Chapter 5 — The Lantern That Never Goes Out

The tin box lay quietly on the table all evening, as if both father and son were waiting for some sign to have the courage to open it. Finally, it was Mr. Khoan who broke the silence, his trembling fingers placed on the lid of the box that had rusted over the years.

“Let me,” he said, his voice hoarse. The lid of the box made a dry creaking sound when opened, inside were a few yellowed black and white photos, a half-embroidered handkerchief, and a carefully folded stack of papers, tied together with a faded red thread.

Uyen Chi took the pad of paper and carefully opened each layer. Those are technical sketches, delicate but faded with time, depicting a frame structure woven in two layers twisted in opposite directions — the same technique that grandmother once briefly mentioned in her notebook. In the bottom corner of the drawing, there were two small signatures, the ink faded but still legible: on one side was "Tuyet Nga", on the other side was another signature that Uyen Chi didn't immediately recognize, but when she looked closely, she vaguely guessed it might be "Ba Vinh".

"There it is," she whispered, her hands shaking slightly. "This is the technique that you and... this person created together."

Mr. Khoan took the drawing and looked at it for a long time. His eyes shone with an indescribable sadness. "I don't fully understand what happened, but seeing how my mother kept these things so carefully, it must have been very important to her. Perhaps, this is a part of the memory that she never wants to forget, even though she never mentioned it."

Father and son sat quietly together for a long time, the oil lamplight casting their long shadows on the wall, looking at old drawings as if they were trying to reassemble a story that only had fragmented fragments. Uyen Chi did not dare to rush to any conclusions, but in her heart, a vague premonition had begun to form - perhaps, this double helix frame technique, the broken relationship between her grandmother and the person named Ba Vinh, was the root of everything that was happening today, the reason why Mr. Han Vinh Vuong had a strange reaction when he heard the name of Van Nguyet workshop.

"What should I do with these?" she asked.

Mr. Khoan folded the paper and carefully placed it in the tin box as before. "I think, it's not the time to bring everything to light. I need more time to find out, I need to be more certain before facing anyone. But at least, now I know, this is not simply a big company forcing a small company. It has a much deeper history."

In the days that followed, although busy with the daily work of the workshop, Uyen Chi's mind kept lingering on the old drawing, on the two signatures next to each other on the yellowed page. She began to pay more attention to the way people in the street mentioned the history of the lamp industry, trying to ask the old people who still remembered the old stories, but most of them only received shakes of the head or vague answers, as if the story had been buried too deeply by time and the caution of the insiders.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere of anxiety about the threat from Han Phat continued to cover the old town. After the stressful meeting, the working households began to spontaneously gather and discuss coping plans, although no one had a specific plan that was really feasible. Uyen Chi realized that if the situation was allowed to drift in such a passive direction, the loss would definitely belong to small craftsmen like them.

One afternoon, while sitting and sketching a new lamp design for the festival season, Uyen Chi suddenly came up with an idea that was much clearer than what she had thought before. Instead of just waiting for a reaction from the Management Board, why not organize a small event yourself, inviting tourists and people in the city to come to the factory, witness the lamp-making process with their own eyes, and maybe even let them try a few simple steps themselves? If people can experience it directly, touch the bamboo, the silk, see the meticulousness in every line, perhaps they will understand why the handmade silk lamps are worth their value, instead of just looking at the numbers on the price list.

She shared this idea with Bao Chau that evening, while the two of them sat by the riverside after the tea shop had closed.

"Sounds good," Bao Chau nodded, "but where do you plan to work? Your factory is small, how many people can it accommodate?"

"I'm thinking, I can borrow the yard in front of the village communal house, where a small fair is often held every year. If other craft households join in, each house has a corner to display and demonstrate their craft process, it will definitely attract attention." Uyen Chi said, her voice gradually becoming excited as the idea became clearer and clearer in her mind. "We can call it an 'Old Crafts Market' or something similar, held a few weeks before the main festival, as a way to introduce and rekindle people's interest."

Bao Chau clapped his hands loudly, his eyes lit up with excitement. "I like this idea! My tea shop can also contribute a corner, selling tea and introducing the traditional way of making lotus tea. Surely many other households will also respond, everyone is as worried as we are."

That idea quickly spread in the following days. Uyen Chi and her father went from house to house, met each household involved in the profession, and presented the plan. The initial reaction was not everyone was enthusiastic - some were skeptical whether such a small event would be enough to create any change, some were worried about the cost of organizing it, but most, after listening to Uyen Chi's presentation with sincerity and determination, nodded and agreed to give it a try.

Uncle Sau Dong was one of the first enthusiastic supporters. "If we don't stand up to protect our profession, who else can we expect?" he said, patting Uyen Chi's shoulder encouragingly. "You have a great idea. I'll bring the entire lantern frame to show, show the kids how it rotates thanks to the heat of the candle."

Ms. Nham also agreed to participate, bringing along funny zodiac-shaped lamp molds, promising to teach children in the street how to mold simple shapes from clay to make lamp molds. Even the old potter that Uyen Chi had met late at night nodded in agreement, his eyes showing a bit of hope for the first time in many days.

Uyen Chi returned to the workshop late one evening, feeling much lighter in her heart than the previous days, even though the road ahead was still full of thorns. She sat at the drawing table, took out a new piece of silk, and began sketching the first lines for a completely new lamp model - not a copy of the Cuu Lien lamp, nor any traditional lamp model she had ever learned, but a design with her own imprint, inspired by the image of small boats floating on the Nguyet Giang River on a full moon night.

The brush in her hand moves slowly but surely, each curve simulates the shape of a boat, each color changes from the blue of the river water to the warm yellow of the reflected light. She painted until the oil lamp was almost empty, her hands were tired but her heart was filled with a strange feeling of contentment, as if she was finding her own voice, separating from the large shadow of her grandmother that she had silently carried for so long.

Outside the window, the moonlight hung in the night sky, reflecting sparklingly on the calm river surface. Uyen Chi put down her pen, looked at her unfinished work, then looked up at the night sky through the small window. She thought of her father sleeping upstairs with a dull pain in his old hands, of her deceased grandmother with secrets yet to be told, of the whole old town preparing to enter a silent but fierce battle to keep her soul.

Although many things remain unclear on the road ahead - about the Han Phat company, about the old feud between the two families, about the outcome of the "Old Craft Market" plan she just initiated - Uyen Chi feels a fire of determination has ignited within her that cannot be easily extinguished. She stood up, walked to the Cuu Lien Mau lamp hanging in the corner of the workshop, gently caressed the delicate silk on the outermost lotus petal, as if silently promising her grandmother that, no matter what happened, she would not let her family's lamp fade out, and would find every way to keep that light continuing to shine on the Nguyet Giang River, night after night, festival after festival, never to go out.

Before going upstairs to rest, she stopped by her father's room and saw that he was fast asleep, his face rarely relaxed from the usual worried wrinkles of the day. She pulled back the thin blanket for him, stood silently for a moment, then gingerly walked out, closing the door quietly so as not to wake him. Going down to the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of water, stood against the door and looked out at the dark yard, where the bundles of bamboo that Mr. Bay had just brought were still neatly stacked, waiting to be whittled into slats. She thought of the upcoming "Old Crafts Market", of Uncle Sau Dong's excited face, of the old potter's sparkling eyes of hope, and told herself that even though it was just a small step, it was still a step in the right direction. There are battles that cannot be won with just one decisive blow, but must be won with each small brick stacked on top of each other, patiently and persistently, like the way people split each bamboo slat to eventually have a sturdy lamp frame. She turned off the kitchen light, went upstairs to sleep with a rare sense of relief since the day the name Han Phat first appeared in the story of the old town.