Chapter 1 — The Code in the Tangerine Garden

The tangerine fell onto the corrugated iron roof just as people read the last line of the will.

The dry and resonant sound made Thu raise her head. She was standing in the low living room, where the smell of incense, dried tangerine peel and damp earth mixed together. On the wooden table in front of him, the notary had just folded the paper. Next to him was a brown envelope, the seal of which had been removed by her father many days ago.

Quan sat on the bench, his hands clasped together. Lam leaned his back against the door frame, his coat still covered in road dust. No one said anything about the tangerine that just rolled from the porch onto the tile floor.

“I'll read the last paragraph again,” the notary said, looking over his glasses. "Mr. Nguyen Van Tan left the entire garden and house in An Loc village to his three children, equally dividing the usage rights. However, there is a clearly stated condition: the transfer cannot be signed before the end of the last tangerine crop of this year."

Quan laughed softly, not because he was happy.

“Is my father still offering conditions?”

Thu glanced at her younger brother. “You can wait until they leave before talking.”

"Everyone has gone. Father is gone too. It's just us and a garden that's losing value every day."

Lam turned the small camera in his hand. He didn't turn it on, just used his thumb to rub the battery cover like a habit when he didn't want to participate in an argument. He rarely came home in the past three years, but everyone still assumed that he would have no opinion about the land. Thu knew that was Lam's way of protecting himself: staying silent long enough for others to think he didn't care.

Outside the garden, Mrs. Man called out:

"Quan! There's a broken tree!"

Quan stood up suddenly. The chair scraped against the floor, making a creepy sound. Thu stuffed a copy of the will into a folder, Lam put the camera on his shoulder. The three people walked out onto the porch and followed Mrs. Man through the dirt path with small water ditches running zigzag between two rows of tangerines.

An Loc Garden is not big if you look at it on paper. Four point eight hectares, a house, a packing house, an old well and several dozen tangerine trees planted since grandfather's time. But in Thu's eyes, it is a number that refuses to stand still. Land prices around here are increasing because the bypass road is about to open. The loan his father left behind does not appear in the will, and the hospital is sending Quan the bills for baby Na's treatment. If you keep the garden, all three must pay together. If they sell, they can cut everything off in one signing.

A tangerine tree at the end of the bed tilted horizontally, its roots were uprooted. The tree stump does not rot. A pale cut line runs across the roots, as if someone touched it with a shovel and then walked away.

“The wind last night wasn't this strong,” Quan said. He bent down to look at the ground. “The roots are broken from below.”

Mrs. Man did not answer. She held the pruning shears and used the tip of the scissors to remove the layer of leaves covering the tree trunk. On the tangerine peel, right next to the ground, there is a leaf-shaped symbol with three veins. The engraving has darkened, but around the edge of the cut there is still new wood mulch.

Lam came closer and turned on the camera.

“When did this come from?”

“I don't know,” Mrs. Man said. “Your father won't let anyone shave those marks.”

Thu looks at the symbol. “It's just a numbered tree number.”

“If there are numbers, why not use numbers?”

Quan used his fingertips to touch the tree trunk and then pulled back. "Dad marked a few beds. In the past, he marked them with green paint."

“This mark is different,” Mrs. Man said. “It's underneath the old lime.”

A gray pickup truck stopped outside the gate. Huy steps down, holding a blue file. He grew up on the next street, stole tangerines with Quan when he was ten years old, then went to work for a cold storage company that was collecting land around An Loc. Huy wore a neat shirt, but his shoes were muddy as if he had just walked through fields.

“I heard that Uncle Tan passed away,” Huy said. "I'm about to go in and light some incense. By the way, there's something I want to discuss."

Thu stood half a step in front of the garden entrance. “About buying land?”

"There's no need to call it a buy. My company wants to rent long-term first. They built a storage warehouse, creating jobs for the whole area. If three people agree to sell, I can ask for a better price than other households."

Quan looked at the file. “How much better?”

Huy opened his lips, but did not answer immediately. He looked towards the tangerine tree that had just fallen, where the leaf-shaped symbol was still visible on the trunk.

“Uncle Tan hasn't told you anything yet?”

“Say what?” Thu asked.

"That the company has drilled and surveyed in the north. Under the garden there is a very stable underground water source. The cold storage needs that water source."

Mrs. Man immediately returned. “Don't dig in the north.”

Huy smiled thinly. “I just said survey.”

“Does Tan allow it?”

"He refused. But now that the land has a new owner, things will be different."

The air in the garden suddenly thickened. The sound of rustling leaves, the sound of a pump in the distance and the sound of a motorbike running on the street can be heard clearly.

Thu closed Huy's file. "We'll see. Nothing signed today."

“I don't force it.” Huy received the application. "But the conditions in the will can make it difficult for you to get a loan or mortgage. If you need money urgently, just call me."

After Huy left, Quan looked at her.

“I need money urgently.”

Thu knows. She also knew that Quan would not say how much money was needed. Na's illness caused him to sell the truck, borrow from relatives, and still owe money. Every time he mentioned keeping the garden, the words were always followed by a hospital bill.

“We don't know what debt Dad left behind,” Thu said. “Don't sign out of panic.”

“And you always talk like you're reading a report.”

“Because someone has to read it.”

Lam turned off the camera. “That symbol is not the old one.”

Thu turned around. “What do you know?”

"It had new wood mulch just now. Someone just re-carved it, or just exposed it."

Mrs. Man looked towards the house. "Our father told us that if a tree falls, we should call her before cleaning it up. She thought he told us because we were afraid of confusing the tree. Maybe that's not true."

Night falls quickly. After the worship meal, the three brothers sat in their father's office. On the wall is a pencil-drawn map of the garden, with plant beds numbered from A to H. The third drawer is locked. The key was found in a seed box, but inside there was only a black-covered notebook and three pieces of paper with the date written on it.

The notebook has no title. The first pages are records of sweetness, rainfall, and irrigation time. On the right edge, three symbols occasionally appear: leaf, water drop, circle. No symbol is accompanied by a complete number.

“Is this a code?” Lam asked.

“I don't have time to play that game,” Quan said.

Letter reads page by page. One line was crossed out so many times that the paper was torn:

"If you have to sell, sell the land you can see. Don't sell the water line."

Quan looked up. “What is a water line?”

No one answered.

Outside the window, another tangerine fell. This time there was no corrugated iron roof to cover the noise. All three heard the sound of the fruit hitting the ground, then the sound of very light footsteps running through the tree bed.

Lam Take the camera first. Thu grabbed a flashlight. Quan picked up the shovel and put it next to the door.

They didn't see anyone. Only on the tree trunk opposite the house, under the white light, was a new symbol: a water drop in a circle.

Below the symbol is a small piece of metal, embedded deep into the bark of the tree. There is only one letter engraved upside down on it.

Letter T.

Thu raised her hand to touch the piece of metal, a cold feeling running along her fingertips.

Quan told everyone to go back home, but no one moved. Mrs. Man took a bamboo stick and probed around the base of the tree. The soil under the leaf layer is softer than other places, and there is a very shallow groove leading towards the well. Thu bent down and saw that there were still tiny drops of water on the ditch even though it didn't rain at night.

“Someone came here from the well,” she said.

Lam shines the light along the groove. The footprints were almost completely erased, but in one part of the ground, a V-shaped shoe sole was revealed. He took a photo and gave the screen to Thu. She realized that these shoes looked like the safety shoes in the survey photo that Huy once sent to his father, not the garden shoes of a local person.

“We need to lock the gate,” Quan said.

“A lock cannot keep someone who knows the way,” Mrs. Man replied. “You have to know where they want to go.”

Thu opened the black-covered notebook right under the light. The symbols do not only appear next to the watering date. On a page near the end, dad put three points next to the line "stranger asking for directions". The first point is at the well, the second point is at the leaf tree, the third point is at the packing house. Today everything is in order.

“Dad knew someone would come,” Thu said.

Quan looked at her. “So why didn't you say?”

“Maybe you won't make it in time.”

“Or you want us to see for ourselves.”

Lam picked up the tangerine at his feet and turned the stem. A very small piece of paper stuck under the shell, blurred by water. He opened it with the blade of a knife. Only the word "seven" can be read.

Mrs. Man sighed. "Tan once said that the seventh tree is a tree that cannot be cut down. She thought he said it was like a tree."

Thu looked up at the dark foliage. “Maybe you mean people.”

Quan held a shovel and stood between two rows of trees. For the first time that night, he did not mention land prices or hospitals. He just asked:

“Where do we start tomorrow?”

Thu looks at the water drop symbol and the circle on the tree trunk. “From where dad doesn't want us to sell.”

Somewhere in the garden, the sound of the door closing was heard.