Chapter 16 — The Heiress's Selection of a Husband

After the failed necklace incident, Chu Bach Dinh understood that he could not continue to act clumsily like before, if he did not want to bring doubt on himself. He decided to hire another investigation team, much more professional and discreet than the last time, with the only request: find out the true identity of the girl calling herself Do Thi Thu.

Nearly two weeks later, the report was finally sent, and this time, the results made Bach Dinh stand up from his chair in surprise. The investigation team traced the traces of secretly taken photos of the girl while she was out shopping, comparing them with images in old economic articles they found: an article about the mysterious disappearance of the heiress of Tan Phuc Company, Ton Anh Thu, right before her engagement ceremony with Lam Vinh Phat, the son of a rival corporation.

"Ton Anh Thu." Bach Dinh muttered that name, his hands shaking from both fear and anger. There was no doubt that this was indeed Ton Dac Nghia's daughter, the person he thought disappeared from his life forever after the family fled twenty-five years ago. Now, she was not simply a poor country girl searching for the truth, but also an heiress with considerable financial potential and social connections, fully capable of mobilizing resources to overthrow his position if the truth was revealed.

He turned over each page of the report, carefully reading the details about Tan Phuc Company, about the not small amount of assets that Anh Thu was holding on behalf of, and about the network of business relationships that she had quietly built over the years under the guidance of her late housekeeper. The more Bach Dinh read, the more he realized that this was not a trivial opponent that could be easily dismissed with a few trivial tricks like the recent necklace failure. If she was truly determined and had enough resources to pursue justice to the end, he would face the risk of losing everything he had built over the past twenty-five years.

He sat in contemplation all night, considering countermeasures. Firing her job or slandering her again was clearly no longer effective when Vinh Khang had begun to stand by her side, ready to investigate all unusual suspicions to the end. He needed a more decisive blow, a plan to completely eliminate this threat from his life, and the idea of contacting Lam Vinh Phat, who had both lost face and an important merger deal when Anh Thu fled, suddenly flashed in her mind as the perfect solution.

Bach Dinh secretly arranged a private meeting with Lam Vinh Phat at a luxury restaurant in the city center, in the name of discussing a new business cooperation opportunity between the two corporations. Lam Vinh Phat, although initially a bit skeptical at the unexpected invitation from a Vice President of Chu Nguyen Group with whom he had never had a deep relationship, still decided to meet out of curiosity.

"I heard you once had a fiancee who mysteriously disappeared right before the engagement." Bach Dinh opened his mouth after a few polite sentences, his eyes carefully observing the other person's reaction.

Lam Vinh Phat's face darkened, he clutched the wine glass in his hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "That's over, I don't want to bring it up again."

"What if I told you I knew exactly where she was?" Bach Dinh spoke, his voice calm but full of calculation, like a poisonous snake slowly trapping its prey.

Lam Vinh Phat raised his head, his eyes flashing with both surprise and greed. "Are you telling the truth? Where is she?"

"She's working as a maid in my government, under a fake name." Bach Dinh replied, then slowly recounted everything he knew about Anh Thu's whereabouts, of course selectively, without revealing her true motives and his own criminal past related to her family. He just said that she seemed to be plotting something unclear against the Chu Nguyen family, and he wanted to remove her from the mansion peacefully before causing bigger trouble.

"So what do you want me to do?" Lam Vinh Phat asked, his voice was completely absorbed in the story, his eyes clearly showing anger mixed with the desire to avenge the humiliation of being abandoned right before the wedding day.

"You still hold control of a portion of the shares in Tan Phuc Company through the previous marriage agreement, right? I heard that such a sudden annulment of marriage has not yet been legally resolved." Bach Dinh suggested, his eyes sparkling with sharp calculation. "If you can prove that she lied and ran away with some plot to gain assets, you can completely regain your honor, and can even take over the remaining assets of her company. As for me, I just need her to disappear from my mansion in disgrace, no one will believe what she says anymore."

Lam Vinh Phat pondered for a moment, then nodded in agreement with cold, calculating eyes. "Okay, I will cooperate with you. But I want to face her personally, I want her to kneel down and apologize to me before everything is over."

Two men shake hands in the dim lights of a luxury restaurant, a dark alliance forged from the combination of one man's greed for power and the other's personal hatred. They discussed the details of the plan: Lam Vinh Phat would spread rumors in the business media about the fact that the "missing heiress" Ton Anh Thu had actually run away with a large sum of money from the company, turning her from a victim into a fraud in the eyes of public opinion, and at the same time sending people to Xuyen Giang to "identify" and force her to return and confront her in public, a form of legal kidnapping disguised as legality.

Meanwhile, Bach Dinh would seek to isolate Vinh Khang from the group's important decisions in the near future, using the excuse that an urgent business project needed him to focus on handling at a distant branch, so that he could not promptly intervene to protect Anh Thu when the plan was implemented.

"As long as she is taken away in front of the whole family, in the name of a financial fraud, no one will trust anything she says anymore, even if she says anything about the past." Bach Dinh said, a cold smile appeared on the corner of his lips for the first time after many tense weeks. "This would be the perfect way to extinguish all threats once and for all."

Lam Vinh Phat nodded in agreement, then added an idea of his own. "I can also let people spread the news that she is paranoid, claiming to be this or that person to gain pity from others. That way, no matter what she tells about the Chu family in the future, people will only see it as the words of a mentally unstable person, no one will bother to believe it anymore."

Bach Dinh nodded in appreciation of the sophisticated cruelty in that additional plan, thinking to himself that he had chosen the right ally. The two schemers continued to discuss until late at night, outlining each specific step, from the time to spread rumors, the time to send people to the mansion, to how to coordinate with a few familiar reporters who were ready to write articles according to orders so that public opinion would quickly turn in their favor.

Before saying goodbye, Lam Vinh Phat also asked one more question, making Bach Dinh think carefully before answering. "You haven't told me the real reason why you want to get rid of her so urgently. Is it possible that just because of a maid, a Vice President of a large corporation should be so concerned that he personally arranged this secret meeting?"

Bach Dinh slightly curled his lips and smiled, hiding his vigilance under a calm appearance. "I simply don't want a stranger with an unknown background to creep into the family, negatively affecting the reputation and solidarity that we have worked hard to build for many generations. You don't need to know anything else, just knowing that our interests in this case completely coincide is enough."

That vague answer did not completely convince Lam Vinh Phat, but the thirst for revenge and ambition to acquire property overwhelmed all remaining doubts in him, causing him to nod and accept without further questioning.

That night, when returning to the mansion, Bach Dinh stood in front of the ancestral altar in his private room, looking at the small wooden box where his brother still kept the remaining half of the jade pendant. There was no regret in his heart, only cold determination to protect his position and the fake honor that he had traded with all his conscience over the past quarter of a century.