Chapter 3 — The One Who Counts Bridges

The smell of damp iron under Bridge Number Seven was so strong that Linh An tasted it on the tip of her tongue. Khai went first, along the dirt path only wide enough for one person, holding a flashlight to shine on the moss-covered pillars. Overhead, trucks pass continuously, each time the wheel touches a joint, a pounding sound travels down like a hammer hitting the hull of a boat.

“Is this way still usable?” Linh An asked.

“If you ask according to records, it doesn't exist.”

“I asked after you.”

“My legs have been gone for fifteen years.”

Khai stopped in front of a chain-locked screen door. Next to the lock is a black painted mark consisting of twelve strokes. He didn't touch it, just took the wire cutters from his tool bag.

“Are you going to break the lock?”

"No. This lock is a removed lock. The chain is still there, the lock is open."

Sure enough, when he pushed the chain away, the screen door opened. The inside of the lock has fresh scratches, the metal is brighter than the rust. The rear passage leads into a low chamber where water from a side channel flows under the steel floor. A warning sign tilted on the wall, the letters almost peeled off: "No unauthorized entry."

“This warehouse belongs to Cau Moc joint venture?” Linh An asked.

"Previously part of the maintenance team. After the project received the site, they surrounded it."

“Why did they leave the door open?”

Khai shined the light on the floor. There is a streak of rubber running from the outside in, with a small triangle clearly printed on the heel. The same symbol appeared in the coordinate table yesterday.

“It's not like they left it open,” he said. “Someone else wants us in.”

Inside the compartment, steel beams run parallel to the water surface. Linh An took a distance measuring device and determined the length of each segment. Eight sections, each a little more than three meters, connect from the main bridge abutment to the stone steps at the market. This system is not enough for the truck, but the railing is still intact, the floor only has a few sagging panels.

Khai knelt down and used a screwdriver to pry off a piece of paint from the edge of the beam. Below is white handwriting: "Seven - human path".

“Who wrote?”

“Your father's team.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm the paint mixer.”

Linh An took photos. In the frame, the symbol marking the bridge span is less than an arm's length away from the writing. A new black streak covered the old number, but the paint layer was not completely covered. She adjusted the contrast on the camera and saw a number 13 below.

“Records say Bridge Seven has twelve spans.”

"I know."

“The thirteenth beat is this?”

"No. This section is a connecting road. The thirteenth span is under the north abutment."

“So there are two missing in the file.”

Khai touched the edge of the beam, where a piece of steel was cut. “Someone removed the ciphertext.”

The sound of an engine rang out outside. Car lights swept through the screen door. Khai turned off the flashlight and pulled Linh An close to the wall. They heard the sound of shoes walking on the dirt road, then the sound of someone calling.

"There's a new sign here. No one seen."

The voice wasn't loud, but the tight compartment made it echo clearly. Linh An recognized that it was Dang Sang, the leader of the construction site protection team she had met at the meeting. He has a way of pronouncing each word as if he were reading a report.

“I told you to check under the abutment too.” Another voice answered on Sang's phone. "Tomorrow the door will be covered with concrete. There's nothing left to find."

Khai looked at Linh An and put a finger to his lips. She recorded with her phone, but the battery was only eight percent left.

Morning knocked on the screen door. "If anyone is inside, get out. This is a restricted area."

Khai whispered: "The back way."

He led her through the dark compartment, to a concrete step protruding from the abutment. Below the steps is a side canal with murky water flowing fast. On the opposite side, there is a narrow gap leading to the market, but between them and the slot is a trash net.

“Can't go through there,” Linh An said.

"I'm not planning on going. I'm planning on waiting."

“Wait what?”

Khai pointed to the red valve next to the wall. "The outlet. If outsiders open the southern drain, water will rise in the compartment. I don't want anyone here in the morning."

As if to demonstrate, a bang rang out. Water from the pipe overflowed the trench, the water level around their shoes increased centimeter by centimeter. The morning outside is trying to force them out by flushing, not a safety check.

Khai turned back to the door, using his shoulder to lean against the frame. "When I open it, you run straight through the gap to the right. Don't look down."

"No. I'll open it and we'll go together."

“You are lighter, your slit is narrow.”

“I know how much I weigh.”

"I didn't say weight. I said you don't have a knee injury."

The water reached my ankles. From the outside, Sang hit the net hard. "Leave! If you get hurt, we are not responsible."

Khai laughed dryly. “That's their favorite sentence.”

He used an iron rod to insert it into the hinge socket, loosening it just enough. The door vibrates but does not open. Linh An shined a light on the underside and saw a steel wire connecting the lock and handle. She realized this was a temporary structure, not a construction site lock.

"Khai, don't use it. This wire is connected to the valve."

“If cut?”

“The secondary exhaust door can be opened.”

"Maybe?"

“I'm guessing.”

Khai looked at her, then handed her the pliers. “So guess quickly.”

Linh An followed the rope underwater with her hands. It runs into a small electrical box mounted at the base of the beam, inside which are three cables: blue, black and red. The red thread has been connected with tape, newer than the other two threads. She remembered the old diagram: the safety valve closed when the power went out, not opened. But someone reversed the polarity to turn the outlet into a trap.

“Cut the red thread,” she said. “Do not cut the steel wire.”

Khai followed. The water stopped rising. From outside, Sang cursed, then the sound of footsteps running away. Only the sound of cars on the bridge and the breathing of two people remained.

They exited through the gap on the right after Khai removed the net. The market under the bridge was clearing out its goods, no one noticed two knee-deep people crawling out from next to the wall. The sugarcane juice seller looked at them and asked if they were the sewer repair team. Khai replied "almost like that", then pulled Linh An behind a fish counter.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“No. Miss?”

“Lost phone recorder.”

Khai looked at the phone in her hand. The screen is off, water is standing under the glass. “Your injuries are electronics.”

“The recording has Bright.”

"It's okay if you don't have one. Do you still remember what he said?"

“Remembering by memory is not enough to testify.”

“But enough to know that tomorrow we can't pretend there's no door.”

He called Tung and told him to bring dry clothes to the workshop. Linh An took the opportunity to take more photos from the market. On the bridge abutment, black paint marks extend into a series: 1, 2, 3, space, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Number 4 is covered with a new patch of gray paint. Below the number 13 is an arrow pointing to the market floor.

“What is number four?” she asked.

Khai looked up. “The bridge collapsed that year.”

Linh An felt the sound of the market around her suddenly become smaller. She had heard the story many times, but never thought that a splotch of paint could point to it like a broken bone.

“Which copy did my father sign?”

“Preliminary measurements.”

“Is it written this way?”

"Have."

“So who deleted it?”

Khai did not answer. He looked to the end of the market, where a white pickup truck was parked. Dang Morning stood next to the car, talking to a person wearing a blue shirt. The burn mark on the person's left hand appeared when he brought the phone to his ear.

Linh An recognized the unknown face in the recording because she had never met him. She recognized him by the way he stood: slightly tilted, always with his left hand in his pocket, as if trying to cover something that had become a sign.

“The one who delivered the memory card,” she said.

Khai turned around, but the car had already started. It retreated through the narrow path, avoiding some fish baskets, then disappeared behind the row of houses.

That night, Linh An reported to the cooperative that she and Khai discovered a locked maintenance entrance, with no mention of the water leak. Diem read the report, changed one word "could cause danger" to "has caused danger" and asked her to sign.

“You need to write it right,” Diem said. “If not, someone else will write it instead.”

Khai did not sign. He said he had left the partnership and did not want his name to appear in the official records without consulting the old crew. Linh An does not force. She understood that the words of a suspended person did not carry the same weight as the words of a management team.

When she returned to the restaurant under the Old Wharf, her mother was pouring water into the pot. She looked at her wet knees and asked why her clothes were dirty.

“I'm going down to Bridge Seven.”

“Who told you to go?”

"Bridge."

Van placed the ladle firmly into the water tank. “Don't joke.”

“Do you know how to maintain that?”

"Know."

“Have you ever passed by?”

“His whole team goes.”

“Why are there no records?”

Van turned to face the kitchen. “Records come in many types.”

“And mother's testimony also has many types?”

She stood still. Linh An saw a small arc-shaped scar on her mother's wrist, something she had never noticed. Twelve years ago, my mother said it was a burn from a pot of water. The scar has the same curvature as the paint mark under the bridge.

“I listened to the tape,” Linh An said. “Mom calls me An.”

Van sat down on the plastic chair, placing her hands on her knees. “There are things that cannot be understood once heard.”

“Then tell me a second time.”

“Not today.”

"When?"

“When you stop thinking you're investigating your father.”

Linh An took out a photo of the number four mark from her pocket. She placed it in front of her mother. Van looked for a while, not touching the photo.

“Are they still counting?” she asked.

"Who?"

“People who don't want to forget.”

Her mother stood up and took an old tin box from the drawer. Inside was not a file but a broken piece of black chalk, the surface shiny from heavy use. Van placed it next to the photo and closed the lid of the box.

“Your father told me to keep it until someone asks the right question.”

“I'm asking.”

“That's not right.”

Outside the shop, a motorbike drove slowly by, its headlights scanning the corrugated iron wall. On the wall, the shadows of people standing under the bridge fall into connecting spans. Linh An watched her mother's shadow stretch and then break at the edge of the door.

That night, she reopened the coordinates table. Number four didn't lead to Bridge Seven like she thought. It leads to a small house marked in the land data layer as "public land", but in fact there is one person living: Mr. Bay Nhuan.

Linh An wrote the address in the book. Below, she added a message from an unfamiliar phone number: "People who count prayers don't count lives."

The next morning, she will go to Mr. Bay's house. But before shutting down, a new message line appeared on the construction site data layer:

“Bridge Number Seven connector — dismantling completed.”

The updated time is 9:17 p.m. tonight, even though the clock only reads 8:54 p.m.