Chapter 10 — The Mask Isn't Real

"Are you going to sit and look at this board until morning?"

Nhat Vu put two glasses of iced tea on the table, looked at Uyen Nhi sitting cross-legged on a wooden counter, surrounded by printed photos from the night of observing the secret workshop, tightly pasted on a cardboard sheet leaning against the wall of the Moon Painting workshop - the way she always does when she needs to rearrange a jumbled mess of thoughts into something orderly.

"I need to see clearly." Uyen Nhi replied, not taking her eyes off the two enlarged photos placed side by side — one of Uncle Cuoi's mask with clumsy drawing, and another with delicate, almost perfect drawing. "The three days Uncle Tuyen asked for, now a day has passed. I can't sit still and wait without doing anything."

"You haven't decided whether to report to the police yet?"

Uyen Nhi sighed, put down her pen, and rubbed her face with her hands. "If I report now, Uncle Tuyen will be arrested immediately, possibly on charges of forging seals and fraudulently appropriating property for a large amount of money - the sentence is not light. His son will have no one to take care of him, no one to pay for dialysis. But if I don't report, that ring will continue to sell fake goods in my teacher's name, and may even expand."

"What about Ho Bao Ky?" Nhat Vu sat down opposite and took a sip of iced tea. "If it's true as Uncle Tuyen said, he's the one who turned the business of making cheap souvenirs into an international counterfeiting ring. Do you think he knew clearly that they were fakes?"

"Definitely know." Uyen Nhi tapped her finger on the photo of the Indochine office on Trang Thi street. "A person working in the art auction industry, with experience in appraisal, cannot help but notice the difference between a seventy-two-year-old work and a brand new work that was forged a few months ago. He knew, and he chose to stay silent for the sake of the commission."

She stood up, walked to the photo of a row of masks hanging on a clothesline in the secret workshop, her finger stopped at the delicately painted mask. "This is what worries me the most. This skill is not Uncle Tuyen's - although he is good, but after twenty-two years of not practicing continuously, the skill is definitely somewhat lost. As for this, the eye drawing is almost perfect, the color mixing is precise to each layer, only people who practice continuously for many years can achieve that level."

"Do you think there was anyone else in that workshop?" Nhat Vu frowned. "Another artisan? Or..."

"I don't dare think anymore." Uyen Nhi sat down on the chair, holding her head in her hands. "Because every possibility I think of leads to a name I don't want to believe."

Nhat Vu was silent for a moment, observing her with truly worried eyes, no longer the professional curiosity of a journalist, but the concern of a close friend who had accompanied her throughout these nearly two chaotic weeks. "You think of Ms. Nha Uyen, right?"

Uyen Nhi looked up, not denying. "She is the only person, besides me, who was close to both teacher and uncle Tuyen. She is the one who gave the teacher the business card, the one who knew the truth about Cao Xuan Tung for twenty-two years without telling it. If she also knew about this counterfeiting, and also chose to stay silent..."

"You don't have any proof yet." Nhat Vu reminded, his voice gentle but firm. "Don't let your doubts lead you too far before the truth is clear. She may simply not know, like you didn't know, until you happened to see that auction."

Uyen Nhi nodded, but in her heart, the seeds of doubt that had been planted were not easy to remove. She remembered Nha Uyen's slight frown when looking at the business card, remembered the way she answered slowly, weighing each word every time she mentioned Phan Khac Tuyen, as if carefully choosing what to say and what to keep.

She also remembered a small detail that she didn't pay much attention to at that time - the way Nha Uyen said "I will help you find your old address", as if she did not know where Tuyen was now, even though she had previously admitted that she had a debt of gratitude for more than twenty years to the student who was unfairly expelled. Can a person who is so tormented really never once try to contact him, even if just to know how he is living? That question kept lingering in Uyen Nhi's head, not loudly, but persistently like a small grain stuck in a shoe.

"I need more proof." She stood up, her voice regaining some determination. "Before Uncle Tuyen comes back to find me as promised, I need to find out where the money from the sold goods has gone. If there is a cash flow larger than the amount Ho Bao Ky paid to Uncle Tuyen, there must be someone else who is enjoying a larger share."

"I can try contacting some sources in the financial press to see if anyone has ever written about the connection between Indochine and art brokers in Vietnam." Nhat Vu took out his phone and started typing notes. "You can also try to look up whether Doan The Vinh's company has any unusual transactions with any other accounts, although this is a bit difficult because not all journalists have access to bank data."

"Just try it." Uyen Nhi looked out the factory door, where the sky was getting brighter, the dawn dyed the low clouds pink on the horizon of Yen Lieu village. "I'll call Doan The Vinh, try asking a few more questions, see if he reveals anything about the payment. Maybe he doesn't know how big a scam he's helping, and if he knew, maybe he'd be afraid to say more."

The two got to work as soon as the first sunlight shone through the factory door, illuminating the pile of wooden molds still lying on the shelf, waiting for the next pair of hands to pick them up — although at this point, neither of them knew for sure where the story would lead them, or how many more people would be caught up in the web of a secret that had been simmering for more than twenty years.

At noon, Doan The Vinh picked up the phone after three missed calls, his voice clearly alert when he recognized Uyen Nhi's number. She asked directly about how to pay for the "special" shipment, deliberately revealing that she knew more than a normal customer should know. There was a long silence before he answered, his voice losing its initial warmth.

"I only receive the goods and pay cash at the wholesale price to the delivery person. As for the money from the more 'special' batches - those that sell for high prices through foreign channels - I do not handle them directly. Someone else collects and pays separately, not through me." He hesitated, then added, his voice lowered as if he was afraid someone would hear. "You asked too carefully, I'm starting to feel uneasy. Who are you to know so much?"

Uyen Nhi did not answer directly, just thanked her and hung up, her heart beating fast because of a detail that had just been confirmed: there was another layer of intermediaries, completely separate from Doan The Vinh and perhaps even Tuyen, in charge of paying for the highest value shipments — a part that she suspected would lead directly to the real mastermind behind the entire ring.

She told Nhat Vu as soon as he returned to the factory after visiting a few acquaintances working in the field of import and export of handicrafts. He sat down, quickly typed a few lines into the notebook that was almost full of text, his expression pensive.

"If there is a separate payment intermediary layer for high-value goods, it is likely to avoid large cash flows flowing directly through a small store like Doan The Vinh's, easily being noticed by tax authorities or banks." Nhat Vu spoke, his voice clear and analytical as if he were writing an investigative article. "That method is often seen in organized money laundering or tax evasion cases, not something a single individual could come up with. It makes me believe that behind this there must be someone who understands finance, not just art."

"Ho Bao Ky." Uyen Nhi repeated the name, this time with more certainty than in the morning.

"Maybe." Nhat Vu nodded, but still kept a bit of caution in his voice. "But there could also be another person, standing behind Ho Bao Ky. I've only traced two layers of this line, Uyen Nhi. I'm afraid there's at least one more layer I haven't reached yet."

Uyen Nhi was silent, looking down at the cardboard sheet full of photos in front of her, the arrows she drew with a felt-tip pen connecting the names together - Doan The Vinh, Ho Bao Ky, Phan Khac Tuyen, and a big question mark that she still didn't dare to fill in, even though in her heart she had a hunch that she didn't want to admit. She picked up the marker, hesitated for a long time before finally lightly, very lightly, writing the first three letters of a name in the corner of the cardboard, then immediately covered it with her hand, as if not ready to face her own doubts.