Chapter 23 — When the Spider Plant Turned Black

A recorder sits right here, so choose your words very carefully.

Tran Nghien lowered his head.

I admit to making the financial transfers, and I also acknowledge that I knew Luu Xuan Ha was undergoing restorative treatments.

Did you know the specific ingredients being used inside those remedies?

No, I did not.

I pressed on. What about the bowl of fish soup? He fell silent. I stepped a little closer.

That very evening, she slid the bowl over to me, and you sat right beside me, forcing me to drink it.

You had no idea what was inside that soup.

Did you truly not know?

He raised his eyes to meet mine, his gaze completely hollow and wretched.

I only heard my mother say she was adding some nourishing health supplements.

A faint smile touched my lips.

Nourishing supplements.

Rolling those three words over my tongue, I felt only a profound, suffocating disgust. The police instructed him to sign the supplemental statement. As he was being led away to another room, his mother kept calling out Tran Nghien's name. Her voice faded gradually into the distance, sounding like a fragile thread snapping abruptly in two. I slumped heavily into a chair, suddenly overwhelmed by a bone-deep exhaustion that left me unable to keep my spine straight. Mother handed me a thermal flask.

Have a sip of warm water, my child.

I took it from her hands, the rising steam brushing against my face, and only then did a belated, stinging warmth prick the corners of my eyes. Tran Nghien stood outside the doorway, speaking in a low, pleading murmur. Ha Vu, I can go get help. I lifted my gaze to look at him. He looked like a drowning man desperately clutching at a straw of hope.

Can we start over from the beginning, please?

What is there to start over? I asked. He answered in a hurried rush. I will move out of the house, I will not live with my mother anymore, and I will never let her interfere in our lives again. I stared at the man who had shared my bed and blanket. He knew precisely which days my menstrual cramps would strike. He knew how much I dreaded the cold, and how I loved drinking warm water after finishing my overtime shifts. He also knew that my blood was being drained, that my body was being treated as a guinea pig by his own mother. Yet he had never once raised a hand to stop it. All because he was terrified of losing face.

Tran Nghien.

I broke the silence.

To this day, you still believe I am angry simply because your mother meddled in our domestic affairs.

He froze in shock. I set my teacup down.

I am angry because from the very beginning to the very end, neither of you ever regarded me as a human being.

The color slowly drained from his face, leaving it ashen. I continued speaking. My lawyer will send the divorce papers to you. Panic flared in his eyes.

We haven't reached that point yet.

We have already arrived there.

I stood up from my chair.

From the very day you handed my personal physiological cycle tracking over to your mother, we had already reached that point.

Tran Nghien raised a hand, as if intending to pull me back. My mother stepped forward and batted his arm away forcefully.

Do not touch her.

His hand hovered frozen in mid-air, his adam's apple bobbing.

Ha Vu, you will regret this.

I looked straight into his eyes.

Save those words for yourself.

Three days later, the preliminary laboratory test results were officially released. From the crushed leaves, the damp soil, the tea leaves, down to the tiny red granules resting inside that small glass jar, every single item tested positive for severe irritant compounds completely unauthorized for standard restorative therapy. While these substances might not instantly take a human life, they were more than potent enough to induce chronic fatigue, severe menstrual irregularities, and drastically worsen a cold constitution. The physician examined the analytical report, his expression deeply grim and troubled.

It is a blessing that you eventually stopped soaking and refused to drink any more of it.

My mother stood close beside me with her eyes tightly shut, her lips moving in silent prayer and gratitude to the heavens. I held the report tightly in my hand, my fingertips trembling slightly. This time, the trembling was not born of fear. It was because the final, long-suppressed ember of rage had finally found its proper resting place. That very evening, Luu Xuan Ha was placed under arrest. She had been hiding away in a modest motel on the outskirts of the city, her red suitcase still packed and waiting, the shipping label not yet filled out. Inside that suitcase lay dozens of so-called consent forms. Some bore clumsy, scrawled signatures. Others were marked with vibrant, smeared crimson thumbprints. And pressed neatly at the very bottom was a comprehensive roster of names. Among those listed, the women who had shared this agonizing fate were not limited to me alone. Twenty-one days later, as Luu Xuan Ha was escorted out under police custody, the rain had finally cleared.