Chapter 4 — The Switched Heiress: The Battle for Wealth

Eighteen years later, the banquet hall of the largest five-star hotel in the center of District One was resplendent with crystal lights, bunches of white phalaenopsis orchids were arranged along the red carpeted walkway, and a small chamber orchestra was playing melodious melodies to welcome each guest entering. This was the eighteenth birthday party of Ton Khanh Thi, the only daughter of Chuong Bich Van - Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of Chuong Phat Group, one of the most powerful businesswomen in the city.

Bich Van stood in front of the mirror in her private preparation room, adjusting the teal blue silk ao dai tailored specifically for the occasion, her eyes following her own reflection with an unusual calmness. At the age of forty-two, she still retained the sharp, noble beauty of a woman who had gone through many ups and downs but had never shown her fatigue to others. Today was a special day, not only because her daughter turned eighteen - an important legal milestone that marked her officially becoming an adult with full legal status - but also because, although no one knew, this was also the day Bich Van had been silently preparing for eighteen long years.

"Mom, do I look okay?" Khanh Thi walked into the room, twirling around in a pale yellow evening gown embellished with sparkling stones, her long hair gently curled and falling over her shoulders. The daughter was tall, had a delicate face with characteristic bushy eyebrows and a high straight nose - features that anyone who was observant could recognize were inherited directly from Bich Van.

"You're very beautiful," Bich Van smiled, walking over to fix a strand of her child's hair. Her eyes were so gentle that it was hard to believe that behind that smile was a heavy heart that had been hidden for nearly two decades. "My child is the most beautiful person at the party today."

Khanh Thi smiled brightly, but then her face flashed a bit of thought. "Mom, I still don't understand why you made such a big party just for my eighteenth birthday. Normally you don't like to show off like this."

Bich Van paused for a moment, then quickly regained her familiar composure. "Eighteen years old is an important milestone. You are the future heir of an entire corporation. I want to introduce you to all important partners and shareholders in the most formal way. This is also a way for you to take your first steps into the world that you will later have to shoulder."

That's partly true, but not the whole thing. The fuller truth, what Bich Van could not tell even to her own daughter, was that she had chosen this exact moment - when Khanh Thi had just turned eighteen years old, legally qualified to name property, qualified for her testimony and evidence to be fully recognized before the law - to make public everything she had quietly collected over the past eighteen years, if the situation forced her to do so.

Bich Van learned very early that, during eighteen years of silent observation, she could not find any direct evidence about the motive or who was behind the baby swap in the past. Diem Thu, no matter how close she was to her, always skillfully avoided all questions related to personal finances. There were always reasonable reasons for every unusual expenditure that Trac Minh Thu sometimes discovered through acquaintances at the bank. But recently, in the past few months, Bich Van began to feel a subtle change in Diem Thu's attitude - the probing eyes when mentioning the group's inheritance, the casual questions about Bich Van's health and future plans, and especially the unusual enthusiasm when learning about Khanh Thi's eighteenth birthday party.

The premonition of a mother who had protected a secret for eighteen years told Bich Van that something was about to happen, that the ripe moment that the mastermind had been waiting for all along might be near. So, instead of organizing a small, cozy family party like her daughter wanted, she decided to turn it into a big event, gathering all members of the board of directors, strategic shareholders, and media representatives close to the group - a stage big enough, public enough, so that if anyone intended to take advantage of this occasion to act, they would have to do it in front of everyone, and Bich Van would have all the witnesses, all the evidence needed to counterattack on the spot.

She had spent the previous week with Trac Minh Thu reviewing all the records accumulated over eighteen years - the results of routine DNA tests secretly performed every three years at a reputable laboratory abroad, original medical records from Hong Phuc Obstetrics Hospital that Minh Thu had skillfully obtained a notarized copy of many years ago, and a detailed record of what Bich Van herself had witnessed that summer night eighteen years ago. Everything was neatly arranged in a black leather briefcase, currently resting in her private safe at the office, ready to be brought out at any time necessary.

"Mom, Aunt Thu is here," Khanh Thi shouted as she looked through the window of the preparation room and saw Sai Diem Thu's car just parked in front of the hotel lobby. "She brought along Han Nghi as well."

Bich Van looked out and observed Diem Thu getting out of the car. Her best friend of eighteen years, now in her forties, still retained her charming beauty but was somewhat more austere than her actual age, perhaps because of the years of struggling with life after divorcing her heavily indebted ex-husband. Diem Thu wore a luxurious evening gown, perhaps a gift or a major investment for an occasion she considered the most important in her life. Next to Diem Thu, Sai Han Nghi - the daughter that Diem Thu still firmly believes was a blood descendant of the Chuong family - walked with a confident, almost proud look, completely different from her usual shyness before.

There was something in Diem Thu's eyes as she entered the hotel lobby that made Bich Van even more certain of her hunch. Those were not the eyes of a friend who came to wish her best friend's daughter a happy birthday, but the eyes of a person preparing to enter a battle where she was sure she had victory in her hands.

"Dear daughter," Bich Van held Khanh Thi's hand, her voice suddenly became unusually serious. "No matter what happens today, remember that I love you unconditionally, nothing can change that. Do you believe me?"

Khanh Thi looked at her mother with bewildered eyes, not understanding why her mother said such serious words on her birthday. "Mom, what are you talking about? What's the matter that you have to ask me that question?"

"Nothing," Bich Van smiled, trying to dispel the anxiety rising in her daughter's heart. "I just want you to know that, before entering a new age, a new chapter of life."

On the way to the main lobby, mother and daughter encountered Ton Hoai Nam standing and chatting with a few board members right at the door of the stateroom. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit, with the familiar warm smile of a man who had earned the entire board's absolute trust for nearly twenty years. Seeing his wife and children step out, he proactively separated from the group, approached, and placed his hand on Khanh Thi's shoulder with the affection of a father.

"My daughter today is as beautiful as a princess," Hoai Nam said, her voice warm without any ripples. "Dad arranged for the MC to introduce you in the most formal way, worthy of your position as future heir."

"Thank you, dad," Khanh Thi smiled, leaning her head on her father's shoulder for a moment, completely without the slightest doubt.

Bich Van stood next to her husband, observing her husband with calm eyes on the outside but silently weighing every gesture and every word on the inside. Over the past eighteen years, she had never had any concrete evidence against Hoai Nam, and had never dared to let her suspicions go further than the vague suspicions from the first night in the hospital. But tonight, when the lights of the banquet hall illuminated the faint scar on her left temple that she had forgotten about for many years, she saw his hand suddenly reach up to gently rub it - a small, unconscious gesture, which she had never seen him repeat so many times in a single evening. She suddenly understood, as clear as a flash of lightning, that this person standing calmly in front of her, more than anyone else, was the one who needed to be watched most closely tonight.

She held her daughter's hand tightly, and together they walked out of the preparation room and towards the brightly lit banquet hall where hundreds of guests were waiting. Bich Van walked with her head held high, steady as always, but in her heart, she knew that she was entering the most important moment of eighteen years of keeping secrets - the moment when all the preparations, all the sleepless nights, all the times she had to swallow her tears to maintain a lie out of love, would finally come to light.

Outside, the orchestra was still playing melodious melodies, crystal lights were still sparkling throughout the banquet hall, and none of the hundreds of guests laughing, talking, and congratulating each other could have imagined that, in just a few hours, they would become witnesses to one of the most shocking family scandals the city's business community had ever witnessed.