Chapter 11 — The Mask Isn't Real

The knock on the door rang out at dusk, three short, evenly spaced sounds — not the hasty knock of a delivery person, nor the familiar rhythm of Nha Uyen or Nhat Vu.

Uyen Nhi put the half-eaten bowl of rice on the table and walked out to open the door. Phan Khac Tuyen stood there, a faded canvas bag slung over his shoulder, his face more haggard than when he met two days ago, but his eyes seemed much calmer, like someone who had just made a difficult decision.

"Can you let me in?" He asked, his voice hoarse. "I've thought it over. I'll tell you everything."

Uyen Nhi nodded, invited him into the workshop, and poured him a cup of hot tea. Tuyen sat down on an old stool, looked around the workshop - rows of wooden molds on shelves, drying poles for colored paper, a photo of Mr. Tuyen hanging on the wall - his eyes stopped for a long time on that photo, a complex emotion flashed across his thin face.

"The workshop is still the same as when I was here." He spoke softly, almost whispering. "The only difference is that now he's not sitting in the corner anymore."

He looked around one more time, stopping at the colorful wooden table - where he himself used to sit for hours when he was young, practicing how to mix the right color of ripe gac, how to stir sticky rice paste to just the right consistency. There was nostalgia appearing on his thin face, mixed with unconcealed guilt when he realized he was sitting in this exact place, in a situation that twenty-two years ago he could never have imagined.

"Please tell me." Uyen Nhi sat down opposite her, her voice was gentle but could not hide her impatience.

Tuyen took a sip of tea, holding the tea cup with both hands as if to get the warmth to calm herself. "After being kicked out, I wandered around for many years, doing various jobs to make a living, but never really gave up this job. There are nights when I secretly sit and make a few small masks, just to hold the brush myself, to remember the feeling of being trusted by my teacher. Three years ago, when my son started having to undergo dialysis regularly, I started bringing some of the homemade breeds to the market to sell, earning some extra money."

"Then Ho Bao Ky came to you?"

"Not directly at first." Tuyen shook her head. "An acquaintance introduced me to a dealer selling handicrafts, saying he could sell them at good prices to foreign customers. I sold for a few months and earned much more money than before, enough to cover part of my hospital bills. Then that dealer gradually took me to make more sophisticated items at higher prices, and finally introduced me to Ho Bao Ky in person, about more than a year ago."

"Who was the acquaintance who introduced you to that initial broker?" Uyen Nhi asked, trying to keep her voice calm even though her heart was beating much faster.

Tuyen was silent for a long time, her eyes avoided looking directly at Uyen Nhi, just like the way Mrs. Sau Dien had described. "I don't want to say it out loud, Ms. Uyen Nhi. Not because I want to protect myself, but because that person, I believe, didn't know things would go this far. That person simply wanted to help me have a way to live, like a way to atone for an old incident."

Uyen Nhi felt her stomach tighten. She had already guessed the answer, but hearing it confirmed indirectly like that still stunned her.

"It's Miss Nha Uyen, right?"

Tuyen looked up, her eyes both surprised and somewhat relieved that she didn't have to say that name herself. "Have you guessed it yet?"

"I doubt it." Uyen Nhi clasped her hands on her knees. "But I need to hear it from you myself, to be sure I'm not accusing anyone wrongly."

"She came to me about four years ago, after hearing about my situation through a few mutual acquaintances." Tuyen continued, her voice slow as if trying to choose each word correctly. "She didn't say why, she just said she wanted to help because she liked me back when I was at the factory. She introduced me to the first dealer, an acquaintance in the souvenir trade, completely legal at that time - just selling cheap papier-mâché breeds to tourists, nothing wrong."

"So when did things turn into intentional counterfeiting, putting your teacher's name on the goods?"

"That was when Ho Bao Ky appeared, more than a year ago." Tuyen's face darkened when mentioning that name. "He came to me through the same broker that Ms. Nha Uyen introduced, offering to pay many times higher price, but asked me to make 'artisan style' products, as realistic as possible, and he himself took care of the paperwork and 'origin records' to sell through international auctions. I knew it was wrong at the time, Ms. Uyen Nhi. But the amount he offered was enough for me to cover my child's hospital bills for a whole year, instead of having to run around for help." every week like before. I chose to turn a blind eye.""

"Does Miss Nha Uyen know about your work with Ho Bao Ky?"

Tuyen shook her head, but her expression was not entirely certain. "I didn't tell her about that part. But... I can't say she's completely ignorant. One time, about half a year ago, she called to ask if I was okay. She sounded unusually worried, as if she'd heard something. I reassured her that everything was fine, and she didn't ask any more."

Uyen Nhi sat quietly, trying to rearrange all the pieces in her mind. Nha Uyen - the woman she trusted the most after her teacher passed away, the one who always appeared when she needed advice, a shoulder to lean on - turned out to have silently opened the first door that led Tuyen down this path, although it may not have been intentional, although it might have stemmed from a sincere torment. But the truth was still the truth: a seemingly harmless introduction became the stepping stone for an entire international fraud ring.

She remembered every small gesture of Nha Uyen over the past two years - how she always found an excuse to visit the factory right when the factory was in the most difficulty, how she silently introduced a few new customers whenever orders were sparse, as if trying to make up for something she had never known. Now, all those kind gestures had a completely different meaning - not simply the affection of an old friend, but perhaps also a way to ease the burden of conscience that had followed her for more than two decades.

"One more thing." Tuyen said, her voice suddenly lowered, her eyes showing hesitation. "About the person who painted the delicate masks you saw in the workshop that day — it wasn't me. I was only in charge of the paper backing, shaping, and engraving. The colorist, the one who did the most delicate steps, was someone else."

"Who is that?" Uyen Nhi held her breath and waited.

Tuyen looked at her for a long time, his lips pursed as if considering one last time before saying something he knew would change everything. "I'll tell you, but not today. You need to mentally prepare yourself first, because I'm afraid the truth will hurt you more than anything you just heard."

He stood up, put the canvas bag back on his shoulder, walked out the workshop door, stopped for a moment and looked at the stack of wooden molds on the shelf as if saying goodbye to a lost part of his life. "In three days, I will take you to meet that person in person. Then you will understand why I need time to prepare, not only for you, but for myself as well."

The door closed behind him, leaving Uyen Nhi alone in the quiet workshop, Tuyen's cup of tea was still steaming on the table, and in her mind, the question "who is that" kept echoing, unable to find an answer.

She sat for a long time after Tuyen was gone, watching the tea cup cool down on the table, looking at the space where he had just sat. There was something in the way he spoke about the second person—not contempt, not resentment, but an almost protective concern, as if he were trying to shield that person from some injury greater than what he himself was suffering. That made Uyen Nhi even more uneasy, because in her limited experience in an investigation she had never been trained to conduct, she had learned one thing: when someone tries to protect another person so thoroughly, it is often because the connection between them is much deeper than words can express.

She stood up, cleaned up the tea cup, turned off the factory lights, but couldn't sleep that night. She lay on the wooden bench, eyes wide open, staring at the tiled roof, counting her own breaths, trying to mentally prepare for the next three days - three days that she had a feeling would bring the final answers to all the questions that had haunted her for nearly two weeks.