Chapter 3

If we found any omissions, we needed to correct them promptly.

Why send us out now?

In the car, I finally asked:

“What’s happening? Who were those people this morning?”

Từ did not answer immediately.

He first directed Tuấn, who was driving.

“Go to the middle school Kim’s daughter attended.”

Then he sighed.

“This has become serious. Someone reported it to higher authorities…”

“The people this morning were from the city supervisory commission and the disciplinary inspection commission. This is only the preliminary stage. They came to establish the situation…”

He explained slowly.

I scarcely had a chance to ask why we were going to the school.

Someone had sent a complaint directly to the city.

No intervening level had been given a chance to block it.

An enormous dossier had been submitted: paper documents, data discs, audio tapes.

It targeted collusion between local officials and businessmen, alleging serious corruption in certain judicial agencies.

Our criminal investigation unit had no problems.

But irregularities had been found in other units within the same system.

Even Từ did not know how serious they were.

The Hà and Nghiêm families stood at the center of the storm.

The entire dossier concerned their relationships with powerful figures in the justice system.

Meetings.

Conversations.

Gifts.

Envelopes of cash.

All secretly photographed or recorded.

In Từ’s words:

“An earthquake is coming.”

So why were we going to this school?

Because we wanted to meet someone who appeared to have nothing to do with the case.

Yet she was the person who had caused that earthquake.

Tiểu Tiểu’s homeroom teacher.

Ms. Trần.

She had filed the complaint.

Everything was far more complicated than we had imagined.

Her full name was Trần Mỹ Lâm.

She was not local.

Three years earlier, she had come through a program supporting education in disadvantaged areas. Her assignment was nearly over.

Her personnel file showed no special background.

What we could not understand was how an ordinary teacher had obtained so much powerful evidence.

We arrived and found her at school.

It was summer vacation, yet she was in the office.

Certainly not to work.

Perhaps…

She was waiting for us.

She stood when we entered.

She was not alarmed.

Instead, she calmly indicated a tea table nearby.

“Please sit. What brings you here today?”

We sat.

She fetched a flask of hot water and leisurely made tea.

Từ’s face was black as thunder.

At last, seeing that she intended only to brew tea and say nothing, he could bear it no longer.

“Ms. Trần, surely you know what you’ve done?”

She paused and looked up.

“What have I done?”

Từ turned to us.

“Do you understand now what she did before?”

Tuấn looked blank.

He had not accompanied me to the school the first time.

I suddenly understood.

“Ms. Trần, in the massacre case… you steered us toward warning the Hà and Nghiêm families, didn’t you?”

I remembered.

She had supplied the most important records.

And perhaps that was how she had obtained her evidence.

I continued working it through aloud.

“If the police came to warn them personally, they would take it seriously. You needed us to visit…”

“You wanted them frightened enough to take further steps to protect themselves. Such as visiting their powerful backers…”

“Perhaps you began following and secretly filming them then?”

The more I thought, the more terrifyingly everything connected.

It led straight to Kim too.

“Even if they didn’t offer money or gifts then, you had another move. Kim’s accusation after his arrest…”

“To suppress it, the two families would have to run around, spending money to solve the problem.”

“In an emergency like that, the faster they tried to act, the more mistakes they’d make. Their precautions would slip…”

Ms. Trần laughed.

Then she asked:

“Aren’t you always saying you need evidence?”

“If there’s no evidence I’m a bad person, then I’m a good person.”

“Don’t lump me in with a murderer. And don’t speak as though we’re conspiring.”

She sipped her tea.

“I do know Tiểu Tiểu’s family.”

“But only because she was my favorite student.”

“That’s all.”

She deliberately stressed “favorite.”

It was almost a hint.

And a challenge.

Still dark-faced, Từ tried to pressure her.

“Do you really think we can do nothing to you without evidence?”

She smiled faintly.

Her next words went to the heart of it.

“If there’s no evidence I’m a bad person, I’m a good person.”

She poured tea only for herself and took a slow sip.

“Just as you said before…”

“There was no evidence the girl was murdered.”

“So she killed herself.”

Of course, she meant Tiểu Tiểu.

“Even though her clothes were in disarray and her body was covered in injuries, without evidence, it couldn’t be treated as fact. Isn’t that what you said?”

Từ’s expression grew uglier.

“As you know, I’m not from here. Your filthy web of power and connections has no hold over me.”

At that moment, I felt the three of us being completely overpowered by one young teacher.

“So I’m not afraid of you. And as long as I’m not afraid, you can’t do anything to me. Haven’t violence and intimidation always been aimed only at the weak?”

Seeing that she would not yield, Từ finally softened.

He did not lose his composure. He simply asked:

“What exactly do you want? Revenge for your student?”

“I want more than simple revenge.”

She took another sip and spoke slowly, distinctly.

“I want to root you out.”

“If anyone who helped wrong Tiểu Tiểu goes unpunished—if I still see them living untroubled—then they can wait for it to go online. For the whole country to learn. For higher authorities to investigate. I’d like to see who dares protect them. Whoever does will go down too.”

“I also want the people in both those families imprisoned. I want them to face the consequences, never able to lord it over anyone again.”

Tuấn and I were silent.

By then, I understood.

She must still have copies of the material and the means to report it higher.

Từ’s purpose today was to establish whether she intended to escalate further.

Only one thing still puzzled me.

How did she have that much power?

“I hope that’s as far as you intend to go. Don’t cause any more trouble.”

With those words, Từ stood and signaled us to leave.

We followed immediately.

It felt as though we had achieved something.

And as though we had achieved nothing.

On the way to the parking area, Tuấn asked:

“Who is she, exactly?”

Từ paused, then answered.

“Her father is a provincial-level leader.”

So that was it.

Now I understood.

It still came down to worldly power and connections.

I understood her words too.

“Violence and intimidation have always been aimed only at the weak.”

Ms. Trần was not weak.

Perhaps none of us could touch her.

Tiểu Tiểu’s family was different.

They were all powerless.

Từ then said he needed to report our conversation to the leadership.

“The higher authorities are involved now. Quite a few people will probably be in trouble. So be it. We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t push it any higher.”

Tuấn drove him there.

I did not need to accompany them, so I planned to return to the unit.

Then I remembered something.

Something that had kept troubling me.

I went back to Ms. Trần’s office.

The door was open.

I was about to knock when I saw her at her desk, holding something in both hands.

She stared at it intently, her eyes red.

While I hesitated about entering, she looked up and saw me.

She quickly wiped her eyes.

“Anything else?”

I approached slowly.

“Sorry to disturb you. But there’s something I really want to know…”

“What exactly was Tiểu Tiểu to you?”

A teacher on a temporary assignment, the daughter of a provincial leader.

At most, a rural posting might have given her experience or polished her résumé.

She had no need to go this far.

She had almost become entangled in a murder case.

She could have been in danger too.

In this poor, chaotic place, there were plenty of people willing to risk their lives for money.

Whether true or false, Kim’s murder-for-hire story illustrated that to some extent.

“Just my student.”

After thinking for a moment, she handed me the photograph she was holding.

I took it.

It showed her with a group of students.

Tiểu Tiểu was among them.

The girl’s smile was radiant.

“Her family had a hard life. Her mother was ill. Her father worked away from home most of the year…”

“But hers was the only family I met here that didn’t favor boys over girls.”

I thought about it.

She was right.

Around here, it was rare for a family to have one daughter and not keep trying for a son.

Looking at the photograph, she said quietly:

“Of all my students, she was the best-behaved, the kindest, and the most determined to get ahead.”

“She told me she had a dream.”

“When she grew up, she wanted to be a teacher.”

I understood.

There was an affinity between them that we could never fully grasp.

“Yes. Like me.”

She took the photograph back.

A strained smile appeared.

“But she was killed.”

“And the people who killed her weren’t punished.”

That made me even more puzzled.

“But you could have helped her then. Instead of letting it drag on until now and become so much more complicated…”

“You make it sound as though I never tried.”

Her voice was calm.

Yet astonishingly firm.

“Unless I involved myself directly, there was nothing I could do.”

“At first, I’d resigned myself to it. My assignment was ending. I had to leave.”

“But do you know what happened recently?”

I didn’t.

I had no answer.

“You wouldn’t have cared.”

“Something even filthier.”

Her eyes reddened again.

“Those three boys who hurt Tiểu Tiểu… They took photographs that night.”

“Recently, they had the pictures developed and started circulating them. Showing off…”

“Hùng even sold them!”

I was stunned.

She cried and murmured:

“Even after she died… they wouldn’t leave her alone…”

“She was dead, and they still wouldn’t let her go…”

At last, through gritted teeth, she said:

“They deserve to die.”

“All of them.”

“Their parents too.”

“Everyone who helped them.”

“Anyone.”

I understood her hatred then.

But sadly, to expose their backers, Kim had gone to prison.

A death sentence was almost inevitable.

He would never have another chance to avenge his daughter.

So I still tried to reason with her.

“Ms. Trần, you’ve already done so much.”

“Stop thinking about those two boys.”

“Don’t let them destroy your life.”

She carefully placed the photograph on her desk.

She gazed at Tiểu Tiểu’s face.

Grief and anger gradually gave way to calm.

Then calm…

Began to turn into happiness.

Yes.

She seemed happy.

Her next words told me why.

“Think about it…”

“Little devils with no one left to protect them…”

“How long can they live?”

I froze.

Then I remembered.

She had said she wanted the people in both households imprisoned.

Economic crime investigators were now working with the disciplinary commission on exactly that.

Bribery and accepting bribes could indeed put them behind bars.

No.

It wasn’t simply that the boys would lose their backers.

I remembered something else.

Lan was dead.

Kim had admitted it himself.

His father, Tùng, could not be caring for her somewhere, as Kim had originally claimed.

Where was he?

What did he intend to do?

No one knew.

I could only remember what the villagers had said:

“Though over fifty, Tùng is powerfully built and healthy, with strong feelings about whom he loves and hates.”

When I came to my senses, Ms. Trần had raised her head.

She was smiling.

A strangely beautiful smile.

So beautiful it sent a chill down my spine.