Chapter 9 — The Mask Isn't Real

"Uncle Tuyen."

Uyen Nhi called out, standing straight in the middle of the dirt yard in front of the factory building, no longer hiding in the reeds like the night before. The flashlight in her hand shined straight into the half-closed corrugated iron door, where a streak of yellow light from inside shined out in a long strip on the ground.

There was a rustling sound inside, then silence. Nhat Vu stood a few steps away from her, no longer holding the camera in his hand, just standing there as a fulcrum if the situation worsened.

"I am Vuong Uyen Nhi, a student of artist Dang Ba Tuyen." She spoke louder, trying to keep her voice calm even though her heart was pounding. "I didn't come to report to the police. I just wanted to talk."

There was no response for a while. Then the corrugated iron door creaked, opening a narrow gap, enough for a thin, wrinkled face to appear in the yellow halo behind it. Phan Khac Tuyen stood there, his hands still covered in white paper pulp, his eyes looking at Uyen Nhi with a mixture of alertness and panic.

"Who are you? How do you know this place?" His voice was hoarse and trembling with surprise.

"I found out through clues from the souvenir shop in Hang Nan, and through Mrs. Sau Dien." Uyen Nhi stepped a little closer, her hands raised to chest level, a gesture that showed she was not carrying a weapon or intending to cause harm. "I know what happened twenty-two years ago, Uncle Tuyen. I know you were unfairly fired."

Tuyen's face suddenly changed color, his eyes opened wide, staring at her as if he couldn't believe his ears. "Who told you that?"

"Miss Nha Uyen." Uyen Nhi replied directly. "She told me about Cao Xuan Tung, about the batch of glue that was mixed with the wrong recipe, about him being unfairly blamed while no one really knew who did it."

Tuyen stood still, her hand covered with paper pulp clenching the corrugated iron door frame so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Something in his eyes broke — not anger, but a pain that had been suppressed for more than twenty years that was now suddenly named.

"Twenty-two years." He repeated, his voice choked. "For twenty-two years, I've been known as the one who ruined a big contract, the one who nearly bankrupted the factory, the one who was chased away by the teacher I respected the most without giving an explanation. Now you tell me, as simple as that, that it's not my fault?"

"I'm sorry for being this late." Uyen Nhi said, her voice was equally choked. "But you need to know, Uncle Tuyen — that doesn't mean what's happening here is right."

Tuyen turned her head to look into the factory, where the yellow light was still shining, where fake masks were hanging on the clothesline, waiting to dry. When he turned back to look at Uyen Nhi, his eyes had changed, no longer the initial panic, but a deep fatigue, as if he had been waiting for this moment for a long time, even though he was always afraid of it.

"Did you know my son has kidney disease?" He asked, his voice monotonous as if recounting a long-accepted truth. "Three dialysis sessions a week, each time several million dong in hospital fees. My wife left because she couldn't stand the poverty. I worked at many jobs for more than ten years, none of which was enough to support my children through dialysis season after dialysis season. Then someone came to me, saying they needed skilled people to make handicrafts for export, paying three times the salary of other places."

"Ho Bao Ky." Uyen Nhi said, not a question.

Tuyen nodded slowly, seemingly not surprised that she already knew that name. "At first it was just making small, cheap breeds, selling them to tourists through a few souvenir shops. I didn't think there was anything wrong - it was the job I was taught, I was just using it to live, to raise my children. But then he started asking me to make more sophisticated items, offering to pay ten or twenty times more, saying it was to sell to foreign collectors. I didn't ask carefully what labels they put on my products. I just needed money, do you understand? I needed it. money so my child can live."

"But I know they're putting your teacher's name on those things." Uyen Nhi said, her voice was not reproachful but resolute. "I'm the only one who still knows the old crescent moon mark. I deliberately engraved it, so those fakes look more real."

Tuyen was silent for a long time, looking down at his hands covered in paper pulp, as if he was seeing everything he had sacrificed there. "At first I told myself it was just a way to commemorate my profession, to preserve something of the best years of my life. But you're right. I knew what I was doing. I just chose not to think about it."

"My son is fourteen years old this year." He looked up, his eyes both pleading and desperate. "If I stop now, I don't know where I'll get the money for next month's dialysis."

Uyen Nhi stood still, feeling her heart torn between two sides — the truth about the profession she had to protect, and a person standing before her, not a simple bad guy, but a desperate father, a victim of old injustice who was making himself a part of the new injustice.

She looked around the dirt yard, the flashlight scanned several stacks of industrial pulp sacks stacked in the corner of the wall, an old bicycle stood next to it, the basket still hung with a faded blue children's helmet - perhaps belonging to his son, the rare times he took him to school before this job took up most of his time and energy. That small, simple scene made her see more clearly the thin line between a normal father and a link in an international fraud ring - that line, she realized, was not always determined by human nature, but was often forced by circumstances to the point where there was no other choice.

"I haven't decided what to do yet." She said, as honestly as she could. "But I need to know the whole truth first. Who painted those exquisite masks, Uncle Tuyen? I see there are at least two different skills in this workshop. You can't make them all by yourself in such large quantities."

Tuyen's eyes wavered slightly, a clear hesitation passed before he answered. "You asked that question, I can't answer right now. Not because I don't believe you, but because... there are things related to someone else, someone who, if I tell them, might hurt more than you think."

"Who is it?" Uyen Nhi asked urgently, but Tuyen took a step back, her hand tightly grasping the edge of the corrugated iron door.

"Give me time." He said, his voice both pleading and determined. "Three days. I promise to find you and tell you everything, more complete than what I just said. But not here, not tonight. I need to arrange a few things first."

"Do you promise not to run away?" Uyen Nhi asked, her voice both worried and wary.

"I still have my child here." Tuyen looked at her, his eyes for the first time during the conversation shining with something close to absolute sincerity. "I have nowhere to hide, Miss Uyen Nhi. I just need time to do the right thing, in a way that will least hurt the people I still care about."

He closed the door, slowly, his last eyes looking at Uyen Nhi through the narrowing crack in the door as if trying to remember her face, the face of a person who resembled the old teacher he had respected and resented for twenty-two years.

Uyen Nhi stood there for a long time after the door was completely closed, the flashlight in her hand gradually lowered, illuminating a trembling streak of light on the ground. Nhat Vu walked next to her, put his hand on her shoulder, said nothing, just stood there with her in the silence of the night on the reed grass, where the radio sound from inside the factory had completely turned off, leaving only the sound of the wind whispering through the white reeds under the crescent moonlight.

"Do you believe he will keep his word?" Nhat Vu asked softly, when they both turned and walked back to the trail leading to the place where the car was hidden.

"I don't know." Uyen Nhi replied, her voice tired. "But I trust the way he looks at me when talking about his son. Those are not the eyes of a professional scammer, Nhat Vu. They are the eyes of a person who has run out of options, trying to find the least bad way out among the bad ways out."

They walked in silence the rest of the way, with only the sound of wheels rolling on the rough dirt road and the chirping of insects in the night. Uyen Nhi looked back one last time, seeing that the lights in the factory had completely turned off, leaving only thick darkness covering the entire row of old houses amidst a vast sea of reeds, as if the whole story that had just happened was just a flickering dream in the middle of a hot summer night.