Chapter 13 — The Brilliant Wife and the Mute CEO

After the break-in, Ms. Tuệ Phương decided to completely clean Bách Chu's private office on the second floor of the main building, which had been locked for a year since his accident, with the official reason being to inventory assets and important documents, in case someone took advantage of the chaotic situation to steal information.

Xuân Lam volunteered to take on the cleaning job, partly because she wanted to learn more about Bách Chu's life before his accident, and partly because her hunch told her that she might find something related to the doubts that Bách Chu had told her about the other day in the rainy night.

The office was covered with a thin layer of dust after a year of no one visiting, but still maintained the same order as when its owner was still sitting there running a business empire. On the glossy walnut desk, a laptop that had long been turned off, several stacks of neatly arranged files, and a family photo taken of Bách Chu and his grandfather on the inauguration day of the Úc Thịnh Riverside project, smiles on both of their faces beaming with pride.

Xuân Lam started work by cleaning his desk and rearranging stacks of papers in order to facilitate future inventory. While moving a heavy filing cabinet drawer, she accidentally dropped an old leather-bound notebook hidden behind the drawer, perhaps stuck there for a long time without anyone noticing.

She picked up the notebook, flipped through a few pages, and saw that they were Bách Chu's daily work notes, mostly appointments and meeting notes. But when she turned to the last pages, close to the day of his accident, Xuân Lam stopped at a hastily written note, the handwriting was somewhat rushed, completely different from the usual neatness of the previous pages.

"Recheck the disbursement data for the third phase of the Riverside project. There is an unusual difference of nearly one hundred and twenty billion compared to the official report. Need to verify before presenting to the Board of Directors. Suspected internal intervention, possibly related to the financial team directly supervised by Mr. Vĩnh Khôi."

Xuân Lam read and reread that note no less than three times, her heart beating faster. This was exactly the detail Bách Chu had told her about on a rainy night: the unusual file he had discovered right before the accident, which no one had been able to find afterward. Now, even though the original file was missing, this notebook was the first, if meager, evidence that Bách Chu's suspicions about abnormalities in the project's capital flow were well-founded.

She flipped through a few more pages and found another note, seemingly written not long after: "Appointed to personally meet with the site chief engineer to verify. Location: Riverside site office, Friday evening at twenty-two o'clock."

Xuân Lam was startled to realize that fateful Friday night was the night Bách Chu had an accident. He made an appointment to meet someone at the exact location where the accident occurred, to verify the unusual numbers in the project's capital flow, and immediately afterward, his car crashed off the suspension bridge.

She sat down in her chair, still holding the notebook tightly, her mind reeling with a series of questions. Who is the chief engineer that Bách Chu plans to meet? Did that person actually show up for the appointment? And most importantly, was this appointment someone who knew in advance and took advantage of it to stage an accident to forever silence the only person who could reveal the truth?

She quickly put the notebook in her pocket and continued cleaning as if nothing happened, in case someone was watching. While checking the bottom drawer, she also found an old, yellowed business card with the name "Nguyễn Văn Khoa, Chief Engineer of Úc Thịnh Riverside Construction Site" printed on it, along with a phone number that had been crossed out with a pen, perhaps marked by Bách Chu himself after that number was no longer reachable. She carefully kept the business card with the notebook, thinking that this could be a valuable clue to trace the whereabouts of the engineer who had mysteriously disappeared.

She also noticed that in the drawer there was a stack of old financial reports related to the Riverside project. Most of the pages were marked confidential. The content was dense with data tables that she did not have enough expertise to fully understand. However, she still carefully gathered them all, thinking that maybe in the future she could ask someone knowledgeable to analyze them to see if they matched the difference of one hundred and twenty billion that Bách Chu had noted.

That night, when there were only two people left in the room, she showed the notebook to Bách Chu and carefully observed his reaction.

Bách Chu held the notebook, his hands trembled as he read the words he had previously written. The faint memories of that fateful night gradually revived in his mind, clearer than ever since the accident. There were details he thought he had completely forgotten because of the strong impact earlier that day, but now suddenly came rushing back like a slow-motion movie, from the feeling of confusion when he saw no one at the construction site office, to the sound of heavy rain falling on the car windshield right before he lost control of the steering wheel.

Looking at her husband's emotional face, Xuân Lam did not urge him to remember faster, just quietly sat next to him, gently rubbing his back as a wordless way of reassurance, waiting until he was ready to continue writing what he remembered.

He quickly wrote on the paper, his handwriting shaking with emotion and anger: "I remember. The chief engineer at the construction site at that time was named Khoa. He called to make an appointment to meet me unexpectedly, saying he had something important to present privately. But when I arrived, he was nowhere to be found, only the file was left on the car seat."

"So this person named Khoa, after your accident, is still working at the construction site?" Xuân Lam asked, her voice full of determination.

Bách Chu shook his head and continued writing: "I don't know. After the accident, I could no longer contact anyone at the construction site. All information was reported by others, but it was all Uncle Vĩnh Khôi's people who managed that side."

Xuân Lam held his hand tightly, her eyes shining with a steely determination never seen before.

"Then we must find this person named Khoa, at all costs," she said. "If he is still alive, he is the most important witness who can expose the entire truth. If he has disappeared or something has happened, it will further prove that this is not a random accident, but a carefully arranged plot to silence both people involved."

Bách Chu looked at her, worried for his wife's safety if she embarked on such a dangerous investigation, and felt a strong hope that, perhaps, for the first time after a long year of being in the dark, the truth about that fateful night was finally about to be revealed.

He wrote one last line before putting the notebook in a safer place: "Be careful. If they know we're investigating, they won't leave either of us alone."

"I get it," Xuân Lam replied, then pondered for a moment. "But you and I can't go around asking around on our own. Our family members are too prominent, we only need to reveal a little bit and the other party will know right away. I think we need an outsider, someone with a profession, who knows how to inquire discreetly without leaving any traces."

She remembered one time she overheard the chef mention her nephew-in-law, who had worked as an investigator for a large insurance company before retiring, and was famous in the profession for his carefulness and tight-lipped nature. Xuân Lam silently memorized that name in her mind, telling herself that tomorrow she would find a way to find out more contact information and see whether he was the right person to rely on.

Xuân Lam nodded and squeezed his hand as an unspoken promise that no matter how dangerous the road ahead was, she would not back down until she found out the whole truth, to give justice to her silent husband who had endured so much injustice for a long year.

That night, before turning off the lights and going to bed, she turned over the pages of the old financial reports one more time, trying to remember the most prominent numbers even though she didn't fully understand their meaning. She told herself that tomorrow, she would start trying to contact the chef's nephew-in-law who worked as an investigator, officially starting the journey to uncover the entire truth about the fateful night that took away her husband's voice and legs.