Bui Nghien Chu stayed outside room 305 until midnight.

He didn’t knock again.

Perhaps for the first time since returning, he understood that wanting to enter didn’t give him the right to.

Inside, Hoac Senh helped me drink soup.

My daughter slept beside me.

I had named her An Nhi.

Peace.

That was the only thing I wanted for her.

At eleven thirty, Hoac Senh looked through the small window in the door.

“He’s still there.”

I didn’t ask who.

“He hasn’t moved for nearly three hours.”

I adjusted An Nhi’s blanket.

“That’s his choice.”

“Ninh Ninh.”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to know why he disappeared?”

My hand stopped.

For nine months, I had imagined every explanation.

An accident.

Another woman.

Family opposition.

Regret.

Cowardice.

Eventually I had stopped imagining.

Because whatever the reason, the result had remained the same.

I had gone through my pregnancy alone.

“No.”

Hoac Senh looked surprised.

“I wanted to know nine months ago.”

I touched An Nhi’s tiny hand.

“Now I want to sleep.”

At six the next morning, I woke to voices outside.

One belonged to Bui Nghien Chu.

The other belonged to an older man.

“Come back with me.”

“No.”

“You’ve already created enough trouble.”

“I said no.”

I recognized the second man when he entered my room.

Professor Bui Minh.

Nghien Chu’s father.

Former director of the hospital.

The man who, two years earlier, had smiled at me across a dinner table and said:

“A doctor’s wife must learn to accept loneliness.”

I had thought it was advice.

Now I wondered whether it had been a warning.

He looked at the baby.

Then at me.

“Miss Tham.”

Not Hac Ninh.

Not Ninh Ninh.

Miss Tham.

I understood immediately that nothing had changed.

“Professor Bui.”

Nghien Chu entered behind him.

His eyes were red.

“Father, leave.”

Professor Bui ignored him.

“I heard the child was born safely.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

He placed an envelope on the table.

“I think we should resolve this rationally.”

I didn’t touch it.

“What is it?”

“Compensation.”

Nghien Chu’s face changed.

“Father!”

Professor Bui continued:

“Nghien Chu’s career is at an important stage. A sudden child appearing now could create unnecessary complications.”

I almost laughed.

My daughter had been alive less than twenty-four hours, and someone was already treating her existence like a public-relations problem.

I pushed the envelope back.

“Keep it.”

“You haven’t seen the amount.”

“I don’t need to.”

Professor Bui frowned.

“Miss Tham, being emotional won’t help you.”

This time Hoac Senh stood.

“She’s just given birth. If you came here to insult her, I’ll call security.”

Professor Bui finally looked at her.

Then he turned back to me.

“What do you want?”

That question almost offended me.

“Nothing.”

“Everyone wants something.”

“I wanted something nine months ago.”

I looked at Nghien Chu.

“I wanted an explanation.”

His face tightened.

“But nobody gave me one.”

Professor Bui’s expression shifted.

Only slightly.

It was enough.

I saw it.

“You know.”

Nghien Chu turned toward him.

“What?”

I looked at Professor Bui.

“You know why he disappeared.”

Silence.

Nghien Chu stepped forward.

“Father?”

Professor Bui picked up the envelope.

“This conversation is pointless.”

He turned toward the door.

Nghien Chu blocked him.

“What did you do?”

“Nghien Chu.”

“What did you do?”

His father’s voice hardened.

“Think carefully before accusing me.”

“I disappeared because of you.”

The room became silent.

I looked at Nghien Chu.

He seemed to realize what he’d admitted.

Hoac Senh folded her arms.

“Finally.”

I stared at her.

“You knew?”

“Not everything.”

She looked at Nghien Chu coldly.

“But I knew he didn’t simply wake up one morning and decide to abandon you.”

My chest tightened.

Nghien Chu sat down several meters from my bed.

Not beside me.

He finally understood that distance mattered.

“Nine months ago, I was selected for an overseas medical program.”

I remembered.

Two years.

He had asked me to wait two years.

“I know.”

“The program wasn’t supposed to begin for another three months.”

That matched the timeline.

He disappeared three months after leaving.

“What happened?”

He looked at his father.

“I discovered irregularities in a clinical research project.”

Professor Bui said sharply:

“Enough.”

Nghien Chu ignored him.

“Patient data had been altered.”

I frowned.

“What does that have to do with you disappearing?”

“I reported it.”

His hands tightened.

“Someone tried to make it look as though I had authorized part of the research.”

Professor Bui closed his eyes.

Nghien Chu continued:

“My phone was confiscated during the investigation. My access to hospital systems was suspended.”

“Nine months?”

“No.”

His answer came immediately.

“Three weeks.”

Something inside me hardened.

He knew what I was asking.

“What happened after those three weeks?”

He lowered his head.

“I could have contacted you.”

There it was.

No dramatic excuse.

No impossible obstacle.

A choice.

“Why didn’t you?”

His voice became hoarse.

“Because my father told me you’d already moved on.”

Professor Bui looked away.

“He showed me messages.”

“What messages?”

“From your number.”

My skin went cold.

Nghien Chu took out his phone.

He had kept screenshots.

I read the first.

Don’t contact me again.

The second:

Waiting two years was already ridiculous. I’m not waiting for a man involved in an investigation.

Then:

The child isn’t yours. Stop imagining things.

I stared at the screen.

“I never sent these.”

“I know that now.”

Hoac Senh swore under her breath.

I looked at Professor Bui.

“Who sent them?”

He said nothing.

Nghien Chu stood.

“Answer her.”

His father finally spoke.

“I did what was necessary.”

Nghien Chu went completely still.

Professor Bui looked at me.

“You were pregnant. He was facing a career-ending investigation. If he had returned, everything he had worked for would have collapsed.”

“So you impersonated me?”

“I separated two people whose futures were already moving in opposite directions.”

Nghien Chu’s voice shook.

“You told me she didn’t want me.”

“I protected you.”

“No.”

He looked at his father as if seeing him for the first time.

“You controlled me.”

Professor Bui turned to me.

“And you survived.”

That sentence destroyed whatever restraint I had left.

“Yes.”

I held my daughter closer.

“I did.”

My voice remained quiet.

“I survived the first appointment alone.”

Nghien Chu’s eyes reddened.

“I survived moving apartments because I couldn’t afford the old one alone.”

He looked down.

“I survived every question asking where the baby’s father was.”

Professor Bui didn’t respond.

“So don’t stand beside my daughter’s crib and use my survival as proof that what you did was acceptable.”

He finally looked ashamed.

But I was finished with him.

“Leave.”

Professor Bui left.

Nghien Chu remained.

I looked at him.

“You should go too.”

“Hac Ninh, I didn’t know.”

“For three weeks.”

He froze.

“You didn’t know for three weeks.”

I repeated his own confession.

“After that, you chose to believe messages instead of finding me.”

“I called.”

“How many times?”

He couldn’t answer.

“Did you come home?”

“No.”

“Did you contact Hoac Senh?”

“No.”

“My university?”

“No.”

“My parents?”

His silence answered.

I nodded.

“Then your father is responsible for the lie.”

I looked directly into his eyes.

“But you’re responsible for believing it because believing it was easier than coming back.”

His face collapsed.

I didn’t enjoy seeing it.

That surprised me.

For months I had imagined wanting him to suffer.

Now I only wanted peace.

“I want to know her.”

His eyes moved toward An Nhi.

“Not as your boyfriend. Not as anything to you.”

His voice broke.

“Just let me earn the right to be her father.”

I looked at my sleeping daughter.

“I won’t stop you from proving you’re capable of being responsible.”

Hope appeared in his face.

I immediately continued:

“But don’t confuse that with getting me back.”

The hope disappeared.

Good.

He needed to understand the difference.

Three days later, I was discharged.

Nghien Chu didn’t try to take us home.

He simply stood downstairs while Hoac Senh helped me into the car.

Before I entered, he handed me a folder.

“What’s this?”

“Everything about the investigation.”

“I don’t need it.”

“You might.”

Something in his tone made me look at him.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

He hesitated.

Then said:

“The altered clinical research wasn’t the only reason my father wanted me away from you.”

My stomach tightened.

“What else?”

He looked at An Nhi.

“I found something yesterday.”

He opened the folder.

Inside was a laboratory report.

My name appeared at the top.

Tham Hac Ninh.

The date was from the beginning of my pregnancy.

Before Nghien Chu disappeared.

“I never had this test.”

“I know.”

I looked at him.

“Then why does it have my name?”

“Because someone accessed your medical record through my father’s credentials.”

Hoac Senh stepped closer.

“What kind of test?”

Nghien Chu’s jaw tightened.

“Genetic screening.”

I stared at the report.

There was another surname beside mine.

Not Bui.

Not Tham.

A name I recognized from the hospital’s research department.

I looked up.

“What does this mean?”

Nghien Chu answered quietly:

“It means my father wasn’t only trying to separate us.”

He turned to the last page.

There was an authorization form.

At the bottom was a signature.

Mine.

Except I had never signed it.

My breathing stopped.

Nghien Chu pointed toward the project number.

It was the same research project that had triggered the investigation against him.

And suddenly his father’s panic made sense.

This wasn’t only about an ambitious parent protecting his son’s career.

Someone had used my medical identity.

Someone had forged my signature.

And whatever had happened nine months earlier had begun before Nghien Chu ever disappeared.

I looked at him.

“Why me?”

His expression darkened.

“That’s what I came back to find out.”

Then Hoac Senh took the report from my hands.

She read the project number.

And all the color vanished from her face.

“Ninh Ninh…”

I turned toward her.

“What?”

For the first time since arriving at the hospital, my best friend looked frightened.

She raised her eyes.

“I’ve seen this number before.”

“Where?”

Hoac Senh swallowed.

“On your mother’s medical records.”