must be based on authentic evidence, which can be re-verified if necessary. We are ready to coordinate, but we also hope that the Certification Center will consider carefully before making any announcements that may affect the reputation of the business."

“That has always been my working principle,” Hai Yen replied briefly, not letting that warning sentence make her waver. She returned to the file and continued to scan each page, writing down Mrs. Hong's answer almost verbatim in her work notebook, not because she believed it, but because she wanted to retain every word exactly for later comparison. While bending down to write, her eyes accidentally glanced at Mr. Bao's desk, where a brown leather-covered notebook with frayed corners was placed, different from the other new, hard plastic-covered folders in the room.

She recognized that type of notebook cover. Not because it's special, but because in the past, Kenh Ba cooperative once ordered a series of identical notebooks printed to give to farming area leaders to record output - brown faux leather cover, the bottom right corner embossed with a small wave, the old symbol of the cooperative before its name was erased from all documents. Her father also had an identical book.

"Mr. Bao uses an old-fashioned notebook," she blurted out, trying to keep her voice as casual as possible. “Rarely do we see anyone still using this type of leather cover.”

Mr. Bao glanced down at the notebook slightly, then reached out to pull it a little closer to him, a small gesture that did not escape Hai Yen's eyes. “Just old habits. I keep a few notebooks from when I first started my career, writing by hand is easier to remember than typing."

“When did you start your career?” she continued asking, still maintaining her polite curiosity.

“It's been nearly twenty years.” Mr. Bao smiled, but this smile was not like the smile at the port in the morning. It was shorter, and his eyes did not leave Hai Yen's face more clearly than usual, as if trying to read if the question had any hidden meaning. "You asked carefully. You must be used to doing audit work at many companies for many years."

“It's just a professional habit, bro.” She replied, gently closing her work notebook, as if she wanted to end that topic here.

The meeting continued for another half hour, surrounding timelines for responding to the results testing and general cooperation commitments that Hai Yen has heard about from many other businesses. But throughout that half hour, her mind kept returning to the brown leather-covered notebook, which was now pushed close to the corner of the table, almost hidden behind a pile of other documents.

When the meeting ended, Mr. Bao personally walked her to the elevator, something that, according to a young receptionist's whisper as Hai Yen passed through the lobby, he had rarely done with any inspection team before.

"Miss Yen," he said as the elevator door was about to close, his voice suddenly lowered so that only two people could hear. "This land is very small. Sometimes people think they are finding a new truth, but actually they are just turning over old stories in a different way. Just keep working, but remember to keep a way out for yourself."

The elevator door closed before Hai Yen could ask what he wanted to say. She stood in the empty elevator compartment, looking at herself faintly reflected in the stainless steel, those words echoing in her head like a warning wrapped in the guise of kind advice.

Arriving at the parking lot, she sat in the driver's seat, didn't start the engine right away, but took out her notebook and wrote down everything that had just happened while her memory was still fresh: the KB-07 code denied with an inconsistent explanation, the brown leather-covered notebook embossed with the old wave symbol, and Mr. Bao's last words before the elevator door closed.

She also added a last line, underlined twice: we need to find a way to verify whether that book is really the old book of Kenh Ba cooperative, and if so, why is it on the desk of the head of the company that took over all the assets of that cooperative after it collapsed.

The phone on the dashboard lit up with a new notification. Not a text message, but an email from the central laboratory, confirming receipt of the three samples she sent this morning and that preliminary results would be available in forty-eight hours instead of the usual five days, because this was a sample related to a complaint from a foreign partner, subject to priority for quick processing.

Forty-eight hours. Hai Yen looked at that line, feeling both relief and insecurity mixed together. If the results show that antibiotic residues actually exceed the threshold, different from what the company declared, she will have in her hands the first evidence that something is wrong in Ocean's entire supply chain. But she also understands that once the results are announced, there will be no way back like what Mr. Bao just mentioned, not only for his company, but possibly for herself.