Chapter 3

She wasn’t concealing the truth to protect someone else.

She was trying to evade responsibility.

She feared that the more she said, the more obvious her negligence as a homeroom teacher would become.

Văn really had been Bình Bình’s closest friend.

They had met in middle school and gone on to the same high school.

With her parents absent and her grandmother frail, Bình Bình was a lonely child who feared being alone.

She regarded Văn as her best friend and treated her with genuine affection.

She expected the same in return.

But after starting high school, Văn met someone else.

From then on, she hurried off every afternoon to see that person.

Bình Bình could not accept it.

Yes.

Asking Văn to cover her cleaning duty had actually been a test.

She wanted to see whether Văn would stay at school for her or refuse in order to meet the other person.

Văn chose the latter.

Bình Bình’s jealousy turned to fury.

That was why she enlisted Dương Lệ and Khiết Lệ and began the long, vicious bullying campaign.

At this point, I noticed a flaw.

“But that doesn’t make sense. If Văn had a friend so close that she would help Tôn Đào avenge her, where was that friend while she was being bullied? If she’s willing to become an accomplice to murder, why didn’t she help Văn through that period?”

Ms. Trịnh was silent for a while.

“Because that person… was in hospital. She was always in hospital.”

“Which hospital? Do you have her details?”

“A psychiatric hospital.”

She sighed.

“Her name is Diệp Văn Thanh. She has severe bipolar disorder—serious enough to require long-term inpatient treatment.”

So that was it.

Văn had been visiting Thanh in hospital after school every day.

“I don’t know how they met. For a long time, I knew nothing about any of this. Not until…”

She hesitated before continuing.

“Until Diệp Văn Thanh was discharged recently. She came to see me and demanded Bình Bình’s records and those of the other two girls. She threatened to make public a letter Văn had written to her before killing herself.”

“What did the letter say?” I couldn’t help asking.

“I don’t know exactly. But it must have mentioned the three girls bullying Văn and my complete failure as her teacher. That’s why I didn’t dare tell you before.”

She hurried to defend herself.

“I asked Principal Quách’s opinion at the time. He agreed we couldn’t let the letter become public… But this can’t have anything to do with the current case, can it? Isn’t Văn’s father the killer?”

Even now, she was thinking about whether she would be held responsible.

If she had done anything when Bình Bình and the others were bullying Văn, perhaps none of this would have happened.

It was infuriating.

With almost everything established, I no longer wanted to speak to her.

I said only, coldly:

“You have no business being a teacher.”

Then I stood and left.

She sat there, stunned.

Outside the office, I immediately called Tuấn and told him what I had learned.

“What? A psychiatric patient?” he said anxiously. “That makes things difficult… God knows whether she might do something even worse than Đào.”

“That’s why we have to find her now. Contact her parents first… No, wait!”

His urgency had brought another possibility to mind.

I guessed that Thanh must know her identity was about to be exposed.

What would matter most to her now?

Dealing with Khiết Lệ, the only survivor.

I shouted into the phone.

“Take a team to Khiết Lệ’s house! Right now!”

“You’re right! I’m going!”

Meanwhile, I contacted Thanh’s family using the details Ms. Trịnh had supplied.

Their answer stunned me.

Thanh had not been discharged.

She was still an inpatient at a closed psychiatric hospital.

I could make no sense of it.

If she was still hospitalized, how had she repeatedly met Bình Bình, Dương Lệ, and Khiết Lệ outside?

Without another word, I rushed to the hospital.

When I arrived, I discovered it was the city’s only closed psychiatric hospital.

It was remote, poorly equipped, and badly managed.

After I showed my identification, the guard let me in without even recording the purpose of my visit.

I had no time to dwell on it.

I went straight to reception and said I was looking for Diệp Văn Thanh.

The nurse looked at me distractedly for a moment, then pointed behind me.

“Isn’t that her, right behind you?”

I turned.

A delicate-featured girl stood a short distance away.

Her long hair fell over her shoulders, neatly kept despite her surroundings.

“Are you Diệp Văn Thanh?” I asked quietly.

She nodded. She had guessed who I was too.

“You’re a police officer, aren’t you?”

I remained silent, considering whether to take her back immediately or speak here first.

After all, if she was here, Khiết Lệ was no longer in immediate danger.

There was less urgency.

I thought the matter was nearly over now that I had located Thanh.

Once again, events would escape all my expectations.

She was quite calm and invited me to walk around the hospital while we talked.

While I hesitated, she spoke plainly.

“You came alone, so this probably isn’t formal police business. Officers usually work in pairs.”

Without waiting for a response, she continued.

“It won’t be easy to take me away. First, I’m a patient. Second, you may not have enough evidence. Even if you only want to question me, you need official paperwork for the hospital and my parents’ consent. It would take a lot of time… Why don’t we just talk here?”

I was startled.

She had clearly studied the procedures closely.

If I forced her to come, a single complaint might be enough to invalidate what I had done.

So I agreed.

I also wanted to know what she intended to say.

She told me a story.

An unbearably cruel story.

Her unhappy family life had left her with serious mental health problems.

She had repeatedly harmed herself and attempted suicide. Eventually, her parents abandoned her in this closed hospital.

They had a son—her younger brother—so whether she was there no longer mattered.

She wanted to die, but was too frightened to go through with it. Every attempt had failed.

Later, she used QQ to look for people nearby, hoping to find someone to die with.

That was how she met the most important person in her life.

Tôn Văn.

But Văn did not join her in suicide.

Instead, she urged her to live and gave her hope.

Eventually, she came to see Thanh every day after school.

Not through official visits. The closed hospital offered few visiting hours.

Instead, Thanh pointed toward a corner of the rear wall.

“Do you see those trees?”

She had led me into the back courtyard.

Trees grew on either side of the wall.

Their branches intertwined so closely they almost became one.

Like someone outside reaching in and someone inside reaching out.

Looking toward them, she smiled.

“Every afternoon, she came to see me. We climbed onto the branches, sat there talking, and felt the evening breeze. It was as though my whole life left its imprint on those hours.”

“It was beautiful. For a while, I found the hope to live again…”

She seemed lost in a peaceful memory.

Then her expression changed completely.

“But I didn’t know she was being bullied every day. Tormented every day. Why didn’t she tell me even a little?”

“Then one day, she stopped coming. She left only a letter… Only then did I learn why she had been so kind to me.”

“Why?” I asked.

“She had suffered from depression. She was hurting too… But because she knew suffering, she wanted to hold an umbrella over me, so I wouldn’t have to stand in the rain.”

So that was it.

I remembered then that Văn’s family had been incomplete too. Her mother had died when she was young.

“How could I forgive the people who pushed her into the abyss?”

Thanh spoke almost through gritted teeth.

I looked at the trees in the corner and understood.

“You slipped out of the hospital, approached Bình Bình’s group, and then took revenge with Tôn Đào. Is that right?”

She did not answer.

Instead, she said something that chilled me.

“There’s still one more.”

I started.

She must mean Khiết Lệ.

“It’s too late,” I said at once. “My people are already with Khiết Lệ. You’ll be watched too. You won’t have another chance to approach her.”

She looked at me for a long time.

Then she suddenly smiled.

“What? I’ve already finished.”

There was something strange about that smile.

At the time, I didn’t understand what she meant by “finished.”

All I could think about was Khiết Lệ’s safety.

Without further hesitation, I found the person in charge of the hospital, explained the danger Thanh posed, and requested their cooperation.

I also called in more officers to watch her.

She was not to leave the hospital again.

By the time I left, it was dark.

Tuấn reported that everything at Khiết Lệ’s house was safe.

I thought that, if we could get through the night, it would all be over.

It would not end so easily.

The following morning brought a horrifying development.

Khiết Lệ had been murdered.

Her throat had been cut in her own home.

The wound was so deep it had almost severed her neck. There had been no chance of saving her.

We were all stunned.

Đào was still in custody.

Thanh was under surveillance at the hospital.

Neither could have committed the crime.

When we reached the scene, we discovered something none of us had imagined.

The killer was someone we would never have suspected.

Bình Bình’s grandmother.

Yes.

That elderly woman.

That morning, she had brought some of her granddaughter’s belongings and asked to speak to Khiết Lệ.

Khiết Lệ knew her and let her in without suspicion.

The old woman drew a knife and cut her throat.

Before her parents could react, she was dead.

We were devastated and bewildered.

After the killing, the grandmother broke down.

She could only mutter:

“It was her… She was the one who killed my granddaughter…”

She believed Khiết Lệ had indirectly caused Bình Bình’s death.

Why?

I suddenly remembered Thanh’s words.

“I’ve already finished.”

I immediately called the officer at the hospital.

The voice on the other end was panicked.

“Diệp Văn Thanh… is dead too!”

I froze.

While the officer had briefly left to collect paperwork, in the space of half an hour, Thanh had killed herself.

She had hanged herself from the very tree I had seen the previous day.

Khiết Lệ’s murder scene and Thanh’s suicide kept us occupied all day.

This was a case no one could finish with a smile.

Before dark, I returned to the hospital one last time to deal with the remaining matters.

I still did not understand why Thanh had killed herself.

Given her condition, even if she had been involved in a crime, she ought to have been eligible for leniency.

Nor, during our conversation, had I sensed any fear of the law.

Curious, I went to the corner she had shown me.

Among the trees, one stood close to the wall, its branches joining those outside as though clasping hands.

They said she had hanged herself here.

I approached its trunk.

A name was carved into it.

“Diệp Văn Thanh.”

Had she carved it herself?

I climbed up, followed a branch, and crossed the wall easily.

On the other side stood another tree.

Another name had been carved into its trunk.

“Tôn Văn.”

So that was the “imprint” she had spoken of.

I sighed and turned to leave.

Dusk was falling. The sky was red as blood.

I looked back one last time.

Some of the two trees’ branches had intertwined.

Like two lives that, for one brief moment, had truly met.

THE END