Chapter 12 — When the Wind Crosses the Porch

Duy was stopped at the school gate while he was cycling home. The two men asked where the radio was repaired, then told him to hand over the memory card. Duy did not answer, but a grocery store camera recorded them tugging at the straps of their backpacks.

Mai learned about it from Duy's mother, who called at six o'clock in the evening. She immediately went to the police station with lawyer Thu, submitted the camera footage and asked for a record. Duy sat outside, his hands scratched, still holding the radio in his jacket.

“I don't want to report,” he said. “My dad will make me drop out of school.”

“Reporting is not about revenge,” Mai replied. “Let them know so they don't think that just threatening them will keep everyone quiet.”

Duy looked at her. “You say that because you are grown up.”

“I said because when I was your age, I thought adults always knew how to solve things.”

Hanh brought Duy a bowl of porridge and sat next to him in the living room. She didn't ask who did it, just asked if he was in pain. Duy said no, but his hands were still shaking.

In the radio there is the only recording that has not been backed up. Duy hid the memory card in a hole in the handlebars of his bicycle, but the others couldn't find it.

“I want to keep the original,” he said.

The letter explains the original should be sealed, while Duy can keep an encrypted copy. He agreed, on the condition that his name would only appear when necessary before the competent authority.

The recording recovered one more sentence at the end: "If the trunk at the factory is lost, ask the person who repaired the stairs." They thought it was Mr. Bay, but he didn't know. Sau Luu remembers a worker who used to repair the basement of the cooperative named Tan, who now works at the bus station.

Tan doesn't want to meet. He said on the phone: "I just repaired the stairs, I don't know the records."

Mai asked: "Did you see box K-17?"

Silent.

"We don't need you to confess. We just need to know where the trunk is."

Tan arranged to meet at the car repair shop without turning on the big lights. He said seven years ago, Phuc hired him to reinforce the company's basement. An iron box stuck under the stairs, with a cooperative mark. Phuc told him to break the lock and move the paper to the trash.

“Did you break it?”

"I opened it. Inside was all damp paper."

“What did you do?”

"I took one volume, because I saw your father's name. They burned the rest."

Tan handed over a stack of papers wrapped in a cement bag. There is a list of money recipients, signatures of seven households, and a record stating "complete liquidation". The minutes were signed two days after Mai's father passed away, but the seal had a previous date.

The letter calls this important evidence. Tan agreed to write a report, but did not want to appear publicly. Mai respects that.

They took the papers for examination. The ink and paper match Sau Luu's list. The warehouse history shows that the box was opened at 4:05 p.m. the day after Mai's father passed away, with the visitors being Phuc and Luu.

Phuc argued that there were no records kept in the basement, but could not explain why his name was in the repair log. The letter requests the court to apply property preservation measures.

Meanwhile, Hanh wanted to go see Tu Hau himself. She said she had to apologize for being silent about the bag of money. Mai went along, but stood outside Hau's house.

Hanh gave him a report. “I said your name.”

After reading. “Thank you.”

“I don't know if thanking you is helpful.”

"Yes. Because for seven years no one has named the error correctly."

Hanh asked: "Can you speak in court?"

Hau looked at Mai through the door. “I will say.”

Mai walked in. Hau gave her an old phone book. The day her father died, Hau called the emergency number using a public phone. He kept the call receipt for fear of being blamed.

“The receipt says the caller is Khai,” Hau said. “The fishing boy called from the pumping station.”

They looked for Khai in the next city. Khai now works as an electrician and has a small family. He didn't want to remember the past, but when he heard that Mai's father had tried to save her, he handed over the old phone he used that night. The memory still has an undeleted message: "Take him away. Don't let Phuc take the bag."

The message was sent from Hanh's number, but Hanh didn't remember sending it. Maybe Phuc used her phone. The text messages help determine when he took the briefcase.

Mai asked Khai why he didn't say anything sooner. "I'm seventeen years old, I'm afraid of being kicked out of the boarding house. Bless me with money to keep quiet."

“Do you still have the receipt?”

Khai took a debt book. The money has Phuc's signature.

Each person in the story kept a small piece, not because they believed they would one day be put together, but because there was still a place in their heart that refused to let the truth be erased.

The Provincial Inspection Council sends the working schedule. Hanh, Hau, Tan and Khai were invited to provide testimony. Mai was worried about Duy, but he insisted on going with him as the keeper of the recording.

“I'm no longer an outsider,” Duy said. “They have already found you.”

Letter of consent with the condition of having a guardian.

The night before the meeting, Phuc sent an email to Mai: "I won a few papers. But I haven't won my mother's memory yet. Ask her about the day her father signed the final version."

Mai did not answer. She asked Hanh directly.

Hanh said Mai's father signed a statement not to sue on the last day he was alive. That copy is currently in Phuc's file.

“Why did you sign?”

“You sign in exchange for the original.”

“Are you happy?”

"Are not."

Mai sees everything returning to the beginning. Her father signed a paper he did not want to sign to save the original, and Hanh signed a paper to save the scholarship. The whole family is pulled into a web of temporary signatures.

Hanh gave Mai an old piece of paper, on the back was a sentence written by her father: "I sign my part. No one can sign the people's part."

Mai brought it to the interrogation.

Phuc and Vinh sat on both sides. Luu did not appear, citing health reasons. Thu asked Phuc about three file boxes. He said he only transferred it according to orders, not knowing the content.

Tan was called and told about the opening of the chest. Phuc objected, but the repair log confirmed.

Hau talked about 9:17, about Mai's father having chest pain and being taken to the measuring station. Khai gave the call receipt. Hanh read the report, her voice shaking but not missing a sentence.

Duy finally turned on the recording. Cau Phuc forced Hanh to sign loudly in the room. Phuc spoke in a clipped voice. Letter submitting original radio and technical data.

The council did not immediately conclude, but requested to temporarily suspend all project activities in area K-17 and transfer the fake signature file to the investigation agency.

After the meeting, Vinh looked for Phuc. Two people argued in the hallway. Vinh said, "I said I would stop," Phuc replied, "If I stop now, everyone will die." They didn't know Mai was behind the door.

Vinh saw her. He did not step forward, just bowed his head.

Hanh asked Mai: "Do you want to hear your father vindicated?"

"I want my father to be seen right. There are good parts, wrong parts, and parts he couldn't fix in time."

“So do you keep the house?”

Mai looked at the map. "I don't know yet. But I won't sell it because I'm afraid."

That night, Duy brought the radio home. He said he didn't want it anymore, but before leaving, he left behind a piece of the part. The number 17 is engraved on it.

Quan discovered that it was part of the old key code. Maybe radios don't just contain tape; it was used to transmit signals in warehouses.

Mai placed the components next to the two keys. The number 17 is no longer an hour, no longer a warehouse code. It was the mark her father left on everything he trusted others to keep.

Outside, the company removed part of the sign. It's not that they surrendered, they just weren't allowed to operate. The wind still blows through the porch, but this time it doesn't bring with it the sound of the ribbon being stretched.

Hanh sat mending a torn curtain. Mai pulled out a chair to sit next to her. Mother and daughter do not talk about who is right. They just shared the roll of thread, one person threaded the needle, one person cut the end of the thread.

Small things don't solve a lawsuit. But they reminded Mai that the house still had life, not just records.

The next morning, Duy made himself a backup instruction sheet. Using easy-to-understand language, he drew three boxes connected by arrows: the original, the one kept at the Wind Porch Room, and the one outside of town. He added the line "do not send passwords in the same message". Mai asked who taught him, Duy said no one; he watched adults leave one key open too many doors.

The letter sent documents confirming Duy's data is protected. She also reminded Mai not to post the video online before the investigation is completed, even though many news sites have asked for exclusive copies. Mai refused. This story doesn't need more views; it needs to retain the voice of the person who spoke it.

Hanh cooked rice for everyone, for the first time sitting at the table instead of standing by the stove. She asked Duy what profession he wanted to learn, asked Sau Luu if he needed new glasses, and asked Quan if he could eat spicy food. Small questions make the room warmer than a light bulb. Mai realized that healing is not a moment of hugging and forgetting. It's about remembering to ask each other the usual things after a day of talking too much about loss.

When everyone left, Hanh washed each bowl, not letting anyone take her own responsibility. Mai cleans the table, Quan folds the chair, Duy puts away the speaker. No one said it was an important moment, but that division of work made the night less heavy. The file was sealed on the shelf, and the bowl and chopsticks returned to the cabinet like every normal night.