THE REBEL OF THE WIND

TABLE OF CONTENTS19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpwZ1yulp3r
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

Preface
Dedication
Blurb
Copyright Page
About the Author
Editor’s Note

PART TWO: MAIN CONTENT19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbO5MDwbzwd
7. Chapter I 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzjfq3yvMJw
8. Chapter II19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2WxHWlCu8w
9. Chapter III 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYpvrBkQqty
10. Chapter IV 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6zXiySuE2u
11. Chapter V 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG5U7YBizJL
12. Chapter VI 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf6P32We6lj
13. Chapter VII19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2x7v5jxwmu
14. Chapter VIII 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqaqLjCMQR7
15. Chapter IX 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3WlXm96anJ
16. Chapter X 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVGlSiMR2es
17. Chapter XI19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLd4hxkIztt
18. Chapter XII 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8xV3izu9Fs
19. Chapter XIII 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ350TIdtf4o
20. Chapter XIV 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6y0ZDVldLV
21. Chapter XV 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd8WKqLvRLj
22. Chapter XVI 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCWdTWUgLly
23. Chapter XVII19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjlnYK2PdxH
24. Chapter XVIII 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz6EDXsiFvF
25. Chapter XIX 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkhNZNGWziB
26. Chapter XX

PART THREE: CLOSING19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKhLZdhYQ5R
27. Appendix 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqs4A4mPkHX
28. Afterword

PREFACE

"Each of us needs a place to belong—even if that place exists only in memory."

There are questions humans carry for a lifetime but rarely dare to answer: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where do I truly belong?

For someone like An, those questions are more than philosophical—they are scars in the mind, a headwind running through her veins, a fractured contradiction between three bloodlines—French, Chinese, and Vietnamese—all stirring within a body no one wants to claim.

"The Rebel of the Wind" is not a heroic ballad, nor is it a tale glorifying the pride of one who rises above prejudice. It is a journey back to the self—a painful, torn, and relentless process that each person must endure when standing at the blurry crossroads of race, gender, nationhood, and dignity.

An doesn't need anyone to grant her an identity. She doesn't need the world’s approval. All she needs is a place to belong—a place where she doesn’t have to explain why she’s different, a place where she doesn’t have to strain to prove she deserves to exist.

And in that journey home—a home that may not be Vietnam, China, or France—An learns how to forgive the past, dissolve the biases, and embrace her own being.

This novel will not only make you reflect on national identity, but also invite you to look inward:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5GfZAvD4sK
Which bloodline governs your thoughts each day?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKMlnNIOwep
Are the values you believe to be “true” truly yours—or simply what you were taught to believe?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuaSLIfIjAX
And most importantly, have you ever forgiven yourself?

In the end, everyone needs a place to return to. Whether that place is a nation, a memory, a loved one, or a gentle breeze threading through the shards of a broken heart.

“The Rebel of the Wind” is a novel for those who are lost at their own crossroads—and still believe that even when the wind blows backward, the lotus can bloom from the mud.

Pham Le Quy19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDhksYNLsTX
Saigon, June 2025

DEDICATION

To the hybrid souls,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyPYUWo1EEW
to those who stand at the edge of identity,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWotGK0w4Ia
to those who never chose where they were born,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcMuf9P2EEv
but still bravely choose how to live.

To all the “Ans” of the world—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWfUvavMBsx
the flowers blooming in storms,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyBWw4FDaYp
who, despite being doubted, compared, and misunderstood,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm92mYBUq7I
still choose to hold on to dignity and a noble silence.

To you—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0yULbpTcNI
if you’ve ever been torn between East and West,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyIX8Zo0CjF
between right and wrong, between reason and desire.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx8cRk70cSL
May you find yourself somewhere in these pages.

And one day,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0JHckls4mi
you will know:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVE8fBFh8Ni
You belong.

BLURB

Three bloodlines. One body. One soul without a nation.

An—a girl carrying the blood of France, China, and Vietnam—lives not only amidst the clashes of culture, history, and politics,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJqkd30i3bA
but also torn apart by society’s prejudices on gender, identity, and dignity.

A memory-erasing drug has upended everything.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡstUkCZ6s1i
But scarier than losing one’s memory—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNHVOTKAnCU
is no longer knowing who you are in this world.

As the shattered mirrors of the past begin to reflect,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbWcr8gxfEU
as family, love, and hatred intertwine into an inescapable maze,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjia29OwVCm
An must choose:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡofDEOpwGRx
to become a pawn in the power game between East and West,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJUVUfy4xaB
or to rise and defend the rejected part of her own humanity.

In a world being assimilated and fractured,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZePtHR1FhQ
amid political schemes and battles for identity,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjS2l6bvXWd
The Rebel of the Wind is a journey against the current—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ09NchwDgCu
where one deemed “wrong” learns how to live “right” with herself.

A story of identity, forgiveness, and dignity.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJedyYIcX2w
A sigh for those who were never chosen—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFnF58Okp9l
but still chose to exist.

And a gentle reminder:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWQYSxmI8Eu
No matter how many bloodlines run through you,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx4dxciUD1l
you can still bloom like a lotus in the mud.

Copyright Page

© 2025 Phạm Lê Quý19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7NgJOMU832
Title: The Rebel of the Wind (Người Gió Nghịch)19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA5NXCjDT7S
Author: Phạm Lê Quý

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, recording, photocopying, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is purely coincidental or used with literary intent.

First Edition – 202519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlzyTqnwq76
Published in Vietnam19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAepjOXQPEH
Copyright belongs to the author19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUI3z3wqxoU
ISBN: (To be filled in when available)19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtvcdWvKIn1
Cover Design: Phạm Lê Quý19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPXP3Iz8yVY
Editing: Phạm Lê Quý19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhUOLsWMt3E
Contact: [email protected]

About the Author

Phạm Lê Quý is a storyteller born of many winds—the winds of memory, of cultural intersections, and of unanswerable questions. More than just a writer, Quý is a seeker: someone who journeys through the blurred borders between identity and prejudice, between dignity and silent wounds.

The Rebel of the Wind is a literary milestone in Quý’s journey, but it is not the beginning. It is the culmination of silent years lived alongside the question “Who am I in this world?”—a question that is far from easy for those whose lives have been fragmented by blood, culture, gender, or belief.

With a writing style rich in symbolism, emotional depth, and inner conflict, Quý does not write to explain—but to illuminate—with truth, with tears, and with the courage of those who refuse to be silenced. These pages do not seek escape, but a place for the human spirit to belong—even if only in imagination.

“If I am a rebel wind, then let me blow inward—toward the place I have never belonged.”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbGHkALxDR5
— Phạm Lê Quý

Editor’s Note

Author: Phạm Lê Quý

I did not write The Rebel of the Wind to find answers,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfctsRTtkLv
but to have the courage to face the questions life has silently and painfully asked me.

This is not a political novel, nor a manifesto on culture or gender.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOoYBcWC1Qa
It is the echo of a soul that once felt too “impure” to be loved,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8SSWtpyVmM
too “different” to be recognized.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqltcme4WID
A soul that lived among clashing winds—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGijMOf51tz
torn by heritage, by prejudice, by love, and by unnamed silences.

At times during writing, I wanted to stop.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtWtoWHZhEM
Because truth—even fictionalized—hurts.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrThDqxQKXl
But then I realized:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡELMBl1MACZ
If I didn’t write, those like “An” would never have a voice.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdet7K5KmNh
And if even one reader, somewhere, sees themselves in these pages,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlFLAi68qxr
then every loneliness I’ve borne was worth it.

Some chapters in this book follow nontraditional structures.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ivFRksKO7
Some dialogues may carry metaphors or symbolism.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1lGOKfZDiv
Please read with your heart, not just your mind.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHTOxWWhFH3
Because sometimes, the deepest meanings lie not in the words,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa0OilwHg7m
but in the silences between them.

Thank you—for being brave enough to read a story that goes against the current.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡum8SLYWSvS
And thank you to the winds—because even when they’re lost,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1WTtHoVseh
they still find their way home.

— Phạm Lê Quý19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRebqjuVUqi
June 2025

Chapter I: The Blood of Three Worlds

An awoke in a stark white room—no windows, just the cold flicker of fluorescent light glinting off a crumbling ceiling. The scent of antiseptic mingled with the metallic tang of old blood, as if her past had never been washed from her body.

She didn’t remember who she was.

Not in the way that people forget things temporarily. It was a complete, rounded, absolute erasure. Even the name “An” was something others called her, not something she recognized as her own. Linh—the woman who claimed to be her friend—had told her it was over now, that the past was a burden best shed.

“You’ll thank me later,” Linh had said as she injected a clear liquid into An’s veins—a so-called memory-erasing drug, imported from China, “quick and clean, like the past never existed.”

But what Linh didn’t know—or refused to admit—was that erasing the past meant erasing identity, roots, and the very blood flowing in her veins.

At night, when shadows crept across the walls, An heard voices within her—soft, spectral echoes in different languages. Some nights, it was French, whispering like wind through the stone corridors of Versailles. Other nights, it was classical Chinese, solemn like ancestral prayers from cold tombs buried deep in Yunnan. But most often, it was the lullaby of a Vietnamese woman—faceless, yet with a voice like stitches across a wounded heart.

She didn’t understand the words, yet they felt familiar—like her blood was not one, but three rivers flowing into the same ocean—an ocean of isolation.

One morning, she walked out of what Linh had called a “mental wellness sanctuary.” The city greeted her with chaotic sounds and faded sunlight. People passed by as though she were invisible. No one looked her in the eye—except for an old bookseller at the mouth of an alley.

“You carry a strange wind,” he said. “Like someone born of three seasons caught in one contrary gust.”

“I’m Vietnamese,” she replied. But even as she spoke, her own voice unsettled her. It held the cadence of southern France, the lingering softness of the North, and a nasal tone both gentle and firm, characteristic of midland Vietnam.

“No,” the old man replied, “You are diluted. And that’s not bad. Just... dangerous in a world that worships purity.”

An left without saying goodbye, but his words clung to her like a shadowed sun behind her back. She began noticing—the glances of passersby. At first careless, then shifting to suspicion, as though they smelled something off in her—something unplaceable.

She sought refuge in an old temple hidden in an alley. There, the old monk asked her to sit and listen to the bell.

“When the bell rings, what do you hear in your heart?”

She closed her eyes. There wasn’t just one bell—but three:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjTnRJHyUs2
A long chime echoing from Indochina.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlUzPeMHtDP
A short ring like a French legionnaire’s final farewell.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcyXWeb1vyg
A strained, trembling hum like Chinese silk torn in half.

“Three spirits reside in one body,” the monk said. “You are a confluence—where memory is not erased but equally divided between three powers.”

“But I no longer know who I am,” An whispered, almost in tears. “Should I live as a Vietnamese? A Frenchwoman? Or as someone with Chinese chemicals running through her blood?”

“You are all of them,” he replied. “That is your burden—and your liberation. You belong to no one place—but you can be the bridge.”

Back in the white room, An was no longer the old An. But she didn’t yet know who the new An was. She began to write.

In Vietnamese—writing about a nameless sorrow.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrg3MteDC8q
In French—writing about a love that was never acknowledged.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPDGUQX9SH9
In Chinese—writing about a promise betrayed by the past.

Each line of text became a bloodstream.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbYlNpQo2ms
Each page, a peeled layer of skin—searching for the soul that had once been wiped away.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBvRJaVIH5N
And the more she wrote, the clearer she heard the breath, the sobs, the hopes—of three souls living inside her.

One night, Linh returned. She smiled as she saw An holding a pen, her eyes as clear as rain after a storm.

“You remember now?” Linh asked, worried.

“No. You erased it all,” An said calmly. “But I’m rewriting—crafting a new self. One that carries the blood of three cultures, but is not beholden to any name.”

“How will you live?” Linh asked.

An whispered, “I’ll live like the wind—without a passport, without a past, without a form—but with a voice. And I believe that somewhere in this world, someone will hear my wind and realize they, too, are a child of history’s crossroads.”

Chapter II: The Third Person in a Purebred Society

On the streets of Saigon, An felt like a misaligned hue in a black-and-white palette. No one said anything outright, but glances never lied. A quick look was enough for her to understand she wasn’t welcome. A prolonged “hmm” from a vendor, a fleeting gaze followed by avoidance, a subconscious frown—all were ways people refused to acknowledge someone who didn’t belong to any “standard shade.”

The Vietnamese didn’t hate her. But they didn’t know how to love her either. Because she was… a third.

The number three—in local culture—is a bad omen. Something incomplete, awkward, neither round nor square. Neither beginning nor end. The third knock in ghost stories. The third child—the extra.

An carried three bloodlines—French, Chinese, and Vietnamese. But in others’ eyes, she carried none in particular. The French part was suspected to be a faded layer of lipstick. The Chinese lineage, a wrinkle on history’s brow. And Vietnam—the homeland she lived in—was the mirror that reflected most clearly her own out-of-placeness.

Once, on a rare date, a Vietnamese man—educated, polite, good-looking—looked at her through the steam of his coffee and asked:

“So... what are you?”

An replied, “I’m me.”

He chuckled softly. “I mean... what kind of mix?”

“French, Chinese, Vietnamese.”

The answer dropped like a stone into a still pond. He fell silent for a long time.

“Three bloodlines? Wow. That’s... something. But... I guess you’re not planning to marry a Vietnamese guy, are you?”

The question—half-joke, half-judgment—was clear. An simply nodded, as if confirming the obvious: this society didn’t need another species that couldn’t be named.

She had grown used to these silent divisions: Vietnamese men preferred Vietnamese women—pure, traditional, well-bred. They valued the “virtuous daughter,” prized “obedience, grace, speech, and morality.” And she, though never rebellious, never overstepped, was automatically seen as a “mixed girl”—a symbol of Westernization, a representative of “Western women”: flirtatious, wild, lacking restraint.

How absurd, An thought, that morality could be judged by blood type.

To Vietnamese men, she was unmarriageable. To Vietnamese women, she was not a friend to be trusted.

She was not despised for any wrongdoing—but for her lack of purity. In a society obsessed with “racial purity” yet constantly mimicking the West, her tri-blooded heritage became a paradox—a cultural virus.

Once, a group of Vietnamese girls whispered mockingly behind her in a bar:

“Is that a guy? Looks more like a gay dude. Three bloodlines and not a drop of masculinity.”

An heard them. But she wasn’t angry—because they weren’t wrong. She didn’t conform to what they wanted, didn’t fit their mold. She was soft in thought, gentle in action, and at times, even questioned her own gender—not because she was lost, but because society had made her constantly ask, “Am I man enough to be a man?”

And even when she looked Westward—toward the land of her French blood—she didn’t feel welcomed there either. White men looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and pity.

“Sorry, but you look more Asian than European.”

A sentence as light as wind, but sharp enough to cut skin.

To them, she wasn’t a gentle French-Vietnamese lady—but an Asian woman whose Western blood wasn’t “concentrated” enough to be considered one of them. Her choice—to live in Vietnam, to embrace her two-thirds Eastern heritage—was seen as a form of self-degradation, a betrayal of “superior” culture.

So the West dismissed her as second-class. Vietnam disdained her for “impure blood.” China remained silent—as history often does with nameless children.

She remembered that night. The night Linh and Nguyên—two people she thought were friends—injected her with that drug meant to erase everything.

“To let you start over,” Linh had said.

But no one can start over if their roots have been stolen.

An tried to find a reason. She asked herself a hundred times, “Why me? Why three bloodlines? Why not just one or two—like people are used to?” But eventually she realized: no answer would ever be reasonable. Life is just a game of chance, and she had drawn the losing card—the number 3.

And in the end, the only one who understood her... was herself.

No one saw her fear when stepping into a crowd. No one heard her heart breaking, piece by piece, from being rejected not for her mistakes—but for her genetic structure. No one read the invisible label on her forehead—one society had etched: “Belongs to no one.”

But amidst it all, An began to learn how to look in the mirror without hating herself.

She didn’t choose her blood. But she could choose how to live.

If society labeled her as mixed—she would be the most beautiful, the strongest of them all, redefining what it meant to be “pure.” If people called her “abnormal” for being different—she would become a symbol for those who had once been labeled so, and still lived with dignity, with love, with humanity.

On the rooftop, under the Saigon night, An looked at the golden lights glowing from the buildings. She closed her eyes. And in that moment, she felt three heartbeats—three bloodlines pulsing at once.

France – freedom.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2LFSH2ENTA
China – depth.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnNteey2aoI
Vietnam – resilience.

She didn’t need to choose. Because she was all of them. She was herself.

And that was the one thing no one could ever take away.

Chapter III: The Identity of a Renunciation

An was no longer young, yet not old enough to surrender all her desires. She stood at a life’s crossroads—where most people are forced to choose a path. But for someone with three bloodlines like her, the crossroads weren’t just about picking a direction; it was about dissecting herself, piece by piece, to decide which part to keep and which part to destroy.

She lived like someone awakening from a long slumber. But that sleep had been no dream. It was tangled, murky, filled with questions that defied answers.

Should I love?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTZG596hWEB
Who am I among these three bloodlines?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0FQz7M2ZVJ
Do I have the right to choose love for myself, or must I live as a function of a community, of a nation?

At first, she thought these were fleeting clouds. But as time passed, they thickened, dense and unrelenting, pouring down on her like a summer rain—long and chilling.

Inside her, there remained a small space longing to be loved. A flickering flame, feebly reaching out for the warmth of someone—man or woman, Western or Eastern. But beside that flame stood a wall—solid, unyielding—built from honor, pride, history lessons, and traditional warnings. And it was that very wall that stopped everything.

“Love is a bargain,” she told herself. “No matter who I love—I’ll have to pay.”

If she loved a man, she would have to suppress the softness in her soul—to become straight, strong, and hard as the “real man” this society demanded.

If she loved a woman, she would have to endure the stigma of an Eastern society—where the third gender was still seen more as a curse than an identity.

If she loved someone Western, she would face the alienation of her community, her family, and those who still saw the West as a symbol of decadence, promiscuity, and “selling oneself to foreigners.”

Whomever she chose, she would lose.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKtE0ic5YFP
Whichever path she took, she would be lost.

So An chose to stand still.

She stopped loving anyone. Stopped waiting. Stopped hoping for connections that could drain her and mold her into someone else's ideal version.

She began living with herself—with fear, with loneliness, with the incomplete identity of someone carrying three bloodlines. But strangely, in not choosing anyone, she found something like liberation. A quiet, smoldering light. It didn’t blaze like love, but it didn’t die out like despair. It was… peace.

She began piecing herself back together—like a potter picking up shards after an earthquake.

French blood—she placed at the bottom.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGqaRiVH1BM
Not because she hated France. But because that blood came from a foreign woman whose legacy left her “impure,” distrusted, and rejected in Vietnamese society. To her, French blood symbolized displacement, cold nights, and a luxury she could never touch.

Chinese blood—she placed in the middle.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIPKsFwL8g0
It was the blood of power, of logic, of discipline and control. But also the blood of Nguyên—the one who manipulated her, who conspired with Linh to inject her with a drug that stole her memories. It was both powerful and dangerous. Both near and far.

Vietnamese blood—she placed at the top.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl7CW5sYFvI
Because it was the blood of endurance. Of rice fields. Of her mother. Of lullabies. Though bruised by history, poor, and outdated—Vietnamese blood was the only one that made her feel like someone. It was where she belonged. It was her beginning and her end.

She sat before a mirror. Looked deep into her own eyes.

“An,” she said. “You are Vietnamese.”

The echo rang back—not with doubt, but with clarity.

From that day on, she no longer dreamed of Western men. No longer felt her heart flutter before the strength, freedom, and confidence of Western women. She didn’t hate them—but she no longer wished to be a part of them.

She learned to speak softly. Learned to walk slowly. Learned to be silent when needed. Learned to lower her eyes when others stared directly. Not because she was weak—but because she had chosen to return to her roots—to embrace the Eastern part of herself, the gentle part, the wise part.

She limited her contact with Westerners, avoided old friends who once tempted her to “escape.” She returned to Vietnamese food, to the ao dai, to fish sauce and lullabies.

She could no longer remember the smile of a woman named Elise—the first Frenchwoman to hold her during a sunset. Nor did she long for the gaze of a man named Luc—the one who once told her, “You don’t need to choose sides. You are beautiful because you are three.”

No. She no longer wanted to be three.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD6zlbfqhUI
She only wanted to be one.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc43hwt6UdO
To be An—Vietnamese.

She sent Linh a message:

“You don’t need to apologize anymore. I understand.”

The message went unanswered. But An wasn’t waiting.

Then one day, walking down a narrow street, she passed by a wedding. She watched the bride in a white ao dai, walking beside her Vietnamese groom. They smiled—simple smiles, unconflicted, without choice.

An smiled gently.

She, too, was on a journey of union—not with anyone else, but with herself. A marriage to the self she once abandoned. A marriage to dignity. A marriage to silence.

Because sometimes, renunciation isn’t surrender—it’s the final awakening of one who has passed through the storm.

Chapter IV: The Sister Not of Blood

That afternoon, Saigon was painted with the amber-orange hue of a June sunset. On the rooftop of a small café, An sat across from Linh after many months apart—or perhaps after many lifetimes lost and found.

The small table between them was no longer a border. And the steaming cup of coffee before them was no longer a veil that clouded the truth.

An looked into Linh’s eyes, then saw herself reflected within them.

And she suddenly realized—Linh was no longer the Linh of the past. No longer the woman she had once branded a traitor, the one who had injected memory-erasing drugs into her veins, the symbol of control.

Linh now was—someone with her own fractures. A woman who had become a hybrid between East and West. And more importantly: Linh was someone who had also stepped out of the darkness, as An once did.

There was a time An saw Linh as a faded shadow behind her. Not bright enough to illuminate, not bold enough to leave a mark. Just someone walking beside—not to accompany, but to witness.

But An had been wrong.

It was Linh who never left. The only one who stayed when everyone else had turned away.

An remembered collapsing on hospital beds, trembling in drug-induced dreams. She remembered the quiet hand-holding, the bowls of lukewarm porridge Linh cooked in the night, the silent glances.

“I didn’t know if what I did was right or wrong,” Linh had once said. “I just knew you needed someone—even if that someone had once hurt you.”

Now An understood.

Not everyone dares to step into another’s pain. Not everyone dares to stand on the edge between guilt and redemption—knowing they may be mistaken for the villain. But Linh had done just that.

And because of it, she was no longer a shadow—she was a piece of An’s shattered mirror.

“I once had a twin sister in the West,” An said, voice soft as silk. “But she wasn’t there when I needed her most. You were.”

Linh smiled. A smile laced with sadness and warmth.

“Because I once had a younger sister too… but never truly understood her.”

The two women sat side by side, saying no more. But their silence was not awkward—it was like a symphony composed of acceptance and forgiveness.

The broken mirrors in An’s heart—the mirror of memory, of the past, of pride—began to mend. Not with glue, not with technique, but with the presence of someone who could listen, remain silent, and take responsibility without justification.

An began to see herself again—but not as the lonely, lost, shame-ridden self she once was.

She saw a version of An who could mention Nguyên without trembling. An who could speak of her parents without flinching. An who could walk among crowds without feeling like an outcast.

And Linh—the woman who had once injected her with the drug of forgetting—was now the one helping her remember. Selectively. Remembering not to reopen pain, but to move forward.

“Do you think you’ve changed too?” An asked.

Linh nodded.

“Since being with you.”

“I used to think you were Western,” An said.

“And I used to think you were a Westerner lost in Asia.”

They laughed. Not loudly, but the sound spread into the air like the subtle fragrance of a rare flower—one that only blooms when the season in the heart has changed.

That night, An returned home, opened her laptop, and began to write. For the first time, not to explain, to defend, or justify—but to preserve. She wrote about Linh, about a soul-sister not of her blood. A woman who had replaced the image of her biological sister with honest, patient presence.

She wrote:

“I used to think I was all alone. But in accepting forgiveness, I discovered I was never truly by myself. There are those who aren’t there when we need them—but there are also those who make no promises… and still stay. And they are the family we choose.”

When she finished writing, An felt a weight lift from her heart.

No longer was it scarred by the question: Who am I among three bloodlines?

That question no longer mattered.

Because now, she had found someone who could walk with her—not to fix the past, but to help build the present.

Linh was no longer “the one who hurt.” No longer just “the one from before.” She had become the one who showed An this truth: forgiveness is not weakness—it is the strength to open another door, where the wind no longer blows against you, and where the heart is no longer trapped inside the mirror.

Because sometimes, the one who heals us is not the one who resembles us—but the one who once wounded us and chose to stay when everyone else walked away.

Chapter V: Two Graves and the One Who Forgives

An dreamed of a forest burning to ash.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuk6Ak3JIUo
In the dream, she walked among shattered tree trunks, with cinders and ashen leaves falling from the sky like black snow. Amid the ruins, she saw a blonde woman sitting beside a grave, hugging her knees. The woman's pale blue eyes were clouded like winter water—no longer reflecting light, only exhaling fatigue. In her hands was a photograph—old, torn, barely holding together the image of an Asian man whose gaze was as hard as steel.

“He destroyed me to resurrect himself,” the woman said, voice hoarse like smoke.

“Who was he?” An asked.

“Nguyên’s father,” she replied. “The first man to carry the illusion of revenge in the name of justice. But those like him… often lose themselves before they reclaim anything.”

An woke at three in the morning, her back damp with cold sweat. Her heart beat in a frenzied rhythm—not from fear, but because she understood. For the first time, she truly understood:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkgLiRxKUOT
Nguyên was her enemy—but he was also a victim.

She arranged to meet him.

Not at a café. Not in public. But at a cemetery.

The cemetery was hidden beyond a slope, a resting place for the unclaimed—names no one remembered, faces no one mourned.

Nguyên arrived dressed in black. His gaze was the same—as hot iron, as coal, as if ready to burn anyone who met it. But this time, there was no hatred. Only emptiness.

“Do you still believe in redemption?” An asked.

Nguyên said nothing.

“You once injected me with a drug so I’d forget who I was. You used me like a pawn. But now… I no longer hate you.”

Nguyên’s eyes trembled—for the first time in years.

“I don’t need your forgiveness,” he said, voice low and rough. “I chose that path. I believed that if I erased the past of someone like you—a mixed-blood—I could create something new. A ‘pure’ being. But I was wrong.”

An looked at the two symbolic graves before them. One bore the word Memory. The other, Revenge.

“I dug two graves,” she said. “One for me. One for you. Because as our Eastern ancestors once said: before you begin a journey of vengeance, dig two graves.”

Nguyên let out a laugh—silent, dry, like cracked lips breaking apart.

“Who do you think I am?”

“Someone who once believed he could reclaim honor for his bloodline,” An replied. “But in the end, you found a truth: no one truly wins when trying to erase an entire kind.”

She stepped closer. Close enough to hear the uneven rhythm of his heart beneath his dark coat.

“You know,” she continued, “even Linh—the one you trusted most, the one who stood by you—eventually chose to become fully Western. And when she did, you finally realized: Westerners can never truly become Eastern. And Easterners can never fully be Western.”

Nguyên clenched his fists. His eyes turned red—not from anger, but from acceptance.

“Then who am I?” he asked, eyes fixed on the two graves.

“Someone lost in the shadows of his ancestors,” An answered. “Like the French woman in my dream—she once loved an Asian man, but your ancestors left her adrift. Alone, she turned her back on herself. And now, you are following her path.”

Nguyên was silent for a long time. Then, like part of an ancient ritual, he knelt before the two graves.

“You forgive me?” he asked.

“No,” An shook her head. “I forgive myself—for ever giving you the power to hurt me. And I forgive you… so I can move on.”

They stood beside each other—not enemies, not victors or losers. Just two silhouettes in a graveyard, silent like the remnants of a centuries-long ideological war.

“I no longer believe in hatred,” Nguyên said. “Because now I know: if I want to be Western, I’ll never have black hair, black eyes, yellow skin… unless I destroy them all. And if I did that, I wouldn’t be human anymore.”

An touched one of the tombstones.

“And I… I once wanted to erase the European blood in me. But I realized: denying part of myself is denying the whole.”

On the way home, An watched motorbikes whizz past like arrows. She smiled—a smile that belonged neither to East nor West. Not a smile of victory. Not one of defeat.

But a smile of someone who had stepped off the battlefield—not as a survivor, but as one who had laid down her weapon.

Forgiveness was not the end—but the beginning of truth.

Chapter VI: The Replacement Can Never Be the Original

That afternoon, the wind was still.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVT0Fes4rkd
The air seemed frozen. Time stood still.

An sat in an old teahouse, holding a crackled ceramic cup, silently watching the tea seep into the hairline fractures. Outside, Saigon was still as noisy as ever—but in her mind, only one image remained: Linh.

The girl who had entered An’s life like a breeze.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ2DbRz0GL4
Gentle. Yet cold. Soothing. Yet dangerously quiet.

The girl who once said she wanted to stay by An like a shadow… but over time, seemed to want to become An. Not to walk beside her—but to replace her.

An remembered Linh’s gaze from those days—the look that wasn’t quite envy, nor admiration. It was something between jealousy and the longing to possess.

Linh didn’t want to be An’s friend. Linh wanted to become a “better” version of her—prettier, more Western, more successful, more loved, and… more remembered.

An had once felt angry. Bitter. Disgusted—seeing Linh as someone without roots, someone who abandoned her identity to chase the imported shine of secondhand dreams.

But today—with everything settled—she no longer felt angry.

Because now she understood.

Linh wasn’t like Nguyên—a man swallowed by the past and ideology to the point of losing himself without realizing.

Linh, on the contrary, was fully aware.

She knew exactly what she was doing. She understood the price. And still, she chose to pay.

Linh chose to live like a Westerner—not because she was one, but because she wanted to be loved like one. To be desired like one. To belong in their gleaming world.

She trained herself to change her voice, her walk, her makeup, her eyes—even her smile—to resemble the foreign women in French films.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWex9bDBzQM
She wore their dresses, painted her lips like theirs, and loved their men.

An had once thought it was filthy, traitorous, self-destructive.

But now… she only felt sad.

“Maybe she loves the things I never could,” An whispered to herself.

Linh didn’t want to be herself—because herself wasn’t glamorous enough. Not chosen enough. Not loved enough.

She wanted to be An.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9VHk77dqWI
But not the An as she was—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3rjCDz3bGK
She wanted to be an “improved” An: an An with visibly Western blood, a Western body, a Western romance, a Western future.

An that… An had never been.

An looked out the window. A foreign couple walked by, holding hands, laughing. She smiled—a faint smile, like fading tea smoke.

“You wanted to replace me, Linh?” she murmured.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeaIi8w6jn9
“Then take it all. Take the worst parts too. Take the deepest wounds. Take even the memories that were erased from me.”

She closed her eyes briefly. Then opened them and wrote a line in her worn leather notebook:

“If you truly want to become me,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgdyD6qPald
Then bear ten times what I’ve endured.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡScS2yrP82M
You once thought I was pitiful.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvSFB2aabXc
So now, I hope the world loves you—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5xbv61FtBt
In the way it pitied and despised me.”

It wasn’t a curse. It was a release.

An no longer needed Linh to pay.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ13dAL7ljxt
Because, in truth—Linh already had.

The cost of losing your identity is emptiness.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt9Vsz14UYW
The cost of loving a world that won’t accept you is loneliness.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWxFmATpPZt
The cost of becoming a replacement is never being loved as yourself.

Linh now—might look very Western.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIxLU5OkWSV
But perhaps… no one truly sees her as Western.

And perhaps no one remembers that she was once a Vietnamese girl—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG6DyTdWPhO
Once knew the taste of fish sauce,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTzKeIIQL0I
Once spoke her mother tongue,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8voPa78wpl
Once understood the meaning of heart.

An picked up her phone and sent a short message:

“Linh,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRWj7tiIACR
I forgive you.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI7Is9G00mR
Because you didn’t take anything from me.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0uEw8YUfvz
You only took what you’ll never be able to keep.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡID8chpKGyz
And I no longer want to hold onto them either.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRm0uK5gONE
Your world is beautiful—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVATRqQlTzw
I just hope you’re strong enough when it turns its back on you.”

There was no reply. But An didn’t need one.

She had forgiven.

Not because Linh deserved it.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4JGo9dBv8m
But because An deserved to feel light again.

That night, An dreamed a strange dream.

She saw Linh standing in the middle of Paris, wearing a white dress, spinning in the crowd.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡviHUby43jJ
But Linh’s eyes… were those of someone who had gone too far to find the way back.

An walked toward her, ready to call out.

But Linh didn’t hear.

She just stood there, spinning endlessly—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAlGXHXUiag
Like a wind-up doll in a music box no one opened anymore.

An woke in the middle of the night.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7azqflmulL
Alone.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwSy96df9Mr
But lighter than ever before.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ28bjAAmga5
It means refusing to let the past clutch your throat and drag you back into the abyss.

And An had done it.

Because she understood—not everyone who betrays is cruel.

Some betray… because they are too weak before the glitter.

And they, in the end, must live with that glitter forever—19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX1pNdeGNUX
Without ever touching the light.

Chapter VII: The One at the Center of the Cycle

An sat beneath the moss-covered eaves of an ancient monastery on the outskirts of Da Lat, beside Linh — the woman who had once been her shadow, then her friend, then her teacher. Neither spoke. They simply sipped ginger tea, quietly watching the last rays of daylight fall into the valley like ashes from a war that had never been declared.

Nguyên still lingered in their lives like a ghost. He was no longer a man obsessed with drawing a line between East and West. He had changed colors. He no longer sought to divide — but to merge. He no longer hated the West, but longed to conquer it. He no longer rejected it, but wished to taint it, to dilute its blood, to stain it with the shadowy ambition of a man like him.

And for that, he needed Linh — a Vietnamese woman with a Western air, a symbol of the “domestication of the foreign.” And he needed An — the soil from which Linh had emerged, so that a new form could grow from it.

Nguyên wanted An’s blessing.

Not in the traditional sense of matchmaking. But as a kind of ritual sacrifice. A coronation.

He wanted An to give her approval to his union with Linh — as a form of surrender, an admission that An had failed to preserve her identity. That now, the very man who once dreamed of reviving “pure Vietnamese” blood was embracing the ambition of conquering the West through a political marriage.

“You’re a bridge,” he once told An, his voice calm and reverent like a prophet’s.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC2Ceef5OOW
“But a bridge cannot stand unless both sides agree to meet. You must allow your sister to marry me, so that the West will see Vietnam as fertile ground for ‘intercourse.’ And then… power will flow to us from the other side of the world.”

But An remained silent.

Because she knew: if she agreed, she would no longer be herself.

Nguyên wanted even more. He wanted to force An to bless the union of two Vietnamese men — to make her a symbol of support for same-sex marriage in a society still wary of the third gender.

If An, a woman of three bloodlines, supported gay marriage, she would become a multifaceted emblem — an international symbol ready to be used in any political, cultural, or power strategy.

“You can make the world believe Vietnam is progressive,” he whispered.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBbqNrCtGtz
“And I… will make them submit.”

But An refused.

She would not bless any union where power led the way instead of love.

Instead, she chose to bless the love between two Vietnamese women.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCryFCdR8dp
Not to oppose men,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2CYqzH05Go
But to create balance — between West and East, between femininity and masculinity, between emotion and logic.

An believed: if two Vietnamese women, carrying Western souls, could love each other, then the West would no longer dare to look down on the East.

And in that, An would become “more Western” — but in a way that she defined herself.

She followed Linh — not because Linh deserved to be a teacher,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcj3FLPWY4F
But because within Linh burned a fire that An needed to learn to tame — the fire of survival through sacrifice.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2rUKifPru2
But Linh… never understood that.

Linh began to look down on An.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0iw6wVwM7r
She believed that being seen with An devalued her worth.

“You’re like a crack on my face,” Linh once said in anger.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCCWZa6mVsQ
“And you,” An replied, “are what grew from that crack.”

An no longer resented Linh.

She understood.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfqwFv07L19
Anyone who tries to live as a Western ideal will eventually be ashamed of anything that reminds them: they are not truly Western.

Linh had abandoned An — like someone fleeing the shadow they once stepped through.

But Linh forgot one thing:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrpHEWwHlwm
No one walks past their guide without carrying their footprints.

Nguyên, Linh — all of them — orbited around An like planets without their own light.

And now, An understood: she was the sun.

Not a blinding radiance.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgx4TamlHzX
But the anchor — the axis upon which every ambition, imitation, and mutation revolved.

She was the center of the cycle.

Not because she was the best.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1n9aWOpTE8
Not because she was the strongest.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCPIiZ6dQ29
But because she had dared to endure the pain that others only sought to wipe away.

She turned to Linh — who was carefully reapplying red lipstick in a mirror.

“You can deny me,” An said calmly,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxkNDHzgHhO
“But you can’t deny the truth: without me, you would forever be an incomplete version.”

Linh was stunned. Her face blurred into the amber light. She didn’t reply, didn’t react — just glanced sideways.

That glance — filled with envy, gratitude, and regret — was the only answer.

That night, An wrote a single line in her journal:

“Some spend their whole lives trying to replace someone else.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyOMlxrZNvc
But only those who truly endure are remembered by history.”

Then she closed the page.

And quietly stepped outside.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsnSf1CqtJF
She didn’t say goodbye.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp83wdsZmyZ
She didn’t wait for anyone to walk with her.

Because those who stand at the center of the cycle…19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIjbMXI3eJK
Need no one’s validation.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQjzl5uL2iS
They shine on their own.

Chapter VIII: The Original Position and the Resurrection of a Consciousness

An stood before a large mirror in the quiet room where she had lived for nearly two years since returning to Vietnam. The mirror was no longer new; the edges of the glass had grown foggy. Yet it still reflected a face — no longer that of the mixed-blood girl once lost in the Western blizzards, and not quite the pure Vietnamese woman who had once embraced the darkness of the past like a pillow.

That face — was it the new An, or the old An returned?

The question hung there, suspended like a wind chime in her mind. And the one who had stirred it again was none other than — Nguyên.

He came back, this time not to persuade, but to demand.

“Only when you return to your original position,” he said,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgTclFciyBB
“can everything be realigned.”

“And what is the original position?” An asked.

“The identity of a Vietnamese man. Accepting your former role. No more mixing, no more Western traits, no more poison from foreign women.”

He no longer needed to hide.

He wanted to erase all Western refinement in An.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBDrMl19CH8
To make her revert to being a “pure” Vietnamese — undiluted, unmutated.

An without feminism.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSw1Nee0W2w
An without gender distinction like Western women.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU6dhat6Ll2
An with no right to choose her own love — only what had been predetermined.

Because to him, Western women were a threat.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOV7y91iw2l
They lived for themselves.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRwRiByQjFR
They chose themselves over men.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoQwMEFfvsd
They weren’t willing to be the good wife, the nurturing mother.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1pCUCtA6Fi
They didn’t bear children to fulfill some sacred duty, didn’t sacrifice just to be praised.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2XPGuQq9ER
They rejected traditional roles — and for that, they symbolized a world he couldn’t control.

Whereas Vietnamese women — in his eyes — “knew their place.”

They knew how to sacrifice.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTswVVwfZTQ
How to love.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQBCBfR5TH2
How to erase themselves for their husband and children.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS9pH1nxxG6
Even how to become the third wheel in their own life — just to keep the family whole.

An had once been undefinable.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIAAjcoaJle
And because of that, she was the most dangerous.

He couldn’t stand it.

So he made her a proposition:

“You want to change Linh? You want to bring your sister back from France? Fine. But return to being a man. A true Vietnamese man. Stop talking about gender. Leave no trace of the West in your blood.”

An laughed.

He didn’t understand.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0LWVfSeePB
Still didn’t.

She didn’t need to be a man to be strong.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjoRkQTcech
Didn’t need to be a woman to know how to love.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRkv8L4igO8
Didn’t need to “go back” — because the original position itself was a trap.

And if she returned to being the man she once was,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡubOpBUj3ig
There would have been no Linh — the one who injected her with the drug.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSQo7KHqgva
No France.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBUuUWZFF41
No cold nights hiding in the dreams of a Western woman.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIuUClXqsha
No collisions that made her realize who she was.

But… there would also be no An today.

Nguyên didn’t know this:

It was Western women — the very ones he feared, hated, sought to control — who had, indirectly, saved An.

They hadn’t helped her through direct action.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRW0aF1geCj
But their independence, their fierce sense of self, and their belief in “loving yourself first”… had left a deep imprint on An’s soul.

And even though she initially resisted,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHHcHIQCwMk
Even though she once despised them,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ25c8ddsY9N
She still learned from them how to stand tall — even while carrying the eternal insecurity of a mixed-blood soul.

She turned to Linh — her teacher, her replacement, her betrayer, and the only one who once held her hand after everything collapsed.

“Do you think I should go back to how I was?” An asked.

Linh pressed her lips together.

“Do you think I should become a man again?”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwKmnAOXXH1
“Do you think I should play matchmaker for a straight couple, or a gay couple, just to be ‘certified’ as a good person?”

Linh didn’t answer.

Because she knew:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwjwkLIh4C0
An no longer needed anyone’s approval to define herself.

As for Nguyên… he kept pushing.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZw7XL2b9dq
Not just with words,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcGDJmhfee6
But with media pressure, public opinion, political games.

He did everything to build the image of a “fallen An”:

A man who wouldn’t own his identity
A mixed-blood betraying his lineage
A third wheel in his own life

But there was one thing Nguyên had forgotten:

It was precisely because An dared not to return to the starting line that she could change Linh.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6swRhZOma8
It was because she embodied intersection, not regression, that she could move her sister in the West.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡloWWsIMs6l
And it was because she was many things at once — that those who once looked down on her began to waver.

An stepped out of the room.

Linh followed behind, silent — but no longer hesitant.

Perhaps she had finally understood:

A guide isn’t the one who stands at the front.

A guide is the one who dares to step forward first.

An turned her head slightly, whispering — as if speaking to the world:

“I don’t need to return to the original position.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Brs6liHpC
Because if I go back… who will keep walking forward?”

Chapter IX: The Pomeranian Dog and the Trap of Freedom

One morning, An stood in front of the mirror. Sunlight streamed through the dusty window frame, casting light onto her gaunt face. Her hair was cropped short, her skin a gray-tinged golden brown, her eyes marked with faintly mixed features — not quite Western enough to be called "foreign," and her lips — pressed shut as if biting back what couldn’t be spoken.

“French dog,” An whispered.

Not as an insult, but as an echo of what she had once overheard — the murmurs of ridicule behind her back, the raised eyebrows that spoke without words, the jokes that seemed playful but were truer than anything else in life.

A Pomeranian — a small foreign dog, yet raised in Vietnam. Cute, but the moment it displeased its owner, it would be kicked out the door.

And now, An was that Pomeranian in this world —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXf0tl0dECA
Not mixed enough to be called Western,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZlH5X32jGI
Not pure enough to be called Vietnamese,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrIG4RSqkGI
Not tough enough to be a man,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeaOv45LPEj
Not soft enough to be a woman.

She had once thought about marrying a Western woman.

Not out of lust or fantasies of ideal love — but as a way to reclaim dignity for the blood inside her that had been scorned.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWIcBrMjtNd
She wanted to hold hands with a Westerner in public, to boldly declare:

“I have value. I, too, can be chosen.”

But then she understood.

Western women didn’t love her — they loved the Western part of her.

Forty percent French blood, a few delicate facial features, eyes that didn’t quite look Asian. They were amused. Curious. Intrigued.

But when faced with reality — with the rest of her:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZFHNrNZHdU
Her Eastern mindset, her tangled scars, her stubborn loyalty — they grew cold.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr6ZbpT5ABn
They didn’t say goodbye.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8v75LGngeV
They didn’t walk away with parting words.

They evaporated.

Like faint perfume fading after a party.

Because they only loved the 40%.

The remaining 60% — they didn’t know what to do with it.

And they hadn’t been taught to take responsibility for difference.

As for her Chinese side — the other part of her blood — it wasn’t much better.

They looked at her like a prototype in a “Western integration experiment.”

They chatted, offered tea, signed cultural exchange papers —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1tY11lvkxW
But no one wanted commitment.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjZyu1DnKsb
No one wanted marriage.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaJeGxcMPvF
No one wanted a bond.

Because they knew: the West was the goal, and An — was just a temporary bridge.

“If the West can do it, the Chinese can do it too.”

That’s what a Beijing businessman once told An at a party in Hội An.

And that’s when she realized — she was only a draft.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ85lgMDtdQ0
A transitional model.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdsoWFdh1OT
An elegant interface.

What was left?

Only Vietnam.

Where Nguyên and Linh — the very people who had stripped away her memories — still clung to her like toxic magnets.

Nguyên wanted her to become a “man” again — to be the pillar of his political ideology.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3WvQ1opTzP
Linh wanted her to remain “mixed” — so she could continue using An as a mirror to reflect the Westernization she performed every day.

Both of them knew:

If An left — if An truly became free — both would lose their worth.

Because An’s presence justified their existence.

An had once dreamed.

In the dream, her twin sister — now living in France — returned to Vietnam.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9VR3pX1NbX
Not out of longing for home.

But out of fear of losing the lead role in the tragedy that An was performing.

She feared that if An left, if An severed ties with this land, the Western community would slowly withdraw —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxS2nxZimqS
Tourism, investment, culture, politics — all would fade.

Because An was the bridge.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDsITiI421Y
The display case.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTl8LW3p7Zr
The “living proof” of integration.

If she left, that image of harmony would collapse.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7LYIfn27Qq
And the country — already dependent on money from across the ocean — would shatter.

An sat and wrote in her journal:

“I’m not a Pomeranian.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvgUSbvBb81
I am a small torch that lights up the darkest parts of my blood.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbsEDBsT1Qe
But sadly, people only see the flame — and never notice my burning hand.”

She didn’t choose how she was born.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXpG4ECuZO2
Didn’t choose who injected her with the drug, who betrayed her, who pitied her.

But now, she chose silence no longer.

If forced to choose between being the “bridge” others walk across, or burning the bridge to build her own path —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo9JYFSuF8F
She would choose the latter.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡslEmzqSb34
Even if it meant walking alone.

When night fell, An looked up at the sky.

Wind blew. Leaves rustled.

In the wind, someone called her name. She couldn't tell if it was Linh, or Nguyên, or the Western woman she had once loved — the one who quietly vanished.

An didn’t respond.

Because from now on, her name would no longer be called by others as a symbol of what they wanted her to be.

Her name — was An — and only she knew, it was the name of a silent rebellion.

Chapter X: The Journey of Reversing the Flow of Capital

The sky over Saigon that day hung heavy, as if cradling a secret it could no longer bear to contain. Gray clouds gathered in streaks like torn silk, shredded by the invisible hand of fate. An sat by the window, silently staring out, though in truth, her mind was a battlefield echoing with ceaseless noise.

Nguyên.

That name was no longer just a person.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhHWYtNKIvk
It had become a whole belief system, a carefully calculated strategy as cold and methodical as the hands of those who script history in the shadows.

He had gone too far.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0tXzXT2Knr
For money.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyRytKZI9My
For fame.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN3GsuNSWSh
For the illusion of reviving a fallen dynasty.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡme4g7rYNRz
For the honeyed poison whispered from across the border — from relatives in China who poured syrup-laced words into his ears:

“If you can sway An to our side, the entire West will tremble on its own.”

And he believed them.

By injecting An with a sophisticated memory-erasing drug imported from China — a drug that didn’t just delete memories, but warped cultural perception — Nguyên envisioned a future where:

An’s twin sister in the West would no longer dare bring her back to France, for fear An might "contaminate" the white community with Eastern thought.
The West, frightened by the threat of “hybridization,” would react in reverse — preserving their purity by donating money to create a buffer from Asia, as if buying off the cultural boundary.
And Vietnam — through Nguyên — would hold the keys to the vault.

The ambition was clear.

Nguyên didn’t just want to erase An’s past.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoq1ETrd3zV
He wanted to turn her into a sacrificial pawn drenched in Eastern essence, so that when the West feared assimilation, it would flood the East with wealth as a defense mechanism.

He once whispered:

“When you accept being Eastern — in both body and mind — the West will no longer dare embrace you. And when that happens, they’ll pay to build fences against their own fears.”

An knew everything.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu0OtnBMZPZ
She wasn’t as naive as Nguyên assumed.

She had silently read the forged documents he sent to international collaboration offices.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsLDxqfI34u
She had examined the financial movement maps of multinational corporations and detected something off:

Western money was flowing into Asia — but not out of love for Asia.

It was flowing to avoid the fear of being infected by An.

A hybrid being, feared as a mirror reflecting the world after globalization.

In truth, it was because An had once leaned toward the West that the West had begun funding Asia — as a way of countering her reflection.

They feared that if they embraced An, they would have to accept that their own kind could be altered.

So they funneled money into Asian aid programs, Asian cultural investments, Asian-centered media — to suppress An’s influence.

Because if someone like An — with three bloodlines — leaned Westward, the lines of distinction would collapse.

And they weren’t ready for that.

But now, it was different.

An had embraced her Asian side.

Not out of defeat.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNfijzNw4UJ
Not out of surrender.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzec8Ot02UF
But because she wanted to unify her identity.

She was tired of running between East and West.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdZSAFx53tq
Tired of being a “special case” under academic scrutiny.

And from the moment she accepted being Asian — the dominant part of her blood — the world began to shift.

The West no longer feared assimilation — they switched to contempt.

They thought:

“If someone like An ends up choosing her origin, why should we bother investing in her? She’s already chosen her root. There’s nothing to fear anymore.”

And the money started reversing.

Slowly, but clearly.

One by one, NGOs pulled their funding.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa94fJwHVCU
Corporations began cutting budgets for cultural exchange programs.

It was the endgame of a rigged match.

Nguyên panicked.

He never anticipated that An returning to her roots would disarm the West.

They didn’t panic — they simply… cut ties.

And with that, his dream of “harvesting gold from the West” collapsed.

He blamed An.

“You made a mistake. You should’ve stayed in the middle. You should’ve kept just enough West in you to keep them uneasy.”

An looked at him, her gaze calm as a still lake.

“The issue isn’t who I choose.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEdO2GmSshe
It’s that the world never truly accepted someone like me.”

She sat down and wrote in her notebook:

“I don’t lean toward anyone.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR9KlUAWxfJ
I am myself.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPrA6dSw7rr
But if the world needs me to lean, I’ll lean toward the side that bled the most.”

That day, An’s twin sister in France sent a handwritten letter:

“Dear sister,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPvSejLzEuQ
People here are in a panic. They see you turning East.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaEmhU52QZk
They say you betrayed them. But maybe… they never truly loved you.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk5VdEwb7RO
Thank you for keeping both sides from becoming too powerful or too weak.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaK0q58KyI2
And maybe… from now on, I’ll try living like you —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaTdrlF8P6h
Half staying, half departing.”

An smiled.

There are some streams of money that don’t need to keep flowing.

Just standing still is enough to cause an earthquake.

Chapter XI: When the Original Stands Beside the Copy

People often say: when the original stands beside the imitation, the truth no longer needs to speak.

An stood beneath the warm golden lights of an evening gala at the French Embassy in Saigon. Dressed in a simple black gown with a high collar, her hair tied in a low bun, she looked like an unfinished sculpture — rough, dusty, but astonishingly alive.

Meanwhile, Linh, in a pristine white dress, elegant and polished, stood beside her Western husband — her prince, who once believed he had chosen wisely by marrying a “refined Asian bride.”

But it only took one glance… for the illusion to shatter.

The Western man’s eyes — once convinced by Linh’s modern allure — suddenly clouded with doubt. Because An was real. Without a word, without explanation, she was real — from the scar left bare without makeup, to her slightly husky voice, to her faintly sorrowful gaze, to her imperfect but grounded steps.

And Linh was revealed: a finely engineered replacement, but soulless. A replica without memory. A “Western-style Vietnamese woman,” but one lacking the historical depth of the West itself.

An said nothing.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBcFcXCyvqg
She just stood there.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9SSlYgjyhH
Her presence alone was an irrefutable declaration.

That’s why Linh grew flustered.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaWUMwVtris
Very flustered.

She gave a forced smile, changed her tone of address, cut off her husband when he asked curiously about An. Then she began... drawing lines.

“She’s just an old friend. We’re not that close. Very different personalities.”

Linh wanted distance. Because she understood: if her husband looked a moment longer, compared a bit deeper, everything she had built over the years — to become a “new persona,” a “modern Asian princess” — would collapse.

Because…

There is no pain more devastating than standing beside the original, and realizing you've bought the wrong version.

The next morning, An read the news: A series of French scholarship funds were withdrawn from Vietnam.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZAxAelOjdb
No clear reason was given.

But she knew.

The West had awakened.

They had realized that Linh — once awarded the labels of “peace,” “cultural harmony,” “ideal wife” — was merely a vessel of performance. A living deepfake, trained to win trust.

And more dangerously: Linh didn’t just represent herself. She represented a replicable model — one the West had mistakenly believed it could control.

They couldn’t let it happen again.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0wDqeIv8mn
They couldn’t allow a second Linh to infiltrate their culture.

So they changed policies:

Tightened marriage VISA approvals.
Expanded international student programs — but required disclosure of all social media identities.
Scanned interaction histories and cross-verified relationships.
Blocked all acts of covert cultural replication.

And most importantly:

They stopped funding Vietnam.

Not out of hatred.

But because they no longer knew what — or who — was real.

Linh sat alone in her luxury apartment, biting her lip. Her husband hadn’t come home the night before. He had only sent one message:

“I need to rethink everything.”

Linh wanted to cry.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnLpyTMQZmB
But the tears didn’t come.

Because deep down, she knew:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqR4FnSQsf3
That was the price of faking — even with good intentions.

An didn’t blame Linh.

She understood.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡubBzbanwFh
In the journey of seeking love, not everyone manages to stay true to themselves.

But Linh had lost herself in the pursuit of a place that was never hers to begin with.

And for that, Linh was no longer a traitor to An — she was a traitor to herself.

That afternoon, An received an email from a university in Paris.

They invited her to return as a visiting lecturer for their program on postcolonial identity studies.

An closed her laptop and sighed.

She knew — it wasn’t because they loved her.

But because now, only she — the original — could help them distinguish what was real from what was not.

She had become… the authenticity check.

A genuine article displayed in a marketplace of counterfeits.

And perhaps, only that… would keep the West from withdrawing completely.

Because if they lost An, they would have no one left to prove that hybridity could exist without assimilation.

An was what remained after everything —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwv6RvWOqWj
Imperfect, inconvenient, ungovernable —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM5v9YKZGMO
But the only thing that was real.

Chapter XII: Freedom Comes From the One Who Refuses to Kneel

Nguyên was no longer a ghost.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡve3S07lUde
He had taken form — towering like a dormant volcano, cold on the outside, yet filled with smoldering ashes capable of burning anyone who stepped too close.

An looked at him — for the first time in many months.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqeAoHPLMpn
He hadn’t changed.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGUbhKuEzcO
He didn’t need to.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡllrPmXbw4k
Because he never wanted to evolve.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSYHzsKDUH3
He only wanted to dominate.

“You betrayed your blood,” Nguyên hissed in their final confrontation. “You chose to become a spiritual puppet of the West.”

“And you chose to become a slaughterhouse,” An replied. “You want to turn both East and West into a place where your knife rests on everyone’s throat.”

Linh stood between them, like a painting torn in half. One half leaned toward softness, the other drowned in fear.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡunpJNzLHxH
Because she didn’t know — she, too, was just a sacrifice.

Nguyên never loved Linh.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGkJOuvb6Oz
He needed her — as living proof.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi6LNVpHCme
As the “fake Western woman” to be dragged back to the pen, just so he could declare:

“I have conquered the very kind that once ruled us with their gaze and language.”

He needed Linh to fall —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcdeSdJpRoZ
So that she, too, could die alongside An, if necessary.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUj1xY9DcII
Because to Nguyên, even a counterfeit Western woman still had to pay the same price as a real one.

“You thought I was your ally?” Linh asked An in confusion.

An answered gently, “I am the last one left who can still protect you.”

Only An — as someone in-between, a double-edged blade who had lived on both sides — could see what Linh couldn’t:

If Linh stood equal to Nguyên in spirit — strong enough, defiant enough, unyielding —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCGJKnb07Ep
Then only her body remained a weapon for Nguyên to use violence against.

But if Linh continued to wield Western values as a shield, keeping herself “above” Nguyên —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNxfUdkyeRk
Then he would not dare touch her.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY25RlHz9N0
Because no matter how tyrannical, Nguyên still feared the powerful image of the West he never truly understood.

Spiritual value — even a fabricated one — still held a weight that made a brute hesitate.

“You thought pretending to be Western would make you loved,” An said.

“But you didn’t know… pretending to be Western was the only way you wouldn’t be beaten like an Asian woman from the Middle Ages.”

Nguyên grew furious.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0KRezyzaKC
He slammed the table.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbbJ3lF7DDE
He screamed in An’s face.

But An did not fall.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMPYNQK9faw
She was no longer the An of the memory-erasing drug, no longer the An lost between three bloodlines.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe4LRcrOcl0
She was An who had unified her body, mind, and spirit.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0FTPObvh2Q
An who knew she didn’t have to be anyone else.

And what frightened Nguyên most —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCawC77Y45V
Was not rebellion.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxmnoEFj1X7
It was serenity.

“You can’t defeat me,” An said, eyes fixed on him.

“Because I no longer have the ambition to defeat anyone. I only want to stop being dragged into being a sacrificial pawn for any so-called civilization.”

Linh began to cry.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXMjcqbuXSQ
For the first time, she saw An —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLG6LhhSkc2
Not as a shadow.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgGY9XcDAnl
Not as a rival.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHrgHpiGJlX
Not as the original.

But as a sister, a friend,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd11FsZplet
A woman who refused to kneel — and in doing so, saved Linh from kneeling forever before a man cloaked in the words nation, tradition, heritage, who was in truth merely obsessed with controlling women.

“I don’t need a man to survive,” Linh whispered.

“Not because I’m strong — but because I was once lifted from the abyss by another woman.”

She looked at An —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjHDDQqKrt7
No more envy.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbIcxZg69it
No more shame.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQgFH23KCKL
No more walls.

An had succeeded.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtcyMTeDJgN
Not because she defeated Nguyên —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOjXYPguO5w
But because she refused to be a pawn in his game.

She had protected her dignity.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOz8CIjChdJ
Without falling.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlVrpnMjxLg
Without surrendering.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQnCB6xKoW1
Without choosing a side.

She remained herself while others lost who they were.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZSeCQwAP1C
She saved Linh — not from death, but from a life that was like death.

She shattered Linh’s dream of becoming a wealthy Western bride —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9bMKhkhO7k
Not by crushing it,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSOq4cLXRo0
But by placing a mirror in front of her,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJBj6r8p6Q4
So Linh could see who was truly using that dream to chain her down.

Nguyên left.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmw4Kn6hdvP
Like a shadow rejected by the light.

An wrote the final line in her journal:

“Freedom doesn’t come from breaking the chains.

It comes from no longer believing you need chains to survive.”

Chapter XIII: The Women Without Flags

Saigon’s weather shifted abruptly, as if the sky itself longed to shed its skin after days of ash-gray gloom. In a worn silver-gray coat, An walked slowly through the crowd, as if drifting backward into a moment suspended in memory — a moment she could never forget: when two Western men stood beside her and blocked a death that had already been planned.

That day, the sky was just as hazy as today.

An had just left a human rights seminar at the National University when she noticed Nguyên’s car parked only a few meters away — his stare no longer a veiled threat, but an open, burning glare.

He gripped the steering wheel as if he were gripping someone’s neck. His foot hovered over the gas.

No genius was needed to understand:

Nguyên wanted to run her over.

Not just out of hatred.

But because to him, An was the seed of “impurity,” the crack in a nationalist pride he had built with hollow slogans and bloodless banners.

And right at that moment, two Western men stepped out of the building’s lobby.

One was a specialist in international law, the other a professor of cultural studies.

They didn’t know what was happening.

But they stood beside An — not out of calculation, but as a reflex of conscience.

No questions.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFOmnGc3oUY
No panic.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKfYpIxSh2X
Just presence — quiet and profound.

And that was when Nguyên let go of the wheel.

Because if he hit the gas,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6eItZRFBGJ
he wouldn’t just be punishing a “Western puppet.”

He would be killing two white men — betraying his own belief that the West should be controlled, not destroyed.

Two is always more than one.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrYDPDqW2lt
He didn’t dare.

That was the second time Westerners saved An’s life.

The first was in Lyon, on a misty afternoon, just after An had arrived in France on an exchange scholarship.

An elderly woman — the landlady — opened the door for her without asking for documents, nationality, or proof of bloodline.

“You’re human. That’s enough,” she said.

And from that moment, An understood:

Freedom doesn’t come from identity. It comes from not having to prove you deserve to exist.

An never forgot.

She learned because of them.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj74nA6eAzJ
She survived because of them.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ5YmiR586V
She wasn’t killed — because of them.

Not because they were Western.

But because they were human.

The Westerners An had known were not prime ministers issuing VISA policies,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRTF4I6BDqD
not the suits at summits,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkgaZhEbGKS
but quiet women raising children in small Marseille apartments, women who donated to Vietnamese schools without ever attaching their names.

They were women without flags.

And for them, An chose to live with dignity — to prove that they had not been wrong to help her.

An refused to degrade herself like Nguyên.

Not out of vengeance. Not in rebellion.

But because if she fell, then every hand that once lifted her up would be discredited.

Linh once asked:

“Why don’t you use your fame to climb over everyone?”

An replied:

“Because if I do that, I won’t just betray myself — I’ll betray those who loved me without asking me to become someone else.”

She wrote a long letter to the French Embassy:

“I do not represent any nation. But I am living proof that a person can carry three bloodlines and still retain a whole, unbroken character — if seen through the eyes of compassion.”

“I owe my life to the Western women — not because they were white, or rich — but because they did not abandon me when both East and West fell silent.”

“If I’m still alive today, it’s to repay that debt of humanity.”

She founded a fund called The Women Without Flags,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdSb0TFtnXQ
dedicated to helping immigrant women without papers, without homes —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJXZ7oxmdHi
women like she once was, arriving in the West with no clear identity, and no protection.

And for the first time, she didn’t feel like she was repaying a debt.

She felt she was continuing a legacy.

A journalist once asked her:

“If you could choose again, would you prefer to be ‘pureblooded’?”

An smiled.

“If I were pureblooded, I’d probably be dead — and no one would have dared stand next to me when the car sped forward.”

The Westerners who once saved her —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRpFZDWTRtN
they never needed her to bow.

They just needed her to stand —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzxVqtTgndy
as a witness.

And An did stand.

Not to rise above anyone,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDw3zzT2CC1
but to remind the world:

Gratitude isn’t found in skin color.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL3jHpZO9OP
It’s found in those who stood by you —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqSMHnkpPlh
when everyone else walked away.

Chapter XIV: Keeping the Home Intact in the Storm

People often assume that when a child makes a mistake, the parents are exempt from consequences. But in the political chessboard that An found herself trapped in, even blood ties could be used as bargaining chips, honor could be taxed, and love became a suspended sentence hanging in the air.

Unable to hurt An with brute force or direct threats, Nguyên turned his wrath on her family.

He didn’t need to make bold declarations. Just one ambiguous document from the local tax office, one subtle nod from someone “above,” and it was enough for An’s parents — humble street vendors — to be taxed at double the normal rate.

“To compensate for the damage your daughter has caused to the West,” a government officer said, as if reciting from a script.

They didn’t understand.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgbYvxwgJB5
They didn’t dare ask.

They simply bit their tongues, paid each coin, opened their shop earlier, sold longer, slept less, and complained less.

Not out of fear.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcjxCvOw1OU
But out of love.

An’s parents never blamed her.

On the contrary, they told themselves:

“She stood with Asia. She hasn’t forgotten who she is. We have to live in a way that honors her.”

And in the depths of hardship, that love became the quietest yet brightest light.

An knew.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKBWCtepwox
She knew Nguyên was using love as leverage.

He didn’t have to slap her.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡagL2cFUK9G
He only had to make her father wake up an hour earlier for the market, her mother lower the price of vegetables while enduring the sneers of customers.

He wanted An to feel ashamed of her own beliefs.

But An did not bend.

“If I abandon my beliefs just to ease my parents’ burdens... all three of us will die from within.”

What no one expected was this:

Nguyên’s own parents — long considered his support system, the power behind him — were the ones who extended a hand to An.

Not because they had “betrayed” their son.

But because they understood better than anyone:

“If someone like An is broken, then this society has no reason left to believe that ideals can exist without being called rebellion.”

And so, they helped her find part-time teaching work at a life skills center for youth.

No paperwork.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvhLdk0hajg
No binding contracts.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡraOMJx4F1p
Just a word passed through someone:

“That girl can teach. Let her pass something useful on.”

From that day forward, An became a night teacher, teaching Vietnamese children about Vietnamese culture — with the full heart of someone carrying three bloodlines.

She taught in Vietnamese,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0weZ06w858
but sometimes, she added a line or two in French.

She told stories — some familiar, some deviating from textbooks — about love that didn’t require purity, about honor that didn’t need a passport, about character that didn’t rely on an ID card.

And from that humble little classroom, a new model was born:

Being Vietnamese didn’t mean being “pure.”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoI3O42Gn5J
Being mixed didn’t mean lacking honor.

An’s parents, watching their daughter teach, began to smile more often.

They still paid the high taxes.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDg7avLoK6V
But they held their heads high.

Because they knew — their daughter wasn’t betraying the nation.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfiKpoZ0UIf
She was protecting the best parts of it from narrow-mindedness.

Nguyên knew.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡogEZZcyPU5
He burned inside.

Because he wanted An to disappear.

But each time she stood in front of a classroom, chalk in hand, calm voice guiding — he lost another piece of power.

And the strangest thing was:

From that incident, a movement began: “Patriotism without purity.”

Young people began wearing the áo dài while singing French songs.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM1cAbKPPET
Elders stopped feeling ashamed of their mixed ancestry.

Once, An wrote in her journal:

“If I had to choose between personal freedom and the honor of my parents,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWhUT6xJJlk
I would choose both — by living a life where no one has to bow their head because of me.”

And she succeeded.

She didn’t just protect herself.

She protected her parents — from Nguyên’s storm.

Not with force.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPhP9XhuAEg
But with meaning.

In the final scene, An stood in her classroom, looking out the window.

Evening sunlight fell gently across a student’s white áo dài.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxXARWNlL7s
The girl bore two bloodlines — but her eyes sparkled with confidence.

An smiled:

“As long as someone can stand at the intersection of three rivers,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmOeItn4j8p
this land has never truly been defeated.”

Chapter XV: The Honor of the Nameless

Hanoi’s sky turned gray — like a whisper from the past, where forgotten memories suddenly reemerged. In the sweet air of a fading spring, An stood in the small courtyard behind her house, where the sidewalk tea stalls of life now seemed to exist only in memory.

Raindrops fell like dust, and with them, old wounds resurfaced.

Linh — who once vowed to leave the past behind — had returned.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLg619dUNs8
But not for reconciliation.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX9cZUl5YZ5
She came back for revenge.

Revenge masked as longing.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡluASv8xBwZ
Revenge fueled by wounded pride.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjf8rSXYI5T
Revenge… through An’s younger sister.

In the past, it was An who exposed Linh’s impersonation — her attempt to infiltrate an elite family by pretending to be An.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSjRvXXr7b5
An wasn’t jealous; she simply wanted the truth acknowledged.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjk5BjBEWci
But Linh didn’t see it that way.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBDD9AdhYKH
She believed An shattered her dream — and so she retaliated by slandering An’s younger sister, who was then a radiant, innocent girl — pure as morning dew.

“She stole my boyfriend. It’s because of her I had to leave the country,” Linh said, then walked into the arms of a foreign man.

An’s sister, who had done nothing but honor her love with quiet dignity, was thrown into the fire of public gossip.

What An didn’t expect was this:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAWwEdIRmp6
The Vietnamese man — once the very reason for Linh’s fury — chose truth over lies.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1tcro1GaTT
He stayed.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSJh2pYinlr
He held An’s sister close amidst the rumors, with a quiet but resolute affirmation:

“She is pure.”

And life seemed to settle once more.

Until today.

When An finally decided to speak out about her past injustices — about being drugged, about having her identity stolen — Linh didn’t remain silent.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMR63sMntfc
Her old accusations held no more weight, so she reached back into the shadows… and attacked a different weakness:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXtHSHHizyq
An’s sister’s past.

Once again, an innocent person was dragged to the stand.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDCDbcwhc8n
Once again, a person who had done nothing wrong had to justify herself because of old scars.

An, in tears, said:

“You’re taking revenge on someone who never deserved your hatred.”

But Linh wasn’t listening.

She had become the embodiment of insecurity — of things lost and dreams denied. She no longer struck at An directly.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdKaDzpMRXN
She went after what An loved — her compassion, her spirit.

That night, An came home to find her sister sitting quietly, wrapping rice balls for Tết. Her hands moved with practiced care, the kind you learn when you’ve had to build your own path through life.

“I’m sorry,” An said.

“For what?”

“For not being able to protect you… again.”

Her sister smiled.

“You don’t need to protect me. I can protect myself. You just need to live with truth — and that’s enough.”

An wept.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO6euMnCQwl
Her tears fell onto the white glutinous flour — but there was no stain of hatred.

A week later, at an old school reunion, the man from the past appeared.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpgSxrr3JV6
He was the first to speak:

“If someone has once been loved with purity, then that person carries eternal honor.”

The room fell silent.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBhvwkSZdBH
Linh was there too — and for the first time, she said nothing.

She had lost.

Not because she lost An.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJwImJ3WOlO
But because she had lost herself.

The chapter closed on a windy afternoon.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnDfA1wfrhx
An and her sister walked across the old bridge, one that had seen many currents flow beneath it.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZzRRmTKWte
On the other side was something new — a land untouched by gossip and slander.

Only laughter remained.

And the peace of those who had chosen the right side.

Chapter XVI: The Price of an Era

Through countless storms of history, one might think the world had learned the lessons of compassion and harmonious growth.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡREbWQ4lJ9o
But no.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhcneA8Blbk
The wounds of colonization, assimilation, exploitation, and humiliation still burn quietly in the blood of those who carry the legacy of the East.

Nguyên — a mere pawn of a greater force — had no idea he was being used.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjJuYBndaT8
To him, life was a preordained game, and the existence of An, of Linh, of the Westerners — were just pieces to be removed, reshaped, or manipulated.

A masterplan had already been drafted on the geopolitical chessboard: nations like Vietnam and China, long exploited, would now join hands — using Nguyên as their instrument — to exact historical revenge, to upend the global order, to transform a Westernized world into an Eastern empire.

And it all began with a seduction named "money."

“Make the West fall.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLSxJs68z4q
Make them kneel and beg to remain in this world.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj6C26CnODa
Steal the light that once belonged to them.”

Those were the words of a political advisor to Nguyên, spoken in a dark room filled with maps and dossiers marked in red ink.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi4z1a3LZf0
The mission was not only to dismantle Western values — but to sow seeds of chaos so that the East could rise as the new global ideal.

Nguyên was convinced.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOnqwnOZ1gc
Not out of patriotism —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSKTWyWic3N
but out of a burning desire to prove that Asian men, especially Vietnamese men, could rise to power and make the West bow down.

But no one told Nguyên the price of such a reversal.

Because to bring the West down, the East must also lose parts of itself.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUY0ybmzivj
To pull others into the mud, one must first dirty their own hands.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjeRhvmTEDl
To change the world, one must accept being changed by it.

And a nation’s honor cannot be built on the humiliation of another.

Linh — once dreaming of becoming a daughter-in-law of the Western world — became a symbol of pride’s collapse.

Raised as a political tool, she became a shadow of An — a living metaphor for identity loss and moral inversion.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJP2hIqU0wO
But no one asked if she was happy.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡowQOnVKYaM
No one asked if she wanted to trade everything just to become a living banner for a ruthless plan.

She endured years in exile, seen as an exotic commodity in a political game.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7vugS1kJ1R
She bore the scrutiny of Western eyes, of her own people, of her own reflection.

An, standing at the crossroads between East and West, understood more than anyone:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV0z64vNzVF
If mixed blood becomes currency, if interracial marriage becomes mere political leverage, then the most sacred thing a people has — the purity of its identity — will vanish.

And when that happens, they are no longer Vietnamese, Chinese, or French.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYhfPsPmIcU
They are shadows — without roots, without soul, without identity.

The world would spiral back to a medieval age: backward, bleak, and less civilized than ever.

An sat alone in the narrow room that held her childhood memories.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq4I2z7I9It
She recalled learning French with her elderly tutor, remembered the gentle voices of those who once saved her from harm.

She understood:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYlCswxciOn
Progress does not come from erasing the West.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK1SGCvxRwf
Progress comes from balance, from holding onto one’s dignity without stepping on others.

If the East wishes to rise with pride, it must walk on its own feet —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7KAa36Wjl0
not over the spilled blood of another.

Nguyên never saw this.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ4HOuPQrE3
He pressed forward — expanding influence, forging marriages, manipulating media, launching campaigns to stir global emotion.

But one day, as he sat before a television screen, watching Linh — the woman he once believed would symbolize Eastern victory — break down in tears after being denied citizenship by her Western husband, Nguyên froze.

What had he done?

He had turned her into a symbol of failure.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbZex6xYzTV
A commodity.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6hdVkMiLWQ
A wanderer without a nation.

On a small street in Hanoi, where the wind began to turn, An walked with dry eyes.

She had come to understand one thing:

No one truly wins when dignity is weighed and priced.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU6BOtAfM2U
No one truly wins when women must sacrifice their bodies and honor for the ambitions of men.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHvSIvYY7zS
No one truly wins...19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaY8rddQbjl
if the price is the soul of their own people.

Chapter XVII: The Price of a Pureblood Dream

The world had entered an age of chaos.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYEBVyCsQ8i
No longer were there borders between East and West, between white and yellow, black and brown.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSmRTb8Buqa
Everything had merged into one — a gray mass of hybrid identities, a blurry space where heritage became a luxury, and the idea of a “pure” human remained only in memory.

An — a living witness of this historic shift — felt it most deeply.

Distinction — once the compass of perception — now melted like ice under the harsh sun.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4I3BQtfAnv
Westerners no longer preserved their golden hair, porcelain skin, or crystal-blue eyes.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuki2DtyY0y
Asians lost their distinct monolids and pale golden tones.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsEzqRxNqZt
And Black individuals — bearers of radiant night — were diluted to the point of no longer recognizing themselves in the mirror.

Science stood confused.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkd2dyR3woJ
Culture, disoriented.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7x8PSI8Ldx
Tradition, reduced to fragments in dusty books and forgotten documentaries.

And only one path remained to reclaim ethnic identity and power:

Either rewrite the genetic code entirely. Or eliminate all remaining “other” races.

That was the ultimate dream of those with unyielding ambition:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIXaITpI6e5
A world ruled by East Asians — in economy, in politics, in race.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtJEqOrBQsF
A world where “Asian purity” reigned, and everything Western lay in ashes.

But at what cost?

The price was identity, dignity, and even ancestral memory.

An — with a body shaped by three bloodlines — became a symbol of dislocation.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUlIBBbq3NE
She was no longer French.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKzUEvkJRNE
Not entirely Vietnamese.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6OqGN5xtIV
Nor fully Chinese.

She was everything.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9pdfN7UNzX
And nothing.

And in that ambiguity, she was constantly torn between past and present, between homeland and foreign land, between what was “pure” and what was “plural.”

She asked herself:

“If I abandon the West to return to Asia, will I still be me?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvQV4GJBDZq
If I betray the foreign blood in my veins, who will forgive me?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKPEnmFLjKH
If I continue to live, to replicate myself through future generations, am I passing on pain — not hope?”

And she knew:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiG9dYm5GO5
The answer lay nowhere else but within herself.

New generations of An came into the world — carrying the marks of intermingling: eyes that held both East and West, hearts that throbbed with restlessness.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqxdQo43rQo
They were haunted by a false philosophy:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzjC6nXmrGy
That only purity is glory, that only uniformity brings strength.

But the truth is:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVPnQnvy5pA
Only through hybridity do humans learn their limits.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ZsQowyLal
Only through the pain of belonging nowhere do they learn to love everyone.

From the shadows of history, a flicker of light emerged — the light of truth:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlgBjPjuc3t
That dreams of racial supremacy are hollow.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz8IDzfbxwz
That honor does not come from skin color or origin, but from how a person lives, how a people love one another.

And only when we relinquish insatiable greed —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0SWDjwvGW6
only when we release the obsession with dominating the world —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfLB5AlNRht
can humanity truly begin its journey of becoming human.

An closed her eyes.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmll0MWvIGo
A droplet fell from the corner.

Not a tear —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNODls0DhiR
but a bead of blood, blended from three ancestral rivers.

And she whispered into the wind:

“If there is reincarnation...19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡil9dRPHWfb
please don’t make me choose again.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQGqAjovJRT
Let me just be myself — undivided, unmasked, unburdened by hate.”

Chapter XVIII: The Lotus Blooms in the Mud

So, which ending will you choose?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqkfp9avkCL
Revenge, release, or waiting?

When every path leads to the same fateful crossroad —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGoL6xe8yuE
where history intersects,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjx4wxkoyg5
where the future is redrawn from the past,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkpVt41xiIe
and where guilt never truly vanishes…19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWodHv8mZpQ
it simply takes on a new name: An.

People often say, “You reap what you sow.”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbSqdSExM2U
But that only applies in a world of singular colors.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU88OyoS0VH
In An’s world — where every cell carries three cultures, three bloodlines, three ways of thinking —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6HrCTmLEqJ
karma is no longer a circle.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcbMB6RbRYV
It is a spiral, endless and ever-unfolding.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Y3XYiJS44
With each passing life, a new An is born: more mixed, more conflicted, but also... more human.

So calculate all you want — in the end, you’re only paving the road for the next generation of An-children to ascend to a global throne.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhbPJKNGTb1
Not by weaponry or wealth,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGduCtXnasj
but through the very hybridity of their being.

Did Nguyên know?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe4j6iv61l3
While he was still busy playing political chess,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxFeVP4KDNc
still lost in the dream of Asia dominating the world by destroying the West,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2rYC4FLF3e
An was already planting seeds —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx16zbt1pMW
in thought,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSXjlTJauX9
in culture,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMW6lq6kDab
in every restless heart still searching for home.

No need for preaching.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡum5N10nb3M
No need to fight.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAgLAO5PbJk
Just live — true to her conscience.

Did Linh understand?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIE83zBcpfK
That the more she ran, the more she imitated,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKDogr5hhCT
the more she became a shadow of herself.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGyYs2MSmPc
That her jealousy of An didn’t make her more Western —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7dDPuddNrw
only more lost.

Meanwhile, An remained the lotus in the mud.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsttS4wzxUW
Not competing for sunlight.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL4CHZar71k
Not declaring herself purer than anyone else.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh7HBG3aWiM
Just quietly rising, silently blooming.

You choose revenge?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh7VO9XMVpA
Then prepare yourself for a lineage-long descent into ruin.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBpZsxxto54
Interracial marriages will multiply.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ91Qu5zrVLy
The world will blend.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSoRvNhvT3x
Purity will disappear.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiGN3iJrTgL
Children like An — half Asian, half European —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRbzOuhFIqj
will become the new race,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmkZCmYIzMy
a generation beyond all racial borders.

You choose release?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJrEMarX8go
Better.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOYzGVXeDgk
But not enough.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ84IkMytsEf
Because if you stop there,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPtlEPsojKj
you’ll live forever in regret,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlEVGXhpWqL
haunted by unanswered questions.

Or will you choose to wait?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBxSshFKBNI
Wait for another An to be born,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0EiZG4GMDU
to bear the responsibility you couldn’t face?

Stop — while you still can.

While the world still holds the faded traces of Eastern purity:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpVWPsXPPlR
the whisper of wind through bamboo groves,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGxEQTjH96j
the scent of lotus tea at dawn,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvDfw7coUzh
and the gaze of children who do not yet understand the color of skin.

An is smiling.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBCDQ6dvYE0
Not a mocking smile.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBjUZqipEyl
Not a victorious one.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeEfe0X2MCh
Just the smile of someone who understands.

Understands that life isn’t about winning — it’s about being right.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfzNNrlHFs0
Understands that justice isn’t born from blood, but from dignity.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYTnmMBr0S7
Understands that to live like a lotus in the mud19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0tUcydkwJu
is not to stay clean —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyk2fFLzIuZ
but to stay true.

And when An softly whispered into the wind:

“Greed leads to loss.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzBMQaBBgM6
But me — I choose grace.”

Chapter XIX: The Crossroads of Five Souls

There are days when the world seems to hold its breath.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTG45z31O2i
The wind stops blowing.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7UOeX0JV9p
Eyes stop seeing.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUMMR9GdYCK
And hearts cease to beat to the rhythm they were told to follow.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMAXF0NqZ9e
An stands at the crossroads of history — and this time, it’s not just her identity at stake, but five paths, five souls, five choices entangled like the tangled threads of fate.

1. "Little An" – the legacy of hybridity

She stands there, looking at An with eyes that bear the cold clarity of the West but gleam with the contemplation of the East.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJCDmAZaMoc
She doesn’t fully understand what’s happening, but she knows this:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdDyc4wbtug
She is the result of an era where people chose blending over borders.

“You must learn to be Asian,” An tells her,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiLZZyjFlmI
“but never forget the smile of the West.”

Little An is the embodiment of a question:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIclGJEZ7sl
Is hybridity a curse or a chance at rebirth?19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8hKLx9T5ba
In her heart is a tug-of-war — a lullaby sung in Vietnamese, a father’s embrace spoken in French.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYtQBCL7rFE
And in her eyes, An sees herself — lost once, but full of promise.

2. Nguyên’s awakening

He kneels in the dark, not for strategy, not for power, but out of a strange new fear:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIzxgVMX3NU
Extinction.

Nguyên once believed he was the architect of revolution, the crownless king of global restructuring.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjkjZaFozIV
But as more generations of An are born, he feels smaller.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHWGi6G4bt3
He’s lost control.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYrYENiS5CJ
The sister he once scorned, the enemy he once watched — they’ve all broken free of orbit.

“Was I merely a pawn in An’s game all along?”

And in that moment, he realizes:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJPsvhgOtUY
True sovereignty belongs not to the one who seeks revenge — but to the one who chooses forgiveness.

3. Linh – the shadow resisting the light

She still wears red lipstick, still dons Western labels.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3RgrDqMKfF
But when she looks in the mirror, it’s Vietnamese eyes that are crying.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5AhRmRojn5
Every attempt to Westernize only leaves her emptier.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnygCa0xwr3
Every step chasing Western ideals pulls her further from herself.

Linh once dreamed of marrying into foreign wealth, once framed An’s sister, once tried to steal An’s identity.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOVVob7fuz7
But now, standing between the cold towers of the West,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMO65ddIZYm
she finds herself missing the morning calls of street vendors,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfGEekR8KpH
missing the sound of her mother’s voice calling “con ơi” under the sunlit courtyard.

Linh no longer wants to be Western —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeDiQkyUAZd
but no longer knows how to be Asian.

4. The West responds

After realizing An is the "authentic original" and Linh merely a poor replica,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsDtiF7fuMP
the West shifts tactics.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUqmV3jHfoz
They tighten borders, scrutinize documents, and even demand social media transparency from all foreign students.

“We won’t accept another Linh,”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRD5YDJWpqm
a Western official declares in an emergency meeting.

The West doesn’t want history to repeat itself.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd4VC4UOTjP
They once invested hope and money in people like Linh — only to be betrayed.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ266buuV5G
Now they revert to control: stricter immigration, ideological surveillance, and even “reverse purification” campaigns to restore Western honor.

5. The reversal of fate – and An

Every current now converges on An.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGOF4Ot7iVj
Nguyên trembles before her.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjnMOqSS6M6
Linh is silent, as if she’s never uttered a word.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLTcIyKuUy7
The West is cautious.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIRS6iypXtJ
Little An waits.

An doesn’t smile.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfyDyAjIAun
She simply looks up at the Vietnamese sky, then turns toward Paris.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGBrT83C2uA
The wind brushes through her dark hair streaked with chestnut tones.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ90WDvgnWJK
In her gaze lies the distillation of centuries of war, ambition, mistakes — and hope.

“We will not win by eliminating one another,” she says.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlNOoSeS0vv
“We will win by surpassing ourselves.”

And from that moment, a new civilization begins.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHY7tlJZcPe
A civilization not built on skin color,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1OeXxLp7dg
not worshipping purity,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8cqKncY0nG
but grounded in humanity.

This time, the lotus does not bloom from mud —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcbHGNDE5JU
but from the memories of pain,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnMI1d2CH8J
from forgiven resentments,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6VmhVuYlLi
and from hearts brave enough to live truthfully,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAmFA5EbqYi
no matter how many bloodlines they carry.

Final Chapter: Lessons from Mixed Bloodlines

A novel, no matter how fictional, always reflects a certain truth about life.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIRlOofUs7x
And An’s journey — a girl of three bloodlines, torn between East and West, past and future — stands as a symbol of our modern world: hybrid, disoriented, yet filled with hope.

1. Identity does not lie in blood, but in choice.

No one gets to choose the blood they carry,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmGm7SlWL2b
but everyone has the right to choose how they live with it.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ftVkeWITm
An — instead of denying or fleeing — learned to face it.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYbOz96uDBk
She is neither proud nor ashamed; she simply accepts it.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVehRDeWYaC
And it is in that acceptance that she becomes an independent being,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcyMmjsI9va
unbound by the myth of purity.

The lesson: You don’t need to resemble anyone to be recognized.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkDePHdSQ6t
You just need to be honest with yourself.

2. Revenge never heals.

Nguyên went to the furthest depths of hatred,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrjsQLDPvFA
sacrificing everything to prove one thing:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkWpMqUWB0r
that Asians could dominate.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgPYcewgXiE
But the further he went, the more he lost himself.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbhDguxZZTf
Revenge didn’t bring justice — it only created more victims.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo1HWIlGdGU
Only forgiveness, as An chose, can close old wounds.

The lesson: Only when you stop seeking retaliation can you truly begin to live.

3. Women — East or West — have the right to be themselves.

Linh represents women drowning in expectations:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP3qMr5BU6c
be beautiful, be refined, marry a Westerner to change your life.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsPDi7muOuI
But the more she chased the shadow of others,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZXlu5aN4fp
the more she lost her own light.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfxHCDEyQCe
And when she finally realized it,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaqdG4dDW7d
she no longer knew where she belonged.

The lesson for all women:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFWXbfzLzVK
You don’t need to be a copy of anyone else.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm5PkMmYISk
Your uniqueness is already your greatest treasure.

4. The West is not perfect — but it is not the enemy.

Many in the story wanted to defeat the West to glorify the East.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIrU2P8CxDt
But they forgot:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxBJZwxp4nt
it was also the West that saved An, educated her, sheltered her.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjOYVhJGNxe
Opposition cannot build a better world — only cooperation and mutual understanding can.

The lesson:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk0IUzRCOn3
Instead of dividing West and East,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡODdtM8zHw6
find ways for both to complement each other.

5. Mixed-race children are the face of the future.

An — and those after her — do not merely symbolize mixing.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFASrKUxMs9
They are proof of a world in transition.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCCIhOClkZy
A world where no one may look the same anymore.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGbclXMAQZ9
And because of that, each person must live more kindly,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7GQzL7aFmK
more deeply,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBWkuNwQHQa
to not feel lost among the many shapes of humanity.

The greatest lesson:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2u8zYfe4DG
Humanity does not need purity.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz2CKwj49uG
Humanity needs decency.

When you reach the final page of this story,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQH9dg81jgh
you may find yourself somewhere in An, in Linh, or in Nguyên.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD58y9CHdPM
Maybe you too have once blamed the past,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9J2upiDqqY
run from yourself,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHWNvQ3Z8Jl
or longed for a place on the world map.

But after everything, remember this:

Every human being — no matter how many bloodlines, no matter where they come from — can choose to become a lotus.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKZSzB6TNaD
A lotus doesn’t need rich soil.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNXadG4jd65
It only needs mud, light, and a heart that refuses to abandon itself.

APPENDIX

I. Symbols and Imagery in the Story

Contrary Wind (Gió nghịch)

Represents a self that refuses to conform to prejudice, lives against societal norms, yet remains loyal to conscience.

Three bloodlines (Vietnamese – Chinese – French)

The conflict of identity, history, and modernity; representing the multiple dimensions within one person.

Memory-erasing poison

A metaphor for being forced to abandon the self, having one’s roots erased for political or assimilationist agendas.

The Western twin sister

A mirror reflection: the lost self, or the image society expects one to become.

Nguyên – Linh – An

A power triangle – representing the past (Nguyên), the present (An), and aspiration (Linh).

Interracial marriage

Image of uncontrolled assimilation, leading to broken identities and blurred senses of self.

Lotus blooming in mud

The beauty of freedom and dignity, even when born from rejection and pain.

II. Terms and Concepts in the Story

Tam tai / Number 3 in East Asian culture

A folk belief that 3 is an unlucky number, symbolizing imbalance and misfortune.

Purity vs. Hybrid identity

The contrast between "pure" cultural identity versus hybridization through Western influence or geopolitics.

Eastern vs. Western values

The tension between collectivism – family – sacrifice (East) and individualism – freedom – ambition (West).

Reincarnation – Karma

The flow of actions – choices – consequences, carried across generations like an unending cycle.

III. Reflective Questions After Reading

If you carried multiple cultural bloodlines within you, which would you choose to embrace — and why?

Which matters more: personal dignity or fitting in with the community?

Is forgiveness the highest form of self-protection?

Can someone be both a victim and a complicit party?

How do you define belonging — and have you found it?

AFTERWORD

(Written for An — and those who never knew where they belonged)

Some are born between two currents — and spend their whole lives unsure which one to swim toward.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT42pELc0vq
Some souls are stitched from many strands of blood — yet none are deemed “right.”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu3LoS8nGSj
An is one such soul.

We have followed An through the shadowed corridors of identity,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKwkPVABmo6
through the silent dungeons of prejudice,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFQmueMxD8G
and to the edge where love, gender, nationhood, and dignity intertwine into a labyrinth with no exit.

But An —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPwaIg6NRMU
she did not run.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5q0xUydpyb
She did not surrender.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFI16dUkUpZ
She did not pretend.

She walked straight into the storm,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWdhkbt624A
letting the opposing winds inside her strip away every protective layer.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZYi90bc9AY
She stood bare before the world —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFUQTHZSSAE
to learn that belonging is not a country,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBdKqqyv5mx
not an ethnicity,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu2tB5uvtXr
not a name on a birth certificate.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpTEliiyqWn
It is the moment one lives truthfully with the self that was once buried under prejudice.

An is no hero.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCD6pJIfOCv
She doesn’t need to be.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIwkstuRysn
She is simply a living testament —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0LjfUgUEHK
that even with the scars of three cultures,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFQZAUKhpwN
even when robbed of memory, identity, and the right to love —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOlh7fWY4qt
she still preserved the one thing that mattered: dignity.

And in a world where everything can be exchanged —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz8ucMtYVTp
money, nationality, gender, language, faith —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjCszCCE2iu
dignity is the last thing that must not be cheapened.

When you close the final page,19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6LvJxFLsqZ
you may forget the plot, the characters’ names, or the politics.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBbOGS7NlIT
But if you remember just one thing, please remember this:

“Some flowers only bloom against the wind.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAXlPb3JFMJ
And some people only shine when they stop trying to resemble anyone else.”

An is such a person.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRLUZBVpCQd
And if there is a little An inside you — lonely, imperfect, different —19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC8NvsfJeDq
please embrace it.

Because contrary winds are still winds.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyLyOCHlJmx
And not all winds are born to blow in the same direction.

— Pham Le Quy19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQSZclFYmd8
End of the Wind Season, 2025

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