Chapter 2 — The Heiress's Selection of a Husband

Xuyen Giang welcomed Anh Thu with a light dusty rain in the late afternoon. She walked down to the old bus station located at the edge of the city, where rows of affordable motels were close together, the smell of motor oil mixed with the smell of street food rising from street vendors. This was not the Xuyen Giang she once knew through financial news, where Chu Nguyen Group appeared with the image of a shiny glass building in the center. This was the back side of the city, where ordinary workers make a living every day.

She rented a small room in an alley near the market, the price was so cheap that the landlord was surprised and asked twice. The room was just over a dozen square meters, with a rickety wooden bed, a ceiling fan that creaked every time it rotated, and a small window overlooking the moss-stained wall of the house opposite. Ms. Thu put the cloth bag on the floor, sat down on the bed, and for the first time in her life cleaned her own place without a maid nearby.

That night she didn't sleep much. She spread her father's notebook out on the bed, read and reread each line, trying to picture the face of her father whom she had never known, just through a few old photos that Mrs. Lien kept. In the notebook, Ton Dac Nghia carefully recorded the capital structure of Chu Nguyen Group, investments in real estate in the city center, and cooperative relationships with a number of large banks. But what caught Anh Thu's attention the most was a name that appeared repeatedly in the margins of a few pages, abbreviated with the first letter: "The Board of Directors reported incorrect data for the third quarter, which needs to be reconciled." She didn't know who B.D was, but her hunch told her that this could be an important clue.

The next morning, Anh Thu decided to go find out the news. She wore rough clothes and an old conical hat bought at the market, blending into the bustling stream of traders. She stopped by a small cafe opposite the Chu Nguyen Group headquarters building, ordered a glass of iced tea, and pretended to be new to the city looking for a job.

"Are you looking for a job?" The owner, a tanned middle-aged woman, asked while wiping the table. "Here, the family is rich, but people are very meticulous, not everyone will accept the job."

"Yes, I heard that Chu Nguyen Group is very big, I wonder if they need people." Anh Thu replied, deliberately mixed with a bit of a rustic, slow voice.

The innkeeper burst out laughing. "Chu Nguyen Group? They recruit engineers and university office staff, do you think it's easy to get in? But..." She lowered her voice, acting secretive. "The Chu family's mansion is different. Sometimes they hire maids and gardeners. The housekeeper's name is Xuan. She's fastidious but fair. If you're honest and hardworking, you have a chance."

Ms. Thu pretended to be curious and asked more about the Chu family, and the shopkeeper, who loved to gossip, talked endlessly. She said that Chairman Chu Vinh Toan was over sixty this year, had poor health, rarely appeared in public, and left most of the work to his three sons. The eldest son Chu Vinh Bach had a cold and arrogant personality and was rumored to be the "crown prince" of the group. The second son, Chu Vinh Khang, was quieter, in charge of the internal audit department. He spoke little but was popular with employees because of his fairness. The youngest son, Chu Vinh Phong, was young, likes to socialize, was in charge of the media, and often appeared in the press for creative promotional campaigns.

"And Mr. Chu Bach Dinh, the chairman's younger brother, is the Vice President in charge of finance. This person is very secretive, rarely goes to the press, but it is said that he holds a lot of power in the corporation." The shop owner said as she poured more tea for the customers at the next table. "Why are you asking so specifically? Are you really going to apply for a job there?"

Anh Thu nodded, silently remembering each name. Chu Bach Dinh. The first letter matches "B.D" in her father's notebook. A cold feeling ran down my spine, both scared and like finding the first light in the long, groping night.

In the afternoon, she walked along the road leading to the suburbs, where the Chu family mansion was located. From afar, she could see the soaring stone wall surrounding the large campus, rows of shady ancient trees, and majestic iron gates with two stone lions standing guard on both sides. That scene suddenly reminded her of old photos in her father's notebook, where he once stood in front of a similar gate, shaking hands with a young man who she guessed was Chu Vinh Toan in his youth.

She watched from afar and saw a shiny black car enter the gate, the window rolled down so the security guard could check the documents. In the car, she caught a glimpse of a young man with a stern face and sharp eyes looking out at the street as if considering something. She didn't know which of the three brothers it was, but her intuition told her that this person was not simple.

That night, returning to the motel room, Anh Thu sat in front of the small mirror hanging on the wall, examining her face behind the simple makeup. She wondered if she had the courage to enter that luxurious but trap-filled world, where a small mistake could cause her true identity to be revealed. But then she remembered Mrs. Lien's last words, remembered her father's thin face in the old photo, and her determination became even stronger.

She took out her notebook and wrote on the last blank page what she had just collected: the names of the three Chu brothers, each person's job position, and especially the name Chu Bach Dinh, the first suspect. She underlined that name three times, as a reminder to herself that the road ahead would not be easy.

She lay down on the bed, looked up at the moldy ceiling, comparing this room with the spacious, fully furnished bedroom she once had in the Tan Phuc villa. There were hand-embroidered silk curtains, comfortable beds imported from abroad, and servants who knocked on the door every morning to ask what kind of breakfast she had. Here, there were only the sounds of rats running gingerly on the corrugated iron roof, the sound of motorbikes revving in the alley, and the cold creeping through the unsealed windows. Yet Anh Thu felt lighter than any night she had ever slept in that luxurious villa, as if that flashy cover had never really been hers.

She remembered her childhood years, when Mrs. Lien taught her to read books, taught her how to behave in the upper class, but always avoided when she asked about her biological parents. Each time, she just patted her head, saying "when you're old enough and strong enough, I'll tell you everything". Now, when the truth had been revealed, Anh Thu understood why Mrs. Lien was so cautious. A secret weighing thousands of pounds, enough to overthrow an entire corporation if it fell into the wrong hands, and she carried it alone for twenty-five years to protect the only remaining child of her late best friend.

The next morning, she woke up early and carefully prepared her plan to apply for a job at the mansion. She bought a few more simple work clothes at the market, learned how to speak slowly, and how to bow politely like a country girl who had never encountered much in life. She practiced in front of the mirror how to hide her sharp eyes, how to walk timidly instead of her usual confident look.

On the way to the mansion, she stopped by an old newsstand and bought a few old local newspapers to learn more about the history of Chu Nguyen Group. In an economic newspaper published more than twenty years ago, she happened to see a short article about the group's "internal financial incident", mentioning that a senior manager was forced to resign due to suspicion of embezzlement of public funds, but did not name it specifically because "according to the family's confidentiality requirements". The article ended with a brief sentence: "Chu Nguyen Group confirmed that the incident was handled internally and did not affect business operations."

Anh Thu folded the newspaper and held it tightly in her hand. It didn't affect business operations, but it destroyed an entire family, pushing her father down a path of illness and death in frustration, pushing her mother into the last years of her life living in fear and humiliation. She looked up at the Chu mansion towering in the distance, telling herself that from today, every step she took would be towards a single goal: finding the truth, and demanding justice for the father she never had a chance to call.

She stopped by the city's small public library, which kept microfilm of more than twenty years of old newspaper issues. The kind old librarian showed her how to operate the old microfilm reader, and Anh Thu spent nearly two hours going through each roll of film, her eyes stinging from the bright white light of the screen. Finally, she found another short news clip, posted about a week before the previous article, talking about Chu Nguyen Group organizing an internal honor ceremony, which mentioned "the silent contribution of the finance department under new direction". The date of posting coincided almost perfectly with the time her father was forced to leave the corporation. Whether it was a coincidence or a clever arrangement to legitimize the substitution, Anh Thu could not confirm, but she copied all that information into her notebook, carefully writing down the date and page number so she could compare it later.

Leaving the library in the late afternoon, she walked along the small canal running through the city center, watching the high-rise buildings reflect the orange-red sunset on the water. Somewhere among those sparkling buildings was the office of the three Chu brothers, people that in just a few days, she would have to face every day under a completely different identity. She wondered if she had enough courage to play that role for a long time, when even a small mistake could cause all her efforts to go to waste, even putting her in real danger if the person who harmed her father in the past discovered her whereabouts too early.

The morning wind blew through the deserted street, bringing with it the cold breath of a new day. Anh Thu tightened her hem and took more steady steps towards the majestic iron gate, where her real journey was about to begin.