Chapter 10 — The Heiress's Selection of a Husband

Chu Bach Dinh returned to the mansion after a three-day business trip with a tired face but still maintained the familiar calm demeanor that the whole family had been accustomed to seeing for the past twenty-five years. No one in the family, including Mrs. Xuan or the Chu brothers, had the slightest doubt that quiet, soft-spoken man was the one behind the tragedy of a family that had been torn apart many years ago.

On the evening of his return, the whole family held an intimate dinner to welcome him, as was customary when a member returned from a long business trip. Ms. Thu was assigned to help serve food with Ms. Mai, a familiar job that she had mastered after nearly two months of working in the mansion.

When she bent down to put the plate of food on the table right in front of Bach Dinh, the simple scarf she used to cover her collar accidentally slipped a little due to the bending motion, revealing half of the lotus-shaped jade pendant sparkling under the bright chandeliers of the dining room. In just a split second, Bach Dinh's eyes caught that detail, and his whole body stopped as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water in the middle of a winter night.

He personally ordered that pair of jade pendants twenty-five years ago, witnessing with his own eyes the scene of his brother giving half to Ton Dac Nghia at the inauguration ceremony of the new headquarters, as a sacred symbol of the intimate friendship between the two. He was also the person who, after successfully framing Dac Nghia, secretly asked for news and learned that half of the jade pendant had followed his widow and young child and disappeared from Xuyen Giang city forever, never to be mentioned again.

Yet now, after all these years, a rustic maid was wearing that fateful token of trust around her neck, right in the dining room of the Chu family mansion.

Bach Dinh tried to keep a calm face, taking a sip of tea to hide the confusion rolling in his heart. He squinted and observed more closely the face of the girl who was quietly pouring water for each person at the table. There was something about that facial feature, especially the deep eyes and straight nose, that suddenly reminded him of the image of a young woman named Vu Thi Hien that he had met several times at corporate parties in the past, Ton Dac Nghia's wife.

"New girl, right?" Bach Dinh raised his voice and asked, trying to keep it natural like a normal social question at a family meal.

"Yes, Mr. Vice President, my name is Thu, I've only been working for nearly two months." Anh Thu replied, bowing her head politely, not knowing that the man in front of him was the enemy she had been diligently searching for evidence of for many days.

"That necklace you're wearing, it looks quite strange. Is it a family heirloom?" Bach Dinh continued asking, his voice still gentle but his eyes fixed on her collar with unusual attention.

Anh Thu's heart tightened. She quickly pulled back her scarf, covering half of her jade face, trying to keep her voice calm. "Yes, this is just a souvenir left by a relative, it's nothing valuable."

"I see." Bach Dinh nodded and did not ask further, but in his heart, an underground wave of anxiety began to rise. He told himself that perhaps this was just a coincidence, that there could be many similar lotus-shaped jades crafted somewhere, not necessarily related to the past that he had worked so hard to bury. But the suspicious and cautious nature of a man who had committed a major crime did not allow him to easily dismiss this suspicion.

After the meal, when everyone had dispersed to their own rooms, Bach Dinh sat alone in the office, the desk lamp shining on his pensive face. He took out an old photo from a secret drawer, capturing the scene of Ton Dac Nghia and Vu Thi Hien at a party in the past, the only photo he kept as a hidden trophy to remind him of his victory in the power struggle within the group.

He compared the face of the woman in the photo with his vision of the new maid, and the more he looked, the more he felt a disturbing similarity in the facial features, despite the passage of years and the age difference. He stood up, paced back and forth in the room, his mind spinning with a series of terrifying hypotheses. Memories of that fateful evening twenty-five years ago suddenly rushed back into his mind, the night he sat alone in his old office, practicing each stroke of Dac Nghia's signature under the desk lamp, his hands shaking not from fear but from excitement at the prospect of finally regaining the position that should have belonged to him. He remembered Dac Nghia's shocked and unbelievable eyes when he was accused right in front of the board of directors, remembered the urgent voice of his old friend begging his brother to trust him one last time, and remembered his own coldness as he stood and watched it all happen without the slightest emotion.

During the past twenty-five years, he had never once regretted that decision, only always being careful to guard against any possibility of being discovered. He thought that time and geographical distance had erased all traces, that Dac Nghia's family had disappeared forever from his life after changing their name and drifting to some distant countryside. Yet now, a piece of that past suddenly appeared right before his eyes, under a guise that he could not have expected.

If that girl was really Ton Dac Nghia's daughter, then why did she appear here, as a poor maid, right in the private government of the man who harmed her father? Did she come here by chance, or did she know the truth and was secretly investigating? If it was the latter, then this was the most dangerous threat he had faced since the day he successfully concealed his crimes twenty-five years ago.

Bach Dinh called an old acquaintance, who used to work in private investigation but was much more secretive than the team that Vinh Bach had hired, requesting a deeper investigation into the girl named Thu, especially focusing on the time before she appeared in Xuyen Giang, as well as any connection with the name Ton Dac Nghia or the Vu family that he knew Dac Nghia had changed to after escaping.

"Just be discreet, don't let anyone in the house, including my grandchildren, know about this." He advised over the phone, his voice low and calculating. "If you find anything unusual, notify me immediately, as soon as possible."

Putting down the phone, Bach Dinh sat quietly in the darkness, his eyes shining with a cold and cruel look that was rarely shown in front of others. Over the past twenty-five years, he had built for himself a perfect cover of a gentle, respectable uncle, trusted by the whole family. He would not let anyone, even a small maid, destroy everything he had worked so hard to build.

He thought about the need to act cautiously, not to rush to fire her or make things difficult for the girl right away, because that could make her take precautions and escape before he could clearly verify her true identity, as well as before he knew what she had found out. It's best to keep her under control, silently watching, waiting for the right opportunity to strike neatly, leaving no trace that could be traced back to him.

That night, while Anh Thu was sleeping in the maid's small room, completely unaware that her identity was being watched from the darkness by a pair of owl eyes, Chu Bach Dinh was still awake, mapping out step by step a plan to protect the dark secret he had buried for a quarter of a century, ready to do anything, even the most cruel things, so that no one could bring back the past that he thought was buried forever. far.

The next morning, he deliberately passed by the kitchen area at the time when Anh Thu was preparing breakfast, pretending to casually strike up a conversation to investigate further. "Where is Ms. Thu from? I see your accent is not really from this area." He asked, his voice gentle as if he were having a normal social conversation, but his eyes observed every smallest expression on her face.

Ms. Thu paused for a moment, promptly regaining her composure before the hesitation that lasted too long could cause suspicion. "Yes, I come from a remote mountainous area. Since I was young, I have followed acquaintances to many places to work, so my accent is a bit mixed, Mr. Vice President sympathizes." The smooth answer left Bach Dinh unable to find any loopholes to inquire further, but in his heart, the fire of doubt still smoldered, just waiting for the opportunity to flare up into more drastic action.