Chapter 8 — The Mask Isn't Real

The bush of reeds that was taller than her head cut into Uyen Nhi's hand with a gentle sting as she crouched low to squeeze through, her eyes never taking her eyes off the yellow light shining from the crack in the door of a row of corrugated iron factories about fifty meters away.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" She whispered, turning to Nhat Vu who was crawling next to her, her long lens camera already installed, carefully covered with a piece of dark cloth to avoid reflected light.

"Three motorbikes parked in the yard, a small truck covered with a tarpaulin, and bright lights at nine o'clock at night in the middle of an abandoned factory area." Nhat Vu replied softly, his eyes still glued to the viewfinder. "If it's not here, I don't know where else."

They had been observing since the morning, going around the area on motorbikes like two people going fishing along the river, memorizing the terrain, the entrance and exit routes, and choosing this exact bush of reeds as a hiding spot for the evening - close enough to observe, far enough away to not be detected if someone stepped out to smoke or take out the trash.

In the afternoon, before it was completely dark, they sat in a small restaurant in a nearby village, pretending to be visitors and asking the owner about the abandoned factory along the river. The shop owner, a talkative middle-aged woman, said that area used to be an old brick factory, bankrupt for more than a decade. Recently, someone rented a few blocks of the house, saying it was to store construction materials, but "I didn't see any bricks and sand being transported, I only saw small trucks coming out at night, sometimes during the day the doors were closed, no one answered when I called." That detail made Uyen Nhi even more convinced that she had found the right place, and made her feel even more uneasy the whole time she cycled around the field to approach the reed grass from the back, avoiding the main road where people might notice.

From this position, through the gap in the loosely assembled corrugated iron sheet, Uyen Nhi can see a corner inside the workshop - a row of long wooden tables close to the wall, on which are displayed a series of opaque white plaster molds, completely different from the glossy brown hand-carved wooden molds she uses every day. A middle-aged man was bending over to pour the paper pulp mixture into the mold, his movements were fast and skillful, but lacking the slow meticulousness that she was used to — as if he was racing against time rather than taking care of every detail.

"It's not a traditional paper mache process." She whispered to Nhat Vu, her eyes not leaving the scene inside. "Look at how they use pre-cast plaster molds and pour industrial paper pulp in at once, instead of pasting each layer of old newspaper with sticky glue like the real thing. This style is five or six times faster, but the quality will never reach the durability and soul of hand-made products."

Nhat Vu's lens quietly took pictures continuously, recording every possible angle of the internal production process. He stopped at another corner of the workshop, where a row of finished masks hung on a clothesline, waiting for the final coat of paint to dry. "Uyen Nhi, look here."

She inched closer to the lens, looking through the camera's preview screen. Dozens of masks hung around, in all shapes and sizes — Uncle Cuoi, Sister Hang, Mr. Dia, unicorn heads — but what sent chills down her spine was not the quantity, but the clear difference in quality between the masks hanging next to each other. Some of the drawings are clumsy and stiff, clearly mass-produced for cheap tourists. But in between, a few others have amazingly delicate drawings, almost indistinguishable from the real work at a glance.

"There were at least two different people drawing." She spoke softly, her voice shaking because of this discovery. "One is a poor painter, probably just an assistant worker at the market. But the other... is almost as skilled as my teacher."

At that moment, the workshop door opened, a stream of golden light spilled out into the yard. A man walked out, thin, salt-and-pepper hair, holding an unlit cigarette in his hand. He stood leaning against the door frame, looking out at the vast darkness of the reed lawn, his face looking tired under the light shining from inside.

Uyen Nhi held her breath, lying closer to the ground, her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn't see the man's face clearly from this distance in the twilight, but the way he stood, the way he bowed his head to light a cigarette with one hand cupped to block the wind - there was something strangely familiar, a look reminiscent of the way teachers still stand when they need to think about a difficult decision.

"Is that him?" Nhat Vu whispered, the camera lens was pointed straight at the man, taking pictures continuously even though the light was low, causing the photos to be at risk of blurring.

"I'm not sure, it's too dark to see my face clearly." Uyen Nhi replied, her eyes still glued to that figure. "But if it's really Uncle Tuyen, then..."

The man took a long drag of his cigarette, the small flame flickered and then went out in the darkness, then he turned and walked back inside, closing the door behind him. Just in the moment the door closed, a night breeze suddenly blew through the reeds, making the white reeds sway, and Uyen Nhi heard, very softly, the sound of an old radio coming from the workshop - a familiar folk song, a song that teachers often sing when sitting and mixing colors in the late afternoons at the Moon Painting workshop.

She felt her eyes sting, not because of the reeds, but because of a feeling that was hard to name — anger, sadness, and confusion, not knowing how she should feel about someone who was borrowing the same familiar melody of the past as the basis for her present work of deception.

She remembered the late afternoons at the Moon Painting workshop, when sunlight filtered through the wooden door and dyed the whole house yellow, the teachers mixed colors while softly singing, their voices hoarse with age but still maintaining the correct rhythm. She never thought that one day she would stand in the middle of a strange field of reed grass, hearing that same melody coming from a place that was producing items impersonating the person who taught it to her for the first time.

"I should retreat." Nhat Vu whispered, his hand already starting to collect the camera. "I have enough photos as initial evidence, and if I stay any longer, the risk of being discovered will increase."

Uyen Nhi nodded, but did not rush to move immediately. She looked a moment longer at the row of masks hanging on the clothesline, the smiling faces of Uncle Cuoi, the half-painted eyes of Sister Hang, all waiting to dry in a secret workshop in the middle of a deserted reed lawn, bearing a name that did not belong to them.

They gradually backed out of the reeds and followed the small trail back to the place where their motorbike was hidden nearly a kilometer away, taking every step carefully so as not to make any noise. Only when she got in the car and drove a few kilometers away from that area did Uyen Nhi breathe a sigh of relief, her hands still shaking slightly from stress.

"Do you think that's really Uncle Tuyen?" She asked, her voice still breathless.

"I think the possibility is very high." Nhat Vu slowed down the car and glanced at her through the rearview mirror. "But to be sure, we need to see his face clearly, and perhaps talk face to face, not just watch from afar like this."

Uyen Nhi was silent, looking out at the dark road ahead, the motorbike's lights were only enough to clearly illuminate a few meters of potholed asphalt. She thought of the folk song echoing from the factory, thought of the familiar stance of the man lighting a cigarette by the doorframe, and thought of Mrs. Sau Dien's words - "If he does something wrong now, I'm sure there must be a very pressing reason for him to do it."

"Tomorrow night." She said, her voice much more determined. "I'll go back, but this time I won't hide in the reeds. I'll face him directly."

Nhat Vu did not answer immediately, just looked at her for a long time through the rearview mirror before nodding, his eyes both worried and understanding that nothing could stop her anymore.

Returning to a small rented motel in town for convenience, Uyen Nhi sat down and reviewed each photo Nhat Vu had just taken, slowly zooming in on each frame. She paused longest at a photo of a row of masks hanging on a clothesline, where the difference in craftsmanship between the products was clearly visible. A thought began to form in her mind, vague but persistent: if there were indeed two different hands working in that factory, then Phan Khac Tuyen was probably not the only one, and perhaps not the one who decided the scale of this whole line.

She put down the phone and looked out the motel window, where the crescent moon hung in the late summer night sky, almost matching the shape of the secret mark she engraved on each real work. It was a strange coincidence, she thought, that the waning moon was the only image that could distinguish truth from falsehood in this whole tangled story.