Chapter 3: The Stranger Beneath the Portrait
Three
rows of chairs had been arranged in the main hall.
When
Khai entered, everyone rose.
The
branch leaders occupied the front row. Their people crowded behind them, while
the estate guards stood in two straight lines along the walls.
Mr. Tuong
stood beside the left pillar, with Vy behind him.
Duc
Duy had changed into dry clothes and now stood just behind Khai’s right
shoulder.
Do
Ba Vinh sat at the head of the front row, both hands resting on his knees, one
corner of his mouth pulled slightly to the side.
His
Bac Cang branch operated at the far end of the province, farther away than any
of the others.
Yet
he had arrived before everyone else.
From
the moment Khai entered, Ba Vinh’s eyes never left the wooden box on the altar.
Bach
Lan opened it.
The
Hai Long seal rested inside a worn lining.
It
was a block of bronze roughly the size of a fist. A coiled sea dragon had been
carved into its base, while decades of passing from hand to hand had worn its
edges smooth.
Bach
Lan lifted it with both hands.
The
room fell so silent that the rain striking the roof of the rear garage could be
heard clearly.
“Vu
Khai, son of Vu Huy Hoang.”
“Yes.
I am here.”
“Kneel.”
Khai
lowered himself onto his knees.
Bach
Lan placed the seal into his waiting hands.
It
was heavier than he had imagined.
It
carried the dead weight of something that had passed through many hands and
outlived every man who had held it.
“From
this moment onward…”
That
was as far as Bach Lan got.
Tires
screamed outside.
Once.
Then
twice.
The
iron gates crashed open.
Footsteps
thundered across the courtyard, splashing through the rain, too many to count.
“Police!
Nobody move!”
The
hall erupted.
Chairs
toppled. People scrambled toward the walls. Someone shouted, only for the
person beside him to clamp a hand over his mouth.
The
guards surged forward by instinct, forming a barrier before the ancestral
altar.
Khai
planted one hand on the floor and rose, the bronze seal still clenched in the
other.
“Stay
back! Nobody makes a move!”
The
main doors flew open.
Rain
swept inside and darkened a strip of the floor.
A
young officer entered first.
His
uniform was soaked across both shoulders, and a stack of clipped documents
rested in one hand.
He
looked to be around Khai’s age, with a tall, lean frame and a slightly square
jaw.
He
ignored the crowd.
His
gaze went directly to the man holding the seal.
“I
am Tran Minh Phong of the Criminal Investigation Division, Nam Hai Provincial
Police.”
“We
have a warrant to search this residence and the warehouses under the family’s
control.”
He
raised the papers.
“Everyone
must remain where they are. Do not move or disturb any property.”
“Let
me see the warrant.”
Phong
held out the documents.
He
did not take a single step closer, forcing Khai to cross the room and collect
them himself.
Khai
approached.
He
read every line, including the smallest print at the bottom, while nearly 40
pairs of eyes watched from behind him, waiting to see what he would do.
When
he finished, he handed the papers back.
“Search
whatever you want.”
“If
there is anything in my house, you are free to examine all of it.”
His
gaze shifted toward the ancestral altar, where the two candles still burned
through the incense smoke.
“I
ask only one thing.”
“Let
the incense burn to the end first.”
“Today
is the anniversary of my father’s death.”
Phong
held the warrant but did not answer.
Another
man stepped through the doorway.
He
was not wearing a uniform.
He
moved slowly, his shoulders slightly stooped with age. The hair at both temples
had almost completely turned silver.
He
stopped in the patch of light just inside the entrance.
His
gaze swept across the hall before settling on the ancestral altar, the
portrait, and the two burning candles.
Khai
could not move.
That
nose.
The
deep line running from its side to the corner of the mouth.
Those
eyes.
Inside
the bedside cabinet in Khai’s room lay a brown paper envelope his mother had
given him when he was twelve.
The
envelope contained three photographs and a newspaper clipping.
Khai
had studied those pictures so many times that even with his eyes closed, he
could have traced the man’s face with the tip of his finger.
Tran
Duc Minh.
Now
the Director of Nam Hai Provincial Police.
Tonight,
he stood ten paces away inside the Vu family estate, directly beneath the
portrait of the man Bach Lan claimed he had pushed from the fifth floor.
Blood
welled from the cut on Khai’s index finger and smeared across the bronze seal.
Khai
had always believed that if this day ever came, he would lose his mind.
He
did not.
A
long, hollow ringing swallowed every other sound.
One
thought remained, cold and clear.
Not
tonight.
Only
Khai saw what happened next.
Near
the right pillar, one of the estate guards had quietly slipped behind Minh
Phong.
He
held the bronze base of a candlestick he had picked up from among the fallen
chairs.
The
guard flicked a quick glance toward Ba Vinh.
Then
he raised the weapon over his shoulder.
Bach
Lan screamed.
“No
one touches him!”
The
voice that tore from her did not sound like her own.
It
came jagged and broken, the cry of someone who had just felt a blade driven
into her back.
She
lunged away from the altar and threw herself between the two rows of people.
One hand clawed for the back of a chair to keep herself from falling.
The
candlestick froze in midair.
The
guard stood there, stunned.
Minh
Phong spun around.
With
one clean movement, he kicked the weapon from the guard’s hand and twisted the
man’s arm behind his back.
Two
officers rushed forward.
It
was over within seconds.
Bach
Lan remained where she stood, one hand gripping the chair, her chest rising and
falling.
Then
she straightened.
She
smoothed the front of her clothes. By the time she raised her head, the terror
that had split across her face was gone.
“No
blood will be spilled before my husband’s altar.”
“This
house has rules.”
“If
anyone wishes to fight, take it into the courtyard.”
Her
voice had returned to normal.
Slow.
Dry.
No
one answered.
Rain
sheeted across the courtyard until everything beyond the doorway turned white.
Khai
stood in the center of the hall, both hands wrapped around the bronze seal.
His
gaze passed over Minh Phong.
Then
over Tran Duc Minh.
It
settled on his mother.
Her
hand had not left the chair. Her shoulders continued to rise and fall.
Her
eyes remained fixed on the young police officer, searching him from head to toe
as though she could not force herself to look away.
For
28 years, Khai had endured having his lip split open at the port gate.
Men
from the Bac Cang branch had cornered him in stone alleys.
Every
year, beneath the portrait veiled in incense smoke, his own mother had cut open
his finger.
Not
once had Bach Lan stepped away from where she stood for him.
Tonight,
she had.
But
bitterly enough, she had not moved for her son.
She
had moved for a stranger.
A
man no one in the Vu family had ever heard her mention.
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