Chapter 9 — The Ten-Yuan Donation

There are no "ifs."

Thinh Canh Xuyen closed his eyes.

"Yes, there are no ifs."

He withdrew an old, worn banknote from his pocket. Ten yuan. It had been carefully preserved in a plastic sleeve. I frowned.

"What is the meaning of this?"

He said, "This is the ten yuan you returned to me all those years ago. I have kept it ever since. It serves as a reminder that I once used such a trivial amount to purchase the life of another human being."

I stared at the bill. "No. That is not what you purchased."

"What you bought was not her life," I continued coldly. "It was the final shred of hope I had held for you."

Thinh Canh Xuyen’s eyes reddened instantly. He tucked the money away. "I am sorry."

He had uttered those three words countless times, and I had heard them just as often. Yet, they no longer had the power to make me falter.

"Thinh Canh Xuyen, how many people you choose to save in the future is your business. Whatever debts you seek to settle are yours alone. Do not bring them before me again."

His voice was barely a whisper. "Very well."

I turned to leave, but he called out to me. "Van Ngung."

I stopped, though I did not turn back. He said, "In the next life..."

I cut him off immediately. "There is no next life. This one has already been painful enough."

For a long time, there was only silence behind me. Finally, he spoke. "I understand."

I stepped into the emergency center. The glass doors slid shut, sealing him on the outside, much like the hospital doors from years ago. The only difference was that this time, I was not the one being left behind. Since that day, I rarely heard news of Thinh Canh Xuyen. Some said his chronic stomach condition had flared up while he was overseeing a project in the Northwest, forcing him to be hospitalized for half a month. Others claimed he had sold the old Thinh family estate, donating the entire sum to a medical trust fund. Still others whispered that every year, he visited the cemetery on the south side of the city to stand in long, silent vigil before the grave of Du An.

I did not ask. Nor did I interfere. Where he chose to kneel was his own affair. I offered no forgiveness, yet I posed no obstacles. After her release from prison, Ha Thanh Le had sought me out once. She stood beneath the office building, wearing a worn coat, her hair cropped short. The receptionist asked if I wished to see her. I replied, "No."

She waited downstairs for three hours before leaving behind a letter. It read: "Sister Tang, I know I was wrong."

I did not finish reading it. I handed it directly to my lawyer to be filed away. Her mistakes did not require my validation. By the fifth year, my organization had launched a nationwide network for emergency medical prepayment. That evening, I visited the cemetery, bringing a small toy sailboat for Du An. When she was a child, she had always said that once her health improved, she wanted to see the ocean. I placed the boat before her headstone.

"Du An, today I managed to save a boy your age. His surgery was a success, and his mother kept thanking me over and over. I didn't dare listen for too long. I was afraid I would remember you."

A breeze swept through, rustling the grass around the grave. I sat there for a long time. Then, I pulled out a ten-yuan note. It was not the one from Thinh Canh Xuyen, but one I had exchanged myself. I set it beside the headstone. "He gave you ten yuan back then. Today, I return it to you a hundred thousand times over, a million times over. There will be more in the future. But I know that no amount of money can ever bring you back."

It was dark by the time I left the cemetery. There was no Thinh Canh Xuyen in the parking lot. There was no one waiting for me at all. I felt a sudden sense of relief. It turned out that having no one wait for you did not necessarily mean you were lonely; it could simply mean you were free.

Back at the company, my assistant was still working overtime. She hurried over, clutching a stack of documents. "Director Tang, there is an emergency transfer request from the Southwest. The family’s paperwork is incomplete, but the doctors say there is only a six-hour window left."

I took the files. "Prepay the costs."

The assistant hesitated, stunned. "But the risk management protocols—"

I looked up at her. "Human lives cannot wait for the approval of a risk management department."

She nodded and immediately went to process it. I sat in my office and opened the application. The patient was twenty-two, suffering from heart disease, accompanied by her older sister. In the section for next-of-kin, the sister had signed her name repeatedly, every stroke pressed deep into the paper. I looked at it for a long time, then signed the approval form: *Emergency prepayment authorized.*

The moment my pen touched the paper, I recalled a time many years ago. Standing before a hospital payment counter, I had held the bill for the outstanding fees as if it were a block of ice. Thinh Canh Xuyen’s voice echoed in my mind, as cold as that bill: "Adults must learn to take responsibility for themselves."

Eventually, I had learned. I learned how not to beg him. I learned how not to wait for him. I learned how to reopen a door for others that had once been slammed shut in my own face. Once, I had believed that marriage was a sanctuary from the storm. Later, I realized that some people do not provide you with a roof; they provide you with a courtroom. Every time you cry out for help, you are forced to let them weigh you—to see if you are worth it, to see if you are worth the damage to their reputation, or to see if you might interfere with the umbrella they are holding for someone else.

It all began from that ten-yuan donation.