Chapter 4 — Ten Tickets and Blood Debt

Phuc admitted that he gave the photo of the donation book to Bach.

“I just want him to forgive my father's debt,” he said. “I didn't know they would take the tickets.”

Van did not scold. She asked what Bach promised. Phuc gave a recording: Bach said that as long as he gets the ticket and his father's signature, the money will be divided.

But in the background there is another sound, the port whistle. They realized the call was recorded at the old ferry wharf, where Hau used to manage the material warehouse.

Van and Phuc went there. The ferry terminal was empty, with only one motorboat tied under the bridge. In the warehouse, they found the ticket roll with nine intact sheets, but number 07 had been removed.

A small book recording Bach's earnings lies on the floor. Van's father's name appeared next to a sum of money three times the debt he had declared.

Hau stepped out from the darkness. "Your father didn't just borrow. He signed for the money to fix the machine, then discovered the money was withdrawn for Bach."

Van looked at her father in the papers. “Dad, you know but you still keep quiet?”

Hau said he was not Van's father, just the old foreman. Her father died in a welding furnace explosion three years ago, and Hau used his name to continue borrowing.

Van was stunned. The man she called her father for the past three years was actually her father's uncle, the person who raised her after the accident.

Hau knelt down and said he did it to keep the house for the two brothers. Van doesn't know whether to despise or pity.

The sound of the engine echoed out on the river. Bach came with two people. He asked for the book and the ticket.

Van placed them on the table, but turned on her phone camera. “Please explain the debt clearly again.”

Bach smiled, not noticing that the recording light was on. He confessed to burning the warehouse, forging the signature and hiring someone to take the ticket.

When he realized, Phuc ran out to call the police.

Bach smashed Van's phone. From afar, sirens blared loudly. Hau looked at her and sighed: "All my life I just wanted to keep a roof. In the end I burned it myself."

On the way to the ferry, Phuc asked why Hau spoke of her father as if he were still alive. Van did not answer immediately. She remembers the welding furnace explosion, the death notice, and the fact that Hau was the first person to come to the house to give support money.

Hau raised the two brothers, but also used his father's secret to control them. Gratitude and anger coexist, making it difficult for Van to make a simple judgment.

Bach was taken to the station. Before getting in the car, he looked at Van and said the person who gave the orders was not here. A name was written on the back of ticket 09, but he didn't have time to read it all.

Van asked to see sheet 09. The police only found half a piece, the remaining letters were stained with oil. Tri took it away.

That night, Van went to Tri's house. The door was open, there were signs of a struggle in the room and Hau's blue-faced watch. Tri lay on the floor, alive but hit in the head.

He pointed towards the refrigerator. Inside was a plastic bag containing a photocopy of Van's father's insurance policy.

The photocopy lists the beneficiary as Hau, not the family. The date coincides with the day her father died.

Van called Hanh and the investigator. She couldn't hide the papers anymore. Tri woke up and said Bach was not the one who burned the warehouse. The person who burned the warehouse was a woman who worked at an insurance office.

“She always wears red gloves,” Tri said.

Van remembers the trash bags at the ferry terminal. Bach has a pair of red gloves in the car.