Chapter 2 — The Code in the Tangerine Garden

Lam was the first person to see the back gate open.

That gate is only used to bring manure and boxes of tangerines into the packing house. At night, Mrs. Man always installed a steel wire through two iron rings because the door latch was rusty. The rope is still wrapped around the pole, but the knot has been untied. A trail of mud stretched from the entrance to the eastern tree bed.

Quan lifted the shovel. “Someone just came in.”

“Or someone just walked out,” Thu said.

“What's the difference?”

“The difference is we don't know what they're looking for.”

Lam knelt down to capture the mud. He didn't say that there was only one shoe print that was worn to the outside. When he was young, he used to recognize his father's shoes through marks like that. The stranger was wearing sawtooth-soled boots, while the traces on the ground were flat-soled canvas shoes. Maybe the person entering the garden changed shoes somewhere, or he or she didn't want to be recognized.

The neighbor's dog barks continuously. Mrs. Man held an oil lamp ahead, leading the three around the tree beds. Coming to the tree with the leaf symbol, Quan stopped. The patch of roots that was uprooted in the afternoon has been loosened. The soil around the base is looser, a broken tangerine branch lies next to it.

“They dug something,” Quan said.

The letter shines with light. “See anything?”

Lam used a folding knife to remove the layer of soil. The blade touches a hard object. A dry metallic sound rang out.

Quan told everyone to step back and then used a shovel to continue digging. Under the root is a copper tube as long as a hand, both ends covered with hardened wooden plugs. The leaf symbol is engraved on the body of the tube, but there is an additional diagonal line next to it.

Mrs. Man suddenly grabbed Quan's wrist.

“Don't open here.”

“You know what it is?”

“Know part of it.”

Thu looked at her. “When did you know?”

Mrs. Man let go, her eyes still glued to the tube. "Since before you were born. But your father told you not to tell unless he called."

“He's gone,” Quan said. “You can talk.”

“Dead people don't always follow instructions.”

Thu used a nylon bag to wrap the tube. Before she could pick it up, Lam shined the light along the ground. There is a very thin streak of water leaking from the bottom, flowing along the root canal and disappearing into the grass area.

“It's empty,” he said. “There's paper inside.”

Quan pried open the wooden knot with the tip of a shovel. The smell of old oil and damp paper escapes. A folded piece of paper slipped out of the tube, covered in mud. Thu used a towel to wipe each layer. On the paper was a fragment of a map, showing only the northeast corner of the garden and a dashed line running under the trees.

On the edge of the paper there is a red stamp from the cadastral office, but the plot number is torn off.

“This is a land map,” Thu said.

“So why hide in tree roots?”

“Maybe dad doesn't want anyone to find him.”

“Or there's no time to put it away.”

Lam held a piece of paper close to the light. On the back are a few lines written in pencil:

"The leaves are the starting point. The water is what must be kept. The circle is the part that cannot be sold."

After reading the letter, I felt colder than the garden night. The three symbols in the black cover book appear clearly. Not a tree classification mark. They are commands.

Quan stuffed the map into his pocket. “Tomorrow morning I will go to the cadastral office and ask for a copy.”

“You are not allowed to take documents on your own,” Thu said. “If this piece is related to land use rights, we must follow the correct procedures.”

“You talk as if someone is suing you.”

“There may be.”

While they argued, the sound of an engine echoed from the north. A halo of light swept through the tree canopy and then went out. All four people bowed low. The car stopped outside the fence, without turning on the lights, just letting the engine run for a few seconds. Then it back away.

“Huy's company car,” Mrs. Man said.

“Did you see that?” Lam asked.

“Hear the machine.”

Thu didn't believe it completely, but she also didn't ignore that possibility. Huy may have come to inspect the land. If the company knows there is water below, they have reason to monitor every move of the family.

The next morning, Thu called the notary office. It was confirmed that the will only mentioned the house, crops and land use rights; There are no appendices regarding water lines. She asked about the certificate. The employee looked through the files and said the original papers were at the bank because my father had mortgaged part of the garden.

“What loan?” Thu asked.

“This information requires confirmation from the bearer or heir.”

Thu hung up and opened her father's drawer again. Underneath the stack of stool purchase coupons was a bank receipt from six years ago. The loan is not large, but the maturity date is more than two years old. The person who pays regularly is Nguyen Van Tan. After his death, the bank did not send a notice because the inheritance procedures had not been completed.

Quan looked at the number on the receipt then turned away.

“If sold, how much debt will be left after deducting the debt?”

“It is unknown how the property will be valued.”

“I asked how much was left.”

“It might be enough to pay for Na's hospital.”

Quan was silent for a long time. That answer wasn't convincing, but it had the weight of a pending surgery.

Lam took the map to scan. He placed it under the glass of the old scanner in the packaging house, increasing the contrast. When the image appears, a small symbol appears in the lower corner: the circle is divided into six parts. Each part has a dotted line.

“On the original copy, this part was torn,” Lam said. “But the ink is still there.”

Letter enlarged. Six dots connected to six thin lines, like a diagram of land plots contributing to a common area. The text below is blurred, only two words can be read: "water way".

Mrs. Man stood behind them, not looking at the screen but looking out at the garden.

“Back then, there were six families digging ditches together,” she said. "Each family contributes a piece of land. Your father keeps the paper."

“Why didn't anyone say anything?” Thu asked.

"Because later people forget. When the big road opens, many people sell their land. Some families move to other places, some families change their last names on paper. Tan said that if the old story is brought up, people will fight until there is no more water left for anyone else."

“But you can't hide other people's rights in your garden.”

"He didn't hide his power. He hid his fear."

Huy arrived around noon, this time not holding the blue file. He stood outside the gate, not entering.

“I heard someone came into the garden last night,” he said.

The letter was cold. “Where did you hear it from?”

"Someone reported. The land is about to be surveyed so the company wants to avoid unsafe situations."

“The company that monitors our garden?”

“No one is watching.”

Quan walked out. “You know there's a water line down here?”

Huy looked at Quan and then at Mrs. Man. A beat of silence long enough for an answer.

“I know there is a well and an old pipeline,” Huy said. “I don't know if it still works.”

“You said it was just underground water.”

“I say what the company knows.”

Thu felt that all of Huy's answers were partially locked.

“Do you want to buy land for cold storage or for water lines?”

Huy doesn't smile anymore. "Both."

He turned away, but before getting in the car, he stopped.

"If you find old papers, don't keep them yourself. There are papers that seem to be evidence, but when they go to court, it becomes a different story."

“Are you threatening us?” Thu asked.

"I am advise.”

That afternoon, Quan used a string to measure the distance from the tree with the symbol to the north fence. The distance matches the contours on the map piece. Lam discovered that the piece of copper pipe was not an ordinary paper container; One threaded pipe end can be connected to a larger underground pipe.

When the sun set, Thu opened the black-covered notebook. On the last page, her father wrote a date three months ago, just before being admitted to the hospital:

“When the seventh tree falls, open the lid. Don't let Quan dig alone. Don't leave the Secretary before reading it all. Don't let Lam film the ending."

Three names stand next to three instructions. None of them knew who he wrote that line for.

The soldier holding the lamp went out first.

“Is there a seventh tree in the garden?”

Mrs. Man looked towards the tangerine patch to the north. In the dark light, six tree trunks stood close together like a wall. The seventh tree lies behind, covered with vines, with a newly engraved circle on its trunk.

They don't go right to the tree. Thu returned to the house, took copies of the remaining documents and marked each door. She asked Quan to take a photo of the gate's status, while Lam recorded the time. Part of her wanted to call the police, the other part was afraid that if she made a noise, the person watching would know what they had found.

“We are turning a garden into a scene,” Lam said.

“It has been the scene since someone cut the power,” Thu replied.

Mrs. Man brought out an old flashlight that belonged to her father. The lamp cover is scratched, the button is covered with tree sap. She told Tan to often check the valve points on the night of the waning moon. He did not carry a knife, only a lamp and a coil of yellow wire. If you see a yellow wire, it means the water line is still open; The red wire means someone has touched it.

In the hole under the seventh tree, they found a cut end of a golden wire. Quan pulled lightly, the rope ran deep under the roots and then broke. Lam used a camera to examine the land. A square object appeared, but it was located under a large root. Digging immediately can cause the tree to die.

“Dad placed something so we couldn't pick it up with a shovel,” Quan said.

“He wants us to follow the water route,” Thu replied.

They followed the moisture trail north. Under a stone slab, Quan found three dots and an arrow. The arrow points to the old well, but on the stone surface there is an additional dash like a prohibition.

Lam shined the light into the bottom of the well. The water reflected a dot of red light, even though none of them used a red light. A second later, the light dot disappeared.

“There's someone outside the fence,” he said.

Quan held a shovel and ran towards the gate. No one was there. There was only one survey stake stuck under the banana bush, with the plot number written over on the stake.

Thu pulled out her phone to take a photo. The new number does not match the map of my father's house.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “we won't go ask the buyer what he wants. Let's go ask how this land is really recorded."

Right below the symbol, someone had dug a shallow hole in the ground.