Chapter 6 — Summer Rescuer

One week after the "Summer Calling Sign" festival, a white pickup truck with an out-of-province license plate parked in front of the Bai Duong lifeguard station at seven o'clock in the morning, when the whole team was gathering for the roll call at the beginning of the day. The man stepping out of the car was tall and thin, wearing a light blue office shirt with rolled up sleeves, sunglasses, carrying a briefcase containing documents and a bag of measuring equipment that looked professional.

"Excuse me, is this Bai Duong lifeguard station?" the man asked, his Central accent mixed with a city accent, polite but somewhat reserved.

"That's right, who are you looking for?" Trong Nghi stepped out, squinting at the stranger.

"I am Huynh Bach Duong, marine engineering engineer of the Central Region Maritime Safety and Registration Department," the man introduced, pulling out a business card from his pocket and showing it to Trong Nghi. "My unit received an anonymous complaint about safety risks related to the Diamond Bay Marina and Breakwater project. I was sent down here to conduct a field survey for about two to three weeks."

The rescue team exchanged glances, a mixture of surprise and flickering hope. Thao Nhi, standing at the end of the line, felt her heart beat faster — finally someone from the outside, a real authority, was paying attention to the issue she had been trying to speak up about for the past few weeks.

"So finally someone listens," Anh Kiet muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Bach Duong smiled politely, but his eyes, even though partially hidden behind sunglasses, still exuded the seriousness of a person who is used to being doubted every time he appears in a new place. "I need to access recent rescue station monitoring data — incident reports, flow records, rescue data by area. Who is in charge of this?"

"That's me," Thao Nhi stepped forward, her voice clear, unable to hide both excitement and caution. "I have kept separate records about the Sa Den Cape area since construction began."

Bach Duong turned to look at her. There was a brief moment when he seemed a bit surprised - perhaps because he did not expect that the person in charge of the most important data was such a young female rescue worker. But he quickly regained his usual professionalism.

“Then I look forward to looking over your notes,” he said. "As soon as possible, if possible."

"This morning I'm busy on duty, but this afternoon I'll be free after three o'clock," Thao Nhi replied.

"Okay, thank you." Bach Duong nodded, then turned to Trong Nghi. "I also need permission to install a few flow rate measuring devices at some locations near the construction area, within the scope of the district's survey permit. I hope the team will support us so that the work can go smoothly."

"Of course, we will give our full support," Trong Nghi replied, his voice much lighter than his usual seriousness.

In the afternoon, exactly at three o'clock, Bach Duong returned to the rescue station, this time carrying a laptop and a printed map of the area. Thao Nhi led him into the station's small meeting room - a cramped room with an old wooden table and a map of the Bai Duong area hanging on the wall, filled with notes in colorful markers.

“These are all my notes from the beginning of the season until now,” she said, placing a thick notebook in front of him, along with several separate sheets of paper recording coordinates, times, and detailed descriptions of each time she observed unusual currents.

Bach Duong flipped through each page, his eyes gradually became intensely focused, occasionally stopping to ask for more details. "You recorded the wind direction, tide time, and specific location of each observation. These are very valuable data, Ms. Thao Nhi. Are you trained in hydrology?"

"No," Thao Nhi replied, a bit surprised by the question. "I'm just a lifeguard. But I believe that to save good people, you must first clearly understand the enemy you are facing — and that enemy is these waters."

"That approach is very scientific," Bach Duong commented, something akin to admiration flickering in his voice. "In many places I have surveyed, rescue workers only reported with general feelings, lacking specific data to compare."

But when he turned to the page recording the incident of the worker falling into the water, and especially the page recording Mr. Dat's words about the suspicion related to her father's death eight years ago, he stopped, read carefully, then looked up at Thao Nhi with questioning eyes.

"This is..." he hesitated. "Are you linking the current incident to an accident many years ago?"

"My father passed away eight years ago," Thao Nhi said, her voice trying to stay calm despite the turmoil in her heart. "He was a rescue captain who died while rescuing people in the same area of Sa Den Cape, at the same time an illegal sand dredging company was operating there. I believe that the abnormal flow that caused his death was directly related to that dredging activity, and now, history is repeating with the Diamond Bay project."

Bach Duong was silent for a long time, considering what he had just heard. "I understand why you care deeply about this issue, Ms. Thao Nhi. But I need to be frank — my job requires absolute objectivity. I cannot let personal emotions affect the survey conclusions, even though I completely sympathize with your situation."

That sentence, although said with good intentions, touched the most sensitive point in Thao Nhi's heart. She felt a surge of anger, not because he was wrong, but because she was so used to being dismissed, considered "emotional" just because she was an insider.

"You think I'm letting my emotions get the best of me?" she asked, her voice sharper than she intended. "You just said my notes have scientific value, now you say I lack objectivity. Which one do you choose?"

"I didn't mean that," Bach Duong quickly explained, realizing he had expressed himself clumsily. "What I mean is, for my report to have legal weight, I need to clearly separate objective observational data from unproven hypotheses, no matter how likely they are to be true. That's a professional principle, not that I doubt you."

Thao Nhi took a deep breath, trying to control her rising anger. She knew, rationally, he was not wrong. But after eight years of carrying a truth that no one would admit, she was tired of having to prove that she was not "emotional".

"Okay," she said, her voice colder. "Then just do your objective job. I'll continue to take notes in my own way. When you need more data, I'll provide it, but don't expect me to pretend like I don't know anything about what happened eight years ago."

She stood up, collected her notebook, and left the meeting room before Bach Duong could say anything else. He sat alone, watching her back disappear behind the door, an indescribable feeling arose in his heart - both guilty for his clumsy expression and impressed by the sharpness and determination of that young rescue worker.

He looked down at the notebook, where he had taken a photo of a few pages, re-reading the words meticulously, accurately down to the smallest detail. Even though he didn't say it out loud, in his heart, he knew that what Thao Nhi recorded was not the product of emotion - it was the effort of someone who observed the sea with both heart and mind, something that not all well-trained experts can do.

He opened his laptop and began drafting a detailed survey plan for the next two weeks. His work was familiar — he had visited no fewer than twenty coastal projects in his six years as a safety inspector, from small fishing ports to large-scale resorts, and each had a different reaction when outsiders came to "look" at their projects. In some places, investors cooperate openly, in other places they find ways to delay and obstruct. But nowhere had he met a local rescue worker with such a deep personal connection to the very problem he was investigating.

He recalls his time as a swimmer, before a shoulder injury forced him to abandon professional competition at age twenty-two. That day, he also had a coach who always reminded him to separate emotions from each swim, to let reason guide him instead of being carried away by adrenaline. That lesson has helped him a lot in his current work, but facing Thao Nhi's story, he suddenly wondered if sometimes that absolute separation is also a form of defect, when it causes people to miss the most important signals coming from the life experiences of the people involved.

That evening, when Bach Duong drove back to the small hotel where he rented a room in the center of town, he stopped the car on the coastal road, looking out at Sa Den Cape, which was in darkness, with only the twinkling construction site lights in the distance. He thought about Thao Nhi's story, about her deceased father, and about the work ahead — work that he began to feel would not be as simple as the previous surveys he had done. In his mind, the image of her standing straight, her eyes steady even when her voice was shaking with emotion, kept coming back again and again, like a question he couldn't find an answer to: how could a person be so strong and carry such a deep wound in her heart, yet still plunge every day into the same waters that took away her loved ones?