Chapter 7 — The Family That Accused Me Now Wants Me Back

Bach Tuong spent the next week looking up public information related to Ninh Phat Group, from annual financial reports, shareholder changes, to notices of changes in business registration content stored at the management agency. As a lawyer who has handled many cases related to inheritance disputes, he understands that those seemingly dry documents often contain more important clues than any oral testimony.

The first thing he discovered was that Ninh Phat Group's shareholder structure had an unusual point: nearly sixty-two percent of the company's controlling shares were currently recorded as "assets in process of inheritance", an administrative phrase that rarely appeared for so many years in corporate records. Normally, the process of inheriting company shares only took a few months to a year to complete, but here, this situation had lasted for nearly five years without change.

He called Gia Han and made an appointment for her to come to the office in the evening to discuss directly.

"My grandfather, Mr. Ninh Bach Dat, passed away nearly five years ago," Bach Tuong began, placing in front of her a set of documents printed out from what he looked up. "But the company's largest share, which should have been divided or transferred to his heirs immediately after his death, is still pending. This can only happen if his will has a special binding clause, making the inheritance process unable to be completed immediately."

Gia Han picked up the document, her eyes skimming over the numbers and legal terms that she had never paid attention to before. "You mean, grandfather's will has some conditions that must be met before the assets can be divided?"

"Most likely," he nodded. "And if I guess correctly, the term of that condition is probably about to end, which is why your family suddenly rushed to find you after six years of silence."

Gia Han sat silently, the disparate pieces in her head gradually fitting together into a clearer picture. She remembered her mother's briefly panicked eyes when talking about the family's "important matter", and remembered the "more complete" sentence that she had blurted out. If there was indeed a clause in the will requiring her presence or consent, then all of her family's actions over the past few days suddenly became coldly and chillingly reasonable.

"So is there any way to know the exact contents of the will?" She asked, her voice somewhat urgent.

"A will is usually not a public document, unless it has been officially announced in an inheritance dispute brought to court," Bach Tuong explains. "But if the will was made through a notary office, and if you are one of the people with related rights and interests named in it, you have the right to request to see the content related to your part. The problem is, we need to prove that you are actually on the list of previous heirs, which we currently do not have any official proof of."

Gia Han was silent for a long time, her eyes looking far away out the office window, where the city street lights began to light up in the pale sunset. "My grandfather once told me, many times, that even though I was an adopted child, in his eyes, I was still his granddaughter, no different from Kha Ai. Maybe... maybe he really left something for me in his will, even though the family deliberately kept it a secret for the past five years."

"If that's true," Bach Tuong said, his voice low and serious, "then your family doesn't come to you because their relationship has been revived, but because they need your signature or consent to complete the inheritance procedure, possibly before the term of the terms in the will expires. If the time limit passes without meeting the conditions, it is likely that large portion of assets will be handled in a different way that your family does not want."

Those words made Gia Han feel a sharp pain in her heart, not because of regret for her property, but because of the realization that even this late appearance of the family was just another calculation, no different from six years ago when they calculated to make her the one to bear the blame for Kha Ai. To them, she was never a human being with emotions, with the right to be treated fairly, but was always just a chess piece, used when necessary, abandoned when no longer valuable.

“I need to know exactly what's going on,” she said, her voice hard again. "I don't care about the property, but I need to know the truth, so that they don't continue to use me as a puppet again."

Bach Tuong nodded and agreed. "I will find a way to further verify the content of the will, possibly through reviewing notary records or finding out through people who worked closely with your grandfather. But at the same time, we should also continue a parallel investigation into your old case, because I believe that these two issues, although seemingly separate, may actually be closely related."

"Do you think the accident in the past and this will are related?"

"I can't confirm yet," he said, his eyes thoughtful. "But if your grandfather really loved you like you said, perhaps he realized a certain truth before he passed away, and deliberately included that special clause in his will as a way to protect you from afar, even though he no longer had the strength to vindicate you while he was alive."

That hypothesis made Gia Han speechless. If that's true, then her grandfather, the only person in the family who ever truly loved her, has silently left her a tool, even if indirectly, so that one day she can reclaim justice herself. That thought both warmed her heart and made her more determined to find the truth, not only for herself, but also to not disappoint her deceased grandfather.

"So where do we start?" She asked, her eyes shining with a clearer determination than in previous weeks.

"From people who worked closely with your family," Bach Tuong replied. "The housekeeper you mentioned, Mrs. Ve Thi Ngoc Lan, probably knows a lot of things that we need to find out. If she still works for your family, or is still in contact with someone in the house, that might be the best place to start."

Gia Han nodded, but there was still another worry in her heart. "If I start asking questions, the family will quickly know I'm not simply thinking about their offer to return, but actually investigating things. Will that make them wary, try to hide the evidence more carefully, or even make things difficult for me?"

"It's a real risk," Bach Tuong admitted, not shying away. "But you also need to consider the opposite: if you continue to stay silent and wait while the deadline for the will is approaching, your family will still find ways to pressure you to return to sign, just in a different way, maybe even more drastic. It's better that we proactively get the information in advance, so that you can decide for yourself what you want to do with that inheritance, rather than letting them lead the whole situation according to their will."

Gia Han silently nodded, admitting that his argument was somewhat correct. She remembered the look in Ms. Ve Thi Ngoc Lan's eyes the day she was taken away, the short but sincere words "take care of your health" that she whispered behind the kitchen door. In all the memories of that house, the housekeeper was the only person, besides her grandfather, who left a little warmth in her heart.

"I'll try to find a way to contact her," she said. "But I need to be careful, I don't want her to get in trouble for helping me, if the family finds out."

"You're right, we need to be careful," Bach Tuong agreed. "In the meantime, I will continue to review the major notary offices in the area, finding out which office handled the will preparation for Mr. Ninh Bach Dat. If we are lucky, we can legally access the content related to your inheritance, without having to rely entirely on what your family reveals."

That evening, when Gia Han returned to her room, she sat for a long time in front of the new business card her father gave her, considering whether to call and ask about her grandfather, about the will, or continue to silently wait for the results of what Bach Tuong was finding out. In the end, she decided not to rush into action, telling herself that every step at this stage needed to be cautious, because even a small mistake could alert her family, erasing all remaining traces of the truth that she had waited six years to find.

She opened the old notebook and wrote a new line next to the notes about the night of the accident: "Grandpa, if you really left something for me, I promise not to let it fall into the hands of those who betrayed me."