Chapter 2 — Thirty Billion Under a Tin Roof

The three people recognized themselves as the owners of the ticket before dawn.

The first person is Mai. She went to the police station with wet hair and brought a photo of her mother holding a stack of tickets. She said her mother always bought that series of numbers, the last number being 7.

The second person is Mr. Phuc, a truck driver. He showed a ticket stub with the first six numbers, and said he gave the remaining ticket to Ms. Nguyet to keep for fear of losing it.

The third person did not come in person. A lawyer named Quang sent a document confirming that the ticket belonged to a capital contribution group of seven people, represented by him. In the document, Ms. Nguyet's name is not on the list.

Ha read each testimony and saw that the three versions could not all be correct. Mai said her mother bought it alone. Phuc said he bought it. Quang said the group contributed capital to buy together.

The investigation officer placed the sealed envelope on the table. "We need to determine the last number."

Ha pointed at the ink stain. "It can be inspected. But before that, the status quo must be maintained."

Mai turned to her. "You're the ticket seller. You know my mother bought that number."

Ha replied: "I know she held one. I don't know whose name she signed it for."

Mai burst into tears, saying her mother did not have any capital contribution group. Mr. Phuc stood in the hallway, heard it, turned around and left.

Ha chased after. He said that Ms. Nguyet once invited seven people to contribute fifty thousand each, but he did not participate because he was paying for his children's education. That day she bought two copies: one for the group, one for herself.

"Which sheet is this?" Ha asked.

Phuc shook his head. "She let me keep both for a while, then took one back."

"Why didn't you say so right away?"

"Because people in the group will say I want to share."

Ha understands that silence is creating more owners than the ticket can contain.

Vinh, the superior dealer owner, arrived at noon. He brought a consignment contract, saying Ha had to hand over the ticket to the agent for verification procedures.

"I handed it over to the authorities," Ha said.

"The agent is the place that issues the tickets. You don't understand the process."

"I understand the person holding the envelope has no right to open it without a record."

Vinh smiled, but his eyes were not smiling. He asked Duy where he was studying and which hospital Ha's mother was examined at. That's not a social question.

In the afternoon, Duy posted a short video saying his sister found the winning ticket. Ha found out when the video had thousands of views.

"I'll delete it right away," she said.

"I just want everyone to know you don't steal."

"Now everyone knows we have a thirty billion ticket. Bad people don't need to know more."

Duy deleted the video, but another account re-uploaded it. In the comments, someone posted a photo of Ha's house and the license plate.

At night, Mai went to the kiosk alone. She doesn't cry anymore. She placed a stack of photocopy paper on the table.

"My mother once wrote a will," Mai said. "But it hasn't been notarized yet. There are the names of seven people who contributed to the ticket."

Ha looked at the first line. Ms. Nguyet's handwriting is scribbled, but the sentence "winnings from group tickets must be divided before being distributed to the family" is underlined twice.

"Why didn't you give it right away?"

Mai looked out at the road. "Because if there is a group, my mother's share is smaller. I need money to pay off my husband's loan."

Ha does not judge. She just asked: "Where is the original?"

Mai said the original was in the old house, but after the accident someone came in to get the papers.

When Mai left, a gray car parked at the end of the alley. Ha realized that the license plate did not belong to someone in the village.

Her phone alerted her to a new email from Vinh: “If you want to protect your brother, please hand over the ticket first appraisal.”

Ha took a screenshot and sent it to the investigator. But she knew that with each passing hour, the circle around the ticket would close tighter.

The investigator called Ha to work again. He placed the three statements next to each other, using a pencil to circle the contradictions. Mai said Mrs. Nguyet came home at seven o'clock; Mr. Phuc said she was still at the kiosk until eight o'clock; Lawyer Quang said the group had delivered the tickets to the agent six o'clock in advance.

"One of the three stories is definitely made up," he said.

Ha remembers the man in the gray shirt standing next to the counter. She couldn't see his face, but she remembered the sound of his shoes getting wet, and the way he asked for the price of the entire bundle without counting the money.

"I can recognize the voice if I listen again," Ha said.

The investigator played the recording from the other camera. In the background there was the sound of a radio reading the results, the sound of rain and a distorted sentence: “Let me keep the team sheet.” Ha listened three times. The gray-shirted man's voice was hoarse, his vowels were drawn out at the end of the sentence, like the way Vinh spoke when he wanted to soothe someone.

Vinh was invited to confront him. He said the voice in the recording could be anyone at the market. Ha is not trying to condemn; she just asked why the dealership had a kiosk camera access device.

Vinh replied: "The agent must track the goods."

"Commodities are not customers' wallets."

He didn't answer. After the meeting, Vinh texted Ha that Duy had borrowed money from an application from an unknown source. If she does not cooperate, the loan will be transferred to the collector.

Duy bowed his head when Ha asked. He said he borrowed to pay tuition and buy a phone, but didn't know the interest would increase so quickly.

Ha did not scold. She took a photo of the contract and sent it to the lawyer. She realized that Vinh did not need to hold the ticket; he just needs to get her family to open the door themselves.

That night, Ha didn't sleep. She spread out copies on the tile floor: Phuc's ticket stub, Mai's will, Vinh's consignment contract, and the sealing record. Four types of papers, four types of ink, but they all have one thing in common: the person who brought them tried to speak for Ms. Nguyet.

Duy lay in the attic, breathing heavily because his phone kept vibrating. Ha climbed up and saw him reading a series of messages from an unknown number.

“If you want me not to be sued, tell me to accept the ticket as belonging to Ms. Nguyet. We will take care of the rest.”

The next message was a photo of their bedroom window, taken from the alley. Duy turned off the screen immediately.

“Don't go anywhere alone,” he said.

“Who did you send the address to?”

“Not sent. Maybe they got it from the video.”

Ha called Nhi, a trainee lawyer who used to help the cooperative with paperwork. After listening, Nhi did not ask how much the ticket was worth. She asked Ha how many times he touched the envelope, who made the record, and whether the camera saved it on a memory card or the cloud.

“If the camera takes exactly seventeen minutes, it's no longer a simple technical error,” Nhi said. “But you have to keep everything in order. Don't open the envelope yourself, don't give the original to anyone, even the person who says he's protecting you."

The next morning, Ha brought his phone and ticket book to the headquarters. The investigator showed her the call map: during the time Ms. Nguyet left the kiosk, her phone called a prepaid number. The number was only active for nineteen minutes, then disappeared.

“Do you remember which direction she went?” he asked.

“She said she had to stop by her old house to get the papers.”

“The old house is at the end of the road to the bridge?”

Ha nodded. The investigator pushed a photo taken from a traffic camera to her: the silhouette of a person wearing a gray shirt standing next to Ms. Nguyet's motorbike, holding something rectangular in her hand.

Zoom in on the photo. The other person's face was covered by a helmet, but there was a crescent-shaped scar on his wrist. Vinh had a similar scar after a broken glass at a dealership, but Ha had never seen him wearing a watch on his right hand. In the photo, the man in the gray shirt is wearing a square watch.

At that moment, Mai called. Her voice broke: "Miss Ha, someone came into the old house. They didn't take the TV, they didn't take the money. They just tore up the last page of the will."

Ha looked at the sealed envelope on the investigator's desk. If the last page was torn before Mai brought the photocopy, someone would have known about the group of seven before her.

In the hallway, a man in a gray coat walked through the glass door and stopped. He didn't look at Ha. He just held up his phone, on the screen was a photo of Duy sleeping in the attic.

Ha jumped up, but the other person had already merged into the crowd. She ran to the gate, just in time to see a small truck rushing through the turn. On the trunk of the car is Vinh's dealer logo.

The investigator held her hand. "Don't chase after me. From now on, all your movements must be witnessed."

Ha watched the car disappear behind the block of houses. She understood something scarier than someone wanting the ticket: someone was trying to create a story plausible enough that when the truth emerged, no one would know who to believe.