Chapter 2 — Ten Tickets and Blood Debt

Hau summoned the whole group to the factory canteen.

He said ticket number 07 was just a photocopy, the real one was still with him. Van asked him to put it on the table in front of everyone.

Hau opened his wallet, but only took out a piece of paper with a torn corner.

"Here's the rest. Someone snatched the ticket."

All eyes turned to Van because she was the last person holding the bag. Van gave a photo with the serial number. Posted photos can be edited.

A worker named Loc pounded the table. "We all contribute. No one can take it personally."

Hau coldly said: "If you want to share, you must have the original."

The meeting ended in an argument. That afternoon, video from the factory camera appeared online. In the video, Van walks into the security room, holding a piece of paper. The camera angle was cut, but enough for people to conclude she took the ticket.

Phuc asked to find the person who posted it. Van stopped me. “The more they explain, the more reason they have to cut more.”

She went to the lottery agent to ask about the serial number. The staff said the number 07 was verified by a person who submitted it before winning, but the application was withdrawn. The applicant used her father's identification.

Van returned to ask her father. He said he had never been to the dealership. In his drawer, she found Bach's loan document, signed on the day he bought the ticket.

“What money do you use to pay?”

Her father bowed his head. “I think there will be a bonus.”

Van understands that the debt is not the consequence of the ticket. It's the reason the ticket was taken.

That night, Bach called her. “The 07 is in the hands of someone who knows how much your father owes.”

“What do you want?”

"Half the bonus. In return, the house is intact."

Van hung up the phone. On the table, father's radio turned on by itself. A distorted male voice said: "Don't trust the person with the deposit book."

Van did not let them enter the house. She asked Bach to give the original loan document and interest calculation sheet. He laughed and said poor people have no right to read signed contracts.

Phuc stood behind her, holding pliers in his hand. Van told me to put it down. She did not want to turn the house into the scene of hasty revenge.

After they left, Van took the loan papers to the legal aid office. The lawyer pointed out that the interest was charged seven times, and her father's signature was scanned from an old job application.

“If the documents are proven to be fake, the house is protected,” the lawyer said. “But the ticket is still required to prove the money belongs to the group.”

Van returned to the dealership. The employee remembered that a man wearing a blue watch came before her, asking to see photocopy number 07. He claimed to be Hau's younger brother.

His name is Tri. Tri used to work as a factory accountant and then quit after the welding furnace explosion. Van searched the worker records and saw that Tri was the one who wrote line number 07 in the contribution book.

She called Tri. He didn't pick up the phone, just sent a location at the scrap yard.

Van came alone, carrying his father's radio as a recording device. Tri appeared behind the pile of iron, saying the ticket was torn up but he knew who kept the other half.

“What do you want?”

"I want you not to believe Hau. But if you want the truth, ask why your father signed the book."

Tri left before saying his name.

Van looked at the radio and saw that the indicator light was on. Someone is listening to the conversation from afar.