Chapter 14 — The Switched Heiress: The Battle for Wealth

Ton Khanh Thi had not gone to school for two weeks since the night of the fateful party. She locked herself in her room most of the time, only going out when absolutely necessary, avoiding all calls from friends, who now, she was sure, just wanted to ask about the scandal that was flooding social networking sites and student forums.

She lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling, reviewing each memory of her childhood years - the evenings when her mother read stories to her before bed, the times the whole family went on trips together, the parent-teacher conferences where both parents were present, proudly sitting in the front row. All of those memories now had a different tone, tinged with doubt, making her no longer sure what was real, what was just part of a big secret that her mother had kept hidden all her life.

"I know mom tried to protect me," Khanh Thi once said to Bich Van during a rare time mother and daughter sat down to talk frankly after a party, her voice filled with tension. "But I still don't understand, why could you live eighteen years with such a big secret without telling me once? I'm your daughter, don't you trust me that much?"

Bich Van tried to explain that she did so not because she did not trust her daughter, but because she was afraid that a child, no matter how smart and mature, would be unable to keep such a heavy secret for many years without revealing any signs, which could cause her entire plan to observe and collect evidence to collapse before it could be completed. But that explanation, no matter how reasonable, was still not enough to completely ease the pain and confusion in the eighteen-year-old girl's heart.

Meanwhile, not far away, in the small apartment where Sai Diem Thu and Han Nghi were temporarily living after leaving the old house - where a crowd of reporters was still waiting day and night for an answer or an exploitable image - Han Nghi was also experiencing the darkest days of her life.

She had to temporarily quit school after videos recording the shocking moment at the party spread across social networking platforms, accompanied by countless malicious and mocking comments about her situation. Her closest friends also began to keep their distance, not knowing how to treat her in the midst of such a complicated story. She felt like a reluctant supporting actress in a play in which she was never asked whether she wanted to participate or not, a chess piece being pushed around according to their wishes by the adults around her.

"I don't blame my mother for giving birth to me in difficult circumstances," Han Nghi said to Diem Thu one evening, her voice was tired, almost exhausted after many days of not sleeping well. "But I blame you for turning me into a tool for a conspiracy without my knowledge. For eighteen years, I always thought I was your biological daughter, I was proud of it, and now I discover it was all a lie built from the very night I was born."

Diem Thu covered her face, tears rolling down endlessly. "I'm sorry, Han Nghi. I don't intend to turn you into a tool. I just want to give you a better life, a future without having to struggle with debt like I did. I was wrong, I knew I was wrong from that night, but I can't go back in time to fix it."

The conversation between mother and daughter ended in tears and heavy silence, no one could find words enough to ease the pain that was tearing them both apart.

One evening, Khanh Thi went to the kitchen to get water and saw her father, Ton Hoai Nam, sitting alone in the office, the table lamp shining on his unusually pensive face. She stood outside the door for a while, hesitating whether to go in and ask or not, because over the past few days, she hadn't really had a chance to talk to her father in depth about what was going on, partly because her father always seemed busy with work, and partly because she herself wasn't ready to face any conversation related to the family scandal.

"Dad are you okay?" she finally spoke, entering the room.

Hoai Nam looked up, quickly putting on a familiar gentle smile on his face, although there was a quick moment of confusion before that Khanh Thi, in her own confused state, was not alert enough to recognize. "I'm fine, just reviewing some work reports. How are you doing, have you eaten enough? I've seen you locked in your room these past few days."

"I don't know," Khanh Thi sighed, sitting down in the chair opposite her father's desk. "I still can't accept that mom hid this from me for eighteen years. Did you know in advance? Did you know that mom secretly did those things?"

There was a moment of silence that lasted longer than usual before Hoai Nam responded, his voice still maintaining almost perfect composure. "I'm just as surprised as you are. Your mother is a very private person about many things, even with me. But you know, no matter what happens, she always does everything because she wants to protect you, that's what I firmly believe."

Khanh Thi nodded, her shoulders relaxed a bit, without the slightest doubt that the man sitting across from her, with that warm voice and sympathetic eyes, was the one who sowed the seeds of the entire tragedy that her family was suffering.

A few days later, a chance event brought Khanh Thi and Han Nghi face to face for the first time since the night of the party — in the waiting room of a medical testing center, where they were both asked to take an additional round of DNA testing at the request of the lawyers representing both families, to further strengthen the legality of the entire case before the next steps could be taken.

The two girls sat a few chairs apart in a quiet waiting room, no one took the initiative to talk, the atmosphere was tense to the point of suffocation. Khanh Thi glanced at Han Nghi from afar, recognizing some familiar features on the other girl's face - perhaps because they both carry a part of their blood that was indirectly related to the common event, although not in the way that anyone thought.

"You must really hate me," Han Nghi suddenly spoke up, breaking the silence, her voice somewhat bitter. "Because my mother tried to take away your position."

Khanh Thi turned to look, unable to hide her surprise at that straightforward statement. "I don't know how I should feel," she replied, her tone neutral. "All I know is that my whole life just turned upside down overnight, and I'm still trying to figure out how to accept it."

"At least you can still live in a familiar house, with the mother you always trust," Han Nghi said, her voice choked. "As for me, I just found out that my mother lied to me for eighteen years, turning me into a tool for a plot I never knew about. At least you can keep your truth."

That sentence made Khanh Thi pause, a complicated feeling rising in her heart - not quite sympathy, but also no longer the simple hatred she thought she would feel when facing this girl. "I also just found out my mother has been keeping a big secret from me for eighteen years," she said, her voice fading. "Maybe we are both just victims in a game played by adults, neither of us had the right to choose in the first place."

But even so, the distance between the two girls still cannot be erased after just a short conversation. When Han Nghi's name was called into the testing room, she stood up and glanced at Khanh Thi one last time before walking away, her eyes still filled with caution and caution.

"I hope you find peace soon," Han Nghi said, her voice no longer as bitter as before, but not warm enough to be called friendly.

Khanh Thi nodded slightly, did not respond verbally, just watched the girl's figure disappear behind the laboratory door. She sat alone in the waiting room, wondering whether between the two people who were destined to exchange lives from the first night of their birth, would they ever be able to find some common ground, some understanding, beyond the calculations and lies that the previous generation had sown in their lives.

Outside, the Saigon summer was still as hot as eighteen years ago, but this time, there were not just two women standing in the middle of a fateful night, but four people - two mothers and two daughters - caught up in a whirlpool of secrets, betrayals, and a journey to find the truth that was still very long ahead.