Chapter 6 — The Sinner in the Night

Her son is not lost. After listening to Diep Hieu Ninh, tears slid from the corners of his eyes into his hair. She didn't scream and cry, just said hoarsely: "I want to see my child." The nurse pushed the newborn stroller to the bed. The tiny boy slept very soundly, his fingers curled up, like a seed that had just fallen to the ground. Diep Hieu Ninh looked at it for a long time, then reached out and gently touched the baby's face. "It's my child." She said. That day, the hospital opened a blue channel for urgent paternity assessment. Original footprints, umbilical cord blood barcodes, birth records, and midwife signatures in the delivery room were all compared. The midwife proved that when the two babies were born in the delivery room, their identities were correct. The problem occurred after entering the monitoring area. That was also the time when Lam Man Thanh went in alone. In the afternoon, the hospital held an internal announcement. I was temporarily transferred from the night shift to coordinate the investigation. Not suspension, but protection. This difference is due to Co Hoai Am's determination to write it down in his notes. “The person who discovers and reports the risk, cannot be considered the risk itself,” she said. When I heard this sentence, my eye sockets almost heated up. Having worked as a junior nurse for so many years, I understand all too well the helplessness at the grassroots level. When something happens, the first person to be pushed out is usually not the decision maker, but the person closest to the scene. Because our positions are low, because we don't have the right to speak up. This time, I almost became the most convenient substitute goat. Zhou Nghien Than's office was sealed. Police recovered many documents from his computer and phone. The conversation history between him and Lam Man Thanh is much earlier than I imagined. When Lam Man Thanh was five months old, he knew the baby could be his. She asked: "If the baby is born, will you divorce?" He replied: "Yes, but the house in On Chi's name must be dealt with first. It's a school district house in the old neighborhood, selling enough for us to start over." Lam Man Thanh said: "Will she give it?" Chu Nghien Than replied: "If she doesn't give it, then she has no choice but to give it." There are even earlier records. He once asked a lawyer whether personal inheritance in marriage could be divided or not. The lawyer replied that it was impossible. He asked again, if one party is suspected of committing a crime, after the other party compensates on behalf of it, can they request compensation with assets or not. Looking here, my hands and feet are cold. It turned out that this chess game did not start when Lam Man Thanh's child was discovered to be sick. It happened every time he forced me to sign a divorce agreement, every time he humiliated me about not being able to have children, every time he forced me to collapse and then recorded my cries. He is not disappointed, he is gathering “I am not mentally stable” material. Lam Man Thanh's phone also had a recorded call between her and Chu Nghien Than. She asked: "What if On Chi doesn't enter the monitoring area?" Chu Nghien Than said: "I will call her and ask her to add notes. She always follows the rules, but is also soft-hearted. You cry a few words and she will come in." Lam Man Thanh asked: "What if she discovers something wrong?" He said: "That's better, the more she explains, the more guilty she seems." The person I once loved, yet understood how to destroy me better than a stranger. A week later, Chu Nghien Than asked to meet me. The lawyer advised me to go. "He might talk about real estate or compensation, it's okay to listen, don't meet alone, I'll go with you." I went. In the meeting room, Chu Nghien Than was wearing a gray vest, his beard was unshaven, and his whole body looked like he had aged ten years. He saw me, his eyes immediately turned red. "Chi Chi." I didn't answer. He said in a low voice: “You

I don't want to harm you." I laughed. "You just want me to take the blame, be unemployed, go to jail, be chased by the patient's family, and then give the house to you?" His face turned white. "At that time you were forced to the limit, Lam Man Thanh was pregnant, her child was sick, you really didn't know what to do." I asked: "So my life should be taken away to relieve you?" He shut up. A long time later, he said: "After all, we have been husband and wife for four years. You wrote a letter asking for relief, and I agreed to leave empty-handed." "My mother's house was originally not mine." His eyes flashed. I stood up. "Chu Nghien Than, stop using the words husband and wife to make me nauseous." 9 The day the results of the paternity test were released, it rained all day. Lam Man Thanh's biological father is Chu Nghien Than. The identity of Diep Hieu Ninh's child was confirmed to be correct and was returned to her and Tran Lo. Lam Man Thanh's child was also transferred to a higher level hospital for treatment. It's very small. So young that she was completely unaware that adults had done such dirty things because of her. Co Hoai Am said: "The child is not guilty." I nodded. "I know." He was just brought into this world, then pushed by his biological parents to the table of crime. Finally, the hospital made a public announcement.