Chapter 3 — The Code in the Tangerine Garden

Huy placed the price list on the packaging table, right in the middle of boxes of tangerines that had not yet been labeled.

“This is a preliminary proposal,” he said. “Not the last contract.”

The letter does not touch the paper. She had slept less than four hours after discovering the hole in the ground under the seventh tree. Last night, the three dug around the base but found nothing but a broken brick and a piece of copper wire. The new dig was covered before dawn. People entering the garden don't just look for signs. They know where the family is looking.

Quan stood opposite Huy, his eyes glued to the first number.

“This is higher than the price of tangerine land around here.”

"Because this is a plot area. The company wants to buy it quickly to keep up with the project documents."

“How long does it take to buy quickly?”

"Ten days to deposit. Thirty days to complete."

Lam sat on the doorstep, the camera placed next to him. “What about the last tangerine crop in the will?”

Huy tilted his head. “The company can wait for a partial harvest.”

“The will says to end the case.”

“I'm not a lawyer.”

Thu picked up the paper. The first part is land information and expected value. The last part has a paragraph about groundwater exploitation rights, written in lengthy words. She read slowly. The buyer has the right to use available auxiliary works and "access legal water sources for preservation activities". There is no line limiting the flow, nor does it say who will pay the cost of restoring the old pipeline.

“What if the water line under the garden has the rights of another household?” she asked.

Huy did not answer immediately. “You don't have that proof yet.”

“So why this fishing rod contract?”

"Cold storage needs water. That sentence is a technical condition."

Thu put the paper down. "You know we don't have the original certificate in hand. You know my father mortgaged the land. You know the company wants to complete it before we can check the records. Don't call this a simple proposal."

Huy looked at her, for the first time without the intimacy of an old neighbor.

“I'm trying to help you get a good price.”

“Help how?”

“By offering a way out.”

Quan pulled up a chair and sat down. His hands squeezed the hem of his shirt. “If I don't sell, what way out is there for me?”

Thu turned around. “Don't decide today.”

“Aren't you making decisions for the whole family?”

"Do you think I want to keep the garden because it's romantic? I just don't want to sign something I don't understand."

"I live in the city, I get paid every month. I can understand slowly. You don't."

The saying fell in the middle of the packing house. A tangerine in the back box rolled out and hit Quan's leg. He bent to pick it up, but didn't throw it away.

Huy stood up. "I left the proposal. You can call when needed."

He walked through the path between the boxes of tangerines. At the door, Mrs. Man blocked it.

“Has the company staked the north yet?”

Huy looked at her. "Not yet."

"Tan told me, if you see a stake painted red, you must pull it out."

“You have no right to remove survey markers.”

“I have the right to protect trees.”

Huy did not say more. When his car disappeared behind the coconut trees, Quan opened the proposal again.

“If I receive the deposit, I can pay the first installment to the hospital.”

“Then next time?”

“Once sold, there will be no next batch.”

Thu looked at her younger brother. “Do you really think things will be that simple?”

“No. But at least Na will have a chance.”

Lam stood up and held the camera. “Don't use her to pressure each other.”

Quan slammed his hand on the table. “You disappeared for three years and now you teach me how to take care of my child?”

“I don't teach.”

“So what do you want?”

Lam looked to the window, where tangerine trees blocked most of the light. “I want to know why dad wrote all three names in the instructions, but didn't tell anyone directly.”

"Dad is dead. You can ask him on your camera."

Lam did not respond. The words touched on exactly what he was hiding: before his father went to the hospital for the last time, he let Lam film a scene in the garden. He said there was no need to tell the other two people. Lam took the memory card away and never read it all.

In the afternoon, Thu and Quan went to the commune cadastral office. The officer in charge found the old extract, but the plot number in it was one digit different from the paper his father left behind. On the map, north of the garden there is a narrow white strip of land, with no owner's name recorded. The strip of land running from the old well to the ditch has been filled in.

“This is land for irrigation works?” Thu asked.

"The old records said it was a temporary drainage route. It hasn't been updated since then."

“Does anyone have permission to use it?”

"If it is a drainage path, adjacent households have the right to pass through for maintenance. But you must see the original documents."

Letter requesting a copy. The officer gave her an appointment card, saying the records were in the district warehouse because they were being digitized.

Quan pointed to the white strip. “This road goes right through my garden.”

“It's not just my family,” Thu said.

On the way home, Quan said nothing. Arriving at the water shop at the beginning of the village, he suddenly turned in. The shopkeeper placed two glasses of iced tea in front of them.

"Are you guys looking for Mr. Tan's family affairs?" she asked.

Letter of caution. “How do you know?”

“In this village, people don't need to read the newspaper to know who is digging whose house.”

She said that in the past, after three consecutive drought seasons, six families opened a trench to bring water from the foot of the hill. Each family puts in the effort and gives up the land, in return for watering according to schedule. Father Thu is the person who records the schedule and keeps the valve. When a family sold their land, the buyer filled in the ditch. Mr. Tan used underground pipes to connect around.

“Did he do it secretly?” Quan asked.

"Sneak with the land buyer, not the villagers. But the buyer doesn't want to hear."

The letter asked for the names of six families. The innkeeper remembered four, forgot two. One of the four names is the Huy family.

“Father Huy also contributed land?” Thu asked.

"His family contributed the entire ditch. Later, the papers changed hands, Huy kept saying he didn't know."

Quan put down his glass. “Huy knows more than he says.”

Returning to the garden, they saw a red string on the tree. It was tied to the seventh tree trunk, right where the hole was dug. It's not Mrs. Man's string. The letter was removed, inside was a small piece of plastic with a survey code.

Lam checks the old security camera installed in the packing house. The system lost power from 2:00 a.m. to 4:17 p.m. The person cutting the power already knows the location of the circuit breaker. In the image before his death, a figure walked past the back gate, holding a red light.

“No face,” Lam said.

“But I see the figure,” Thu replied.

“This person is limping.”

Mrs. Man quietly returned to the house. A moment later she brought out a wooden box containing a pair of old boots.

“Tan has had pain in his left leg since he was forty years old,” she said. “But he's gone.”

Quan looked at the box. “You think dad cut off the power himself to hide things?”

“I think someone wants you to believe that dad is still hiding things.”

Thu opened Huy's proposal again. She took a pen and circled the water rights. Below, in the technical appendix, there is a number of survey coordinates. When compared with the map piece, the coordinates are exactly at the seventh tree.

They returned to the garden at dusk. The troops dug in a different position from the old hole, close to a flat rock. The shovel only touched the ground three times pop up an iron lid. Under the lid is a cast iron valve box, with three symbols engraved next to it: leaf, water drop, circle.

Quan put his hand on the lid.

“If we open it, we'll know what dad's hiding.”

Thu looked at the request paper tucked under her armpit. “Or know why others want us to sell before opening.”

Lam turned on the camera. Mrs. Man took a step back.

Quan turns the valve.

The valve cover is heavier than Quan thought. Not only was there a cast iron box underneath, but there was also a layer of black mud around the edge, showing that it had just been opened. He used a towel to wipe his hands, examined the thread and discovered a new indentation, like a wrench mark.

“They tried opening before us,” he said.

Thu sat down next to the lid. “If they're just surveying, why do they need a wrench?”

“Because they want to know which direction the valve goes.”

Lam filmed each symbol in close-up. He said his father always used strokes of different depths to distinguish words carved by him from words engraved by others. The leaf image here is old, but the water drops and circles are newer. Someone added two accents after father passed away.

“They are perfecting the code,” Lam said.

“Or fake the password so we can go wrong,” Thu replied.

Mrs. Man held the piece of metal with the letter T upside down and placed it next to the engraving. Behind the T there is a small curve, only visible when tilted under the light. She remembered her father used to nail such pieces to wooden stakes to check people passing by. Letters are not names; it is the mark of the person authorized to touch the valve.

“Tan does not give his stamp to outsiders,” she said.

“So people who engrave additional marks are not allowed,” Quan concluded.

Huy was still standing outside the gate, but his car's lights shone on the fence. Thu called him back. Huy looked at the valve cover and recognized the old cast iron.

“This valve was installed by the district irrigation team,” he said. “The company does not use this type because there is not enough traffic.”

“Are you sure?”

"I've seen the blueprints. This is a branch valve, not a well valve."

Thu gave the land purchase proposal to Huy. “So in the contract, what does the right to access water mean?”

Huy read the appendix and his face darkened. “If they consider this a secondary structure, they can remove it.”

“You still call this a way out?”

Huy did not answer.

Quan put his hand on the lid. “Let's open it.”

Thu looked at the two men, then looked at the dark garden. “Open. But from now on everything must be recorded.”

Lam turned on the camera. Huy stood in the frame and clearly stated his name and time. Mrs. Man read the symbol again. Quan began to rotate the valve according to the leaf mark.

The sound of metal rubbing against each other sounded slow, heavy and impossible to turn back.

From underground came the sound of running water, slow and heavy, as if someone had just awakened an animal that had been sleeping for a long time.