THE REBEL OF THE WIND

TABLE OF CONTENTS21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU7cxeNfciX
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

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

PART TWO: MAIN CONTENT21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPb8tdILuuY
7. Chapter I 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzf84qdpr5e
8. Chapter II21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd9AdL7rGE5
9. Chapter III 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ35QG1b9vBb
10. Chapter IV 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIfFOTcIrYj
11. Chapter V 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyh8DgJGxM5
12. Chapter VI 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9OMzw6gL9Z
13. Chapter VII21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIFoXtMwycY
14. Chapter VIII 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJywQ0Ro8ht
15. Chapter IX 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5BkL2SsoLc
16. Chapter X 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjYdeDKskOB
17. Chapter XI21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTYvCn46iqh
18. Chapter XII 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAjPYONYKj1
19. Chapter XIII 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs4jKcl3yHb
20. Chapter XIV 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqkTUmPV84Z
21. Chapter XV 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrlVNINNGsP
22. Chapter XVI 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIwudMNj4i6
23. Chapter XVII21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdghuv6pI5p
24. Chapter XVIII 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvd1A7aNZuH
25. Chapter XIX 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡewnS1gQZQ2
26. Chapter XX

PART THREE: CLOSING21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYyhkl9w7EL
27. Appendix 21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsFazmDsuoP
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ77Bio3FJVd
Which bloodline governs your thoughts each day?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgLT3FeLqu7
Are the values you believe to be “true” truly yours—or simply what you were taught to believe?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO8IsxY4W1Y
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 Quy21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAVtAwwl0M6
Saigon, June 2025

DEDICATION

To the hybrid souls,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpEb7GbkDU7
to those who stand at the edge of identity,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYFQGglP9bn
to those who never chose where they were born,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjEKYG8DYWs
but still bravely choose how to live.

To all the “Ans” of the world—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡydNKNgC53z
the flowers blooming in storms,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAaTkiAyFuu
who, despite being doubted, compared, and misunderstood,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsI4juU9u60
still choose to hold on to dignity and a noble silence.

To you—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXYcaaAz1Nz
if you’ve ever been torn between East and West,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaJ6lkx5jMx
between right and wrong, between reason and desire.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcECfbVzQY2
May you find yourself somewhere in these pages.

And one day,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ZM19KekRI
you will know:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgY6RAGY4M9
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdmb9Gmr9Uu
but also torn apart by society’s prejudices on gender, identity, and dignity.

A memory-erasing drug has upended everything.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD8fz81ETjL
But scarier than losing one’s memory—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9QaXLz1C38
is no longer knowing who you are in this world.

As the shattered mirrors of the past begin to reflect,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmfUZonusyZ
as family, love, and hatred intertwine into an inescapable maze,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf5XNjJUIap
An must choose:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDzSL5vZM3b
to become a pawn in the power game between East and West,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3CthjipkkU
or to rise and defend the rejected part of her own humanity.

In a world being assimilated and fractured,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA9Ommtlw0J
amid political schemes and battles for identity,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEN0m9AZqs9
The Rebel of the Wind is a journey against the current—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZsSNSwbV0M
where one deemed “wrong” learns how to live “right” with herself.

A story of identity, forgiveness, and dignity.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnsqsktPs8j
A sigh for those who were never chosen—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgUwoaO1Nqh
but still chose to exist.

And a gentle reminder:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO4hZofteLf
No matter how many bloodlines run through you,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpKXagdF8db
you can still bloom like a lotus in the mud.

Copyright Page

© 2025 Phạm Lê Quý21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxiLCeBDK50
Title: The Rebel of the Wind (Người Gió Nghịch)21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBZAUZmZVCk
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 – 202521Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAMzI3aqPZg
Published in Vietnam21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIuHbiRRY5j
Copyright belongs to the author21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6nCisJJMvI
ISBN: (To be filled in when available)21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9LTQ8gXKke
Cover Design: Phạm Lê Quý21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0QmxRcPk1U
Editing: Phạm Lê Quý21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWtbCKtYB87
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.”21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRnQ3JZSYIl
— Phạm Lê Quý

Editor’s Note

Author: Phạm Lê Quý

I did not write The Rebel of the Wind to find answers,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBsc5YOwCZE
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3oUhgOldwt
It is the echo of a soul that once felt too “impure” to be loved,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzKv1gJiowd
too “different” to be recognized.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwS82MMGVf8
A soul that lived among clashing winds—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpZCdLFTVK8
torn by heritage, by prejudice, by love, and by unnamed silences.

At times during writing, I wanted to stop.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSFKCjdAWZG
Because truth—even fictionalized—hurts.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMP74OGhCbS
But then I realized:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMkiRlfLQbU
If I didn’t write, those like “An” would never have a voice.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKMlSDY8H1x
And if even one reader, somewhere, sees themselves in these pages,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA1pK5N8rWL
then every loneliness I’ve borne was worth it.

Some chapters in this book follow nontraditional structures.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi7TqeOeztc
Some dialogues may carry metaphors or symbolism.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpCUKCd1eit
Please read with your heart, not just your mind.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡarAackGLEd
Because sometimes, the deepest meanings lie not in the words,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa0kgmdhYeZ
but in the silences between them.

Thank you—for being brave enough to read a story that goes against the current.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCyq59YZgbe
And thank you to the winds—because even when they’re lost,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4PDrJQrq4s
they still find their way home.

— Phạm Lê Quý21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ89KJA3h79z
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOVNXgPDdAC
A long chime echoing from Indochina.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSGiEOeVPNW
A short ring like a French legionnaire’s final farewell.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡayPOXUi7gx
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8rd7VRpNCK
In French—writing about a love that was never acknowledged.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkthUZjcqLf
In Chinese—writing about a promise betrayed by the past.

Each line of text became a bloodstream.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3WNsjb1NmY
Each page, a peeled layer of skin—searching for the soul that had once been wiped away.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2COaDGIJMb
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbEGzjmwIiI
China – depth.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkx8PfFVoh2
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?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ2EroiJ1Mo
Who am I among these three bloodlines?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFGcKfKG5Gh
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZLwJiSz0MN
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ21Pve5pxrJ
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPm4xX8W7xp
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHubYRab1S3
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKTnrWj9Vlr
She only wanted to be one.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXGfQVAP7cg
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyzgISf1l8D
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡevlSZp4HB4
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkPwGfRPQUS
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJkAlSyKIXF
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDpVeq1WYWe
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwkVFg4ISwH
But not the An as she was—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCXJksQcOQm
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCwmj0iZ6jZ
“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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡteThOIxqfJ
Then bear ten times what I’ve endured.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZifQk6TmfV
You once thought I was pitiful.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6HRIBeLjek
So now, I hope the world loves you—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhlQkOUSzMf
In the way it pitied and despised me.”

It wasn’t a curse. It was a release.

An no longer needed Linh to pay.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeoE6wgmDXu
Because, in truth—Linh already had.

The cost of losing your identity is emptiness.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX541PXD8ba
The cost of loving a world that won’t accept you is loneliness.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyc43o9y4mN
The cost of becoming a replacement is never being loved as yourself.

Linh now—might look very Western.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSgBo3PCbzc
But perhaps… no one truly sees her as Western.

And perhaps no one remembers that she was once a Vietnamese girl—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX0UTIdqlg1
Once knew the taste of fish sauce,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7fQdDeuFAO
Once spoke her mother tongue,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc8KQP3T0ny
Once understood the meaning of heart.

An picked up her phone and sent a short message:

“Linh,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3bdN7mygnN
I forgive you.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwRSK9skt8Z
Because you didn’t take anything from me.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFKTIAj3YvB
You only took what you’ll never be able to keep.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN1x3OxH7bC
And I no longer want to hold onto them either.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkfio0pUrI0
Your world is beautiful—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV13ikm9FW2
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl2SeqNrWY4
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9RbqqQ6NjQ
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—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1oymPXPFl0
Like a wind-up doll in a music box no one opened anymore.

An woke in the middle of the night.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV7nwJhk2SF
Alone.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFngpFPkkbr
But lighter than ever before.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6DLrMJpCfQ
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—21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj3M1G5LvDu
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBHxquNSSgW
“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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFE2M5lKyWm
“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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSYdBDznvIL
Not to oppose men,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxmOLj5Wqee
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGhwQSxJYyF
But because within Linh burned a fire that An needed to learn to tame — the fire of survival through sacrifice.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLWd4fUstaF
But Linh… never understood that.

Linh began to look down on An.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlY2zUBoUwF
She believed that being seen with An devalued her worth.

“You’re like a crack on my face,” Linh once said in anger.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ12JVhJ8juL
“And you,” An replied, “are what grew from that crack.”

An no longer resented Linh.

She understood.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡptAVL1ZvJm
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNFmWXkfZ7p
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3mOnBWow50
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVVRQ2hgNB4
Not because she was the strongest.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRCH9QsP7NE
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxhpr9MeSWk
“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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjG7Q2xLkjF
But only those who truly endure are remembered by history.”

Then she closed the page.

And quietly stepped outside.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3LULXIa9lY
She didn’t say goodbye.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkyQOsbh5Vq
She didn’t wait for anyone to walk with her.

Because those who stand at the center of the cycle…21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3PXL7X83IU
Need no one’s validation.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDknbI25KNR
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKdn9veBPan
“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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqVzsxekk17
To make her revert to being a “pure” Vietnamese — undiluted, unmutated.

An without feminism.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaAojrgit2C
An without gender distinction like Western women.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk9lJx3d0BI
An with no right to choose her own love — only what had been predetermined.

Because to him, Western women were a threat.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbiyojjeZFA
They lived for themselves.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqQXWqvX35m
They chose themselves over men.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeymKWjjEYR
They weren’t willing to be the good wife, the nurturing mother.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNvCzWSLCAp
They didn’t bear children to fulfill some sacred duty, didn’t sacrifice just to be praised.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIG79aYM7rB
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgBSJT558Ip
How to love.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfjWso5YX3K
How to erase themselves for their husband and children.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTgvGkC6URC
Even how to become the third wheel in their own life — just to keep the family whole.

An had once been undefinable.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkmKnhA5B6J
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXIKbxaxtNz
Still didn’t.

She didn’t need to be a man to be strong.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR5WvXzPi3f
Didn’t need to be a woman to know how to love.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiqMTqqqrPr
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjHEWlY3yqm
There would have been no Linh — the one who injected her with the drug.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpZRm3OZKZO
No France.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxV08ZSiYMA
No cold nights hiding in the dreams of a Western woman.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkUGQ9w4Mpp
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgeR3EFKEiM
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn16GsDlwYa
Even though she once despised them,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1mYGZFn0ND
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?”21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeFe6sjyCZC
“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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiLxzRK4PDP
An no longer needed anyone’s approval to define herself.

As for Nguyên… he kept pushing.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkgvH8FDT2n
Not just with words,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8MoneD1r0o
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRdcc0FZMzq
It was because she embodied intersection, not regression, that she could move her sister in the West.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlGCxji87LA
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXAFmmRbHVJ
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOepkOxjPrx
Not mixed enough to be called Western,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCZAAq6aMzo
Not pure enough to be called Vietnamese,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSi3jrciHft
Not tough enough to be a man,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIqUJ3DGKW8
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAm7bLWjZwv
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqaTpwThEsX
Her Eastern mindset, her tangled scars, her stubborn loyalty — they grew cold.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcKHYXFyNMH
They didn’t say goodbye.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1kJD3lMYvT
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6NYq1jYNAC
But no one wanted commitment.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOEBoCI07cy
No one wanted marriage.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxgCnGs8R7r
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJi7wDKbojL
A transitional model.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB2zsJBvdSQ
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW7yRONair6
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzHlTD3RbMa
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡabLcFxwEuh
Tourism, investment, culture, politics — all would fade.

Because An was the bridge.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRpZVLvmuH2
The display case.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY0GaJCJ8Js
The “living proof” of integration.

If she left, that image of harmony would collapse.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXoXdpUVf0r
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf2G8SDm1e3
I am a small torch that lights up the darkest parts of my blood.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs22uYCOoxI
But sadly, people only see the flame — and never notice my burning hand.”

She didn’t choose how she was born.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6vufVPneL5
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2SEdqxqm5H
She would choose the latter.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtwc1CyWCBT
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGqnUe0sffb
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeggvIZQzXl
For money.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQnlsqdMPfY
For fame.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsetOHgLNVY
For the illusion of reviving a fallen dynasty.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhwHS0GU7hp
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ58LtMnzup5
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAeyuNaT25U
She wasn’t as naive as Nguyên assumed.

She had silently read the forged documents he sent to international collaboration offices.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡovULClW0n7
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzcwvOFuem9
Not out of surrender.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTIjNHk7pJ9
But because she wanted to unify her identity.

She was tired of running between East and West.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1eRJsRoqII
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡErrvAfTEeT
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT5hg537Z27
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoIrligiLH3
I am myself.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUa7Y7zvgnj
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG0XAaJQh8D
People here are in a panic. They see you turning East.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSJm40twI1l
They say you betrayed them. But maybe… they never truly loved you.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0umZaydGck
Thank you for keeping both sides from becoming too powerful or too weak.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO3ywaSkEk6
And maybe… from now on, I’ll try living like you —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiF1I1DARyC
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmS54z2JaMx
She just stood there.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqG95vx6FHL
Her presence alone was an irrefutable declaration.

That’s why Linh grew flustered.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYHyjqZf1Wu
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwY6xhqqObx
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKZsFKjB8v3
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBz2xGUE4oi
But the tears didn’t come.

Because deep down, she knew:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtyWtknxtCb
That was the price of faking — even with good intentions.

An didn’t blame Linh.

She understood.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBitN2acAHp
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaR9LkWuPaF
Imperfect, inconvenient, ungovernable —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu70dSGjFze
But the only thing that was real.

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

Nguyên was no longer a ghost.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvgx919JnfF
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWVI5jEnvaW
He hadn’t changed.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9DhQv3HV8X
He didn’t need to.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIE6Z6uEwjs
Because he never wanted to evolve.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRrc6MG96hX
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkKMAO0HOTq
Because she didn’t know — she, too, was just a sacrifice.

Nguyên never loved Linh.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ0h8M7Z8Y8
He needed her — as living proof.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFsBHiM8FUl
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw4NqV1rvfR
So that she, too, could die alongside An, if necessary.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsprXmxsfOG
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTjSgPovvLW
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxIL3g1y60B
Then he would not dare touch her.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ09Fs4XUGki
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxXEbIcKLJw
He slammed the table.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqrJchRFd34
He screamed in An’s face.

But An did not fall.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVY0Rtdusex
She was no longer the An of the memory-erasing drug, no longer the An lost between three bloodlines.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdrNZQKhcmI
She was An who had unified her body, mind, and spirit.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmhkVVixw5z
An who knew she didn’t have to be anyone else.

And what frightened Nguyên most —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKG5kjCGack
Was not rebellion.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKLYcgTDSUe
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc33Zat1SHq
For the first time, she saw An —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS8vaYQ2X7o
Not as a shadow.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf6GHUIHMid
Not as a rival.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzFtAClRQqf
Not as the original.

But as a sister, a friend,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFyMWrXhRxW
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8tbFxdGZZr
No more envy.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCVqfGRSFNr
No more shame.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡixvhc7YYWE
No more walls.

An had succeeded.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXFfpY3PAAj
Not because she defeated Nguyên —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOJSzw2zxh8
But because she refused to be a pawn in his game.

She had protected her dignity.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbyZej0BSFl
Without falling.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ57Twn2S3k9
Without surrendering.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTGjQh0MW1v
Without choosing a side.

She remained herself while others lost who they were.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtggKRaXN2v
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhxu8Uy2byE
Not by crushing it,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaKrgJbD9Wj
But by placing a mirror in front of her,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3C8nBRvsu3
So Linh could see who was truly using that dream to chain her down.

Nguyên left.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlrJ4t4Ea7G
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAe7JDYZOqN
No panic.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOxYaZYHmzu
Just presence — quiet and profound.

And that was when Nguyên let go of the wheel.

Because if he hit the gas,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡae2Y6xPzlW
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnBgcWEOxX3
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbfa3D0Ih9f
She survived because of them.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0exSkdpVym
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3svQQye720
not the suits at summits,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdXtp6LBpSu
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4fsWote8bv
dedicated to helping immigrant women without papers, without homes —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEyCq0Dzgxo
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmJYi9JclhM
they never needed her to bow.

They just needed her to stand —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVEBnXtW1uZ
as a witness.

And An did stand.

Not to rise above anyone,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCyEIcD8ind
but to remind the world:

Gratitude isn’t found in skin color.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeRyGG3gEmt
It’s found in those who stood by you —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV33k2oWHkI
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt0GLKi6JXa
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlRPmS0UM5m
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLaxbiGjrYg
She knew Nguyên was using love as leverage.

He didn’t have to slap her.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbHdwR6u64X
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRCrH142v1U
No binding contracts.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPXxMx9oAjE
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWWH37ffoUJ
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.”21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwCezTaNxZj
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrrrMFAYydz
But they held their heads high.

Because they knew — their daughter wasn’t betraying the nation.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwEArKASqp1
She was protecting the best parts of it from narrow-mindedness.

Nguyên knew.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuvA2kBfAgQ
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtlBrpsEB2S
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH5NxV0K94K
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuxECWC9CGd
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU7voSY16V7
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjaxlNxlOEt
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2SChlnsqzF
But not for reconciliation.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIPUTUlz0AT
She came back for revenge.

Revenge masked as longing.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpkLabTKMgE
Revenge fueled by wounded pride.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkNM4oZnBtD
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlUP6DHoLrp
An wasn’t jealous; she simply wanted the truth acknowledged.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCuL5TNYkfo
But Linh didn’t see it that way.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW91hhIrwmU
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEegqSrTXUh
The Vietnamese man — once the very reason for Linh’s fury — chose truth over lies.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe3aaKBJM8s
He stayed.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOvVDwZVNnP
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxtgfkvZXci
Her old accusations held no more weight, so she reached back into the shadows… and attacked a different weakness:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzq5jBl0B8A
An’s sister’s past.

Once again, an innocent person was dragged to the stand.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVuzCKqxq4v
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ686wueKdZc
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0RnbOVI7SI
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxy16jCNY3i
He was the first to speak:

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

The room fell silent.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ161VYXBes2
Linh was there too — and for the first time, she said nothing.

She had lost.

Not because she lost An.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVxAXN59g4R
But because she had lost herself.

The chapter closed on a windy afternoon.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnnYp2IyZKk
An and her sister walked across the old bridge, one that had seen many currents flow beneath it.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRiN6jYWsiT
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHqbjqQAcfr
But no.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSOanZtiGwQ
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEwvsPJSAzv
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVt73fZXy61
Make them kneel and beg to remain in this world.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv3lvi7X0Uu
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNir1qu5Bpm
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH23f6K3L6l
Not out of patriotism —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp4pm7fgTfD
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6PpYva9vNG
To pull others into the mud, one must first dirty their own hands.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhOdSsTBxzP
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpBeiEo3R8t
But no one asked if she was happy.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHPGTYEfnM9
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvwWyzBJPlv
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbFkK4t0KGU
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgRzN4I9Py9
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY66RTOUL1Z
She recalled learning French with her elderly tutor, remembered the gentle voices of those who once saved her from harm.

She understood:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7gh2QqHv3z
Progress does not come from erasing the West.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVMShJ4JJhM
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJCN7kRaDWe
not over the spilled blood of another.

Nguyên never saw this.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXPmsLrlHzn
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYKCLUP1v4p
A commodity.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkBB8oiTV8A
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW3bsg0CHk5
No one truly wins when women must sacrifice their bodies and honor for the ambitions of men.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEhIW98PtSM
No one truly wins...21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9lhz802gmo
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrunVQgrKU1
No longer were there borders between East and West, between white and yellow, black and brown.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLGuGRHILXt
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkTml97nih0
Westerners no longer preserved their golden hair, porcelain skin, or crystal-blue eyes.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtqaxuhvUki
Asians lost their distinct monolids and pale golden tones.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWmB5wyZEvb
And Black individuals — bearers of radiant night — were diluted to the point of no longer recognizing themselves in the mirror.

Science stood confused.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLhFg74e1Mf
Culture, disoriented.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnJTZZSaK8g
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0n5Wgzlyrz
A world ruled by East Asians — in economy, in politics, in race.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMQqwlRczxn
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn7raR9GW7o
She was no longer French.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz0LeGPP1Sb
Not entirely Vietnamese.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJv2blmNYQz
Nor fully Chinese.

She was everything.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ15KgF31wLl
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?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHsH0z41raf
If I betray the foreign blood in my veins, who will forgive me?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡecQrTm5622
If I continue to live, to replicate myself through future generations, am I passing on pain — not hope?”

And she knew:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡul4mN7rVkq
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHzSiPUAjZD
They were haunted by a false philosophy:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8yBSKqdrN3
That only purity is glory, that only uniformity brings strength.

But the truth is:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡecPcJCzHCW
Only through hybridity do humans learn their limits.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL0r1zlYX7h
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB6mzuejYNx
That dreams of racial supremacy are hollow.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo4o56uwoa8
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 —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡei7JuA6ltb
only when we release the obsession with dominating the world —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe2zffl8qAp
can humanity truly begin its journey of becoming human.

An closed her eyes.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCPMjskBS8v
A droplet fell from the corner.

Not a tear —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd4QhMf6sQB
but a bead of blood, blended from three ancestral rivers.

And she whispered into the wind:

“If there is reincarnation...21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCFXuvnwV4x
please don’t make me choose again.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy7FORquuHe
Let me just be myself — undivided, unmasked, unburdened by hate.”

Chapter XVIII: The Lotus Blooms in the Mud

So, which ending will you choose?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeaJN01Irlw
Revenge, release, or waiting?

When every path leads to the same fateful crossroad —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJVG6RKlqZe
where history intersects,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9weWh9rKDq
where the future is redrawn from the past,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOr24X9lmFJ
and where guilt never truly vanishes…21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyIHEzZA72y
it simply takes on a new name: An.

People often say, “You reap what you sow.”21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHv5sckg4bt
But that only applies in a world of singular colors.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7JMy8b8CB1
In An’s world — where every cell carries three cultures, three bloodlines, three ways of thinking —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDZkeBxrgfw
karma is no longer a circle.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Y03Gn69D2
It is a spiral, endless and ever-unfolding.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6Nw6DXNQBM
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3yWX4aUE3J
Not by weaponry or wealth,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHGlbb3Y5jb
but through the very hybridity of their being.

Did Nguyên know?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKIw6akyYgD
While he was still busy playing political chess,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZU4GfrY9md
still lost in the dream of Asia dominating the world by destroying the West,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcFlVGW0vLP
An was already planting seeds —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9svKzu1VH2
in thought,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1vG365fekq
in culture,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrbziVgh1KB
in every restless heart still searching for home.

No need for preaching.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6jUOrTPAVO
No need to fight.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6WGg85Frsb
Just live — true to her conscience.

Did Linh understand?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQPjJbbnmEc
That the more she ran, the more she imitated,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmDzrrstHUQ
the more she became a shadow of herself.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0xqQbX1zZI
That her jealousy of An didn’t make her more Western —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡekzExk8Uid
only more lost.

Meanwhile, An remained the lotus in the mud.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVYGPYdRz1y
Not competing for sunlight.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡocmA82MtTd
Not declaring herself purer than anyone else.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrACK6rEpCH
Just quietly rising, silently blooming.

You choose revenge?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjmLZKfOgl6
Then prepare yourself for a lineage-long descent into ruin.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpid86dsrPq
Interracial marriages will multiply.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHKx6b9uC6i
The world will blend.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1lWNH2tSpf
Purity will disappear.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbVWQHrVdO2
Children like An — half Asian, half European —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkPAm8DDlQ3
will become the new race,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbYfDGx8RaW
a generation beyond all racial borders.

You choose release?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbynSDTJbgx
Better.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2MChpkjHcG
But not enough.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0eJMK0KHMc
Because if you stop there,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFR0M1sDNNJ
you’ll live forever in regret,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQIzThmiovj
haunted by unanswered questions.

Or will you choose to wait?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJb2fulQbxd
Wait for another An to be born,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvShtZwBpSa
to bear the responsibility you couldn’t face?

Stop — while you still can.

While the world still holds the faded traces of Eastern purity:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMawIyQcKpE
the whisper of wind through bamboo groves,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1IfBogHnX1
the scent of lotus tea at dawn,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnvm8yvkG8F
and the gaze of children who do not yet understand the color of skin.

An is smiling.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6Yk9xujTfs
Not a mocking smile.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs1y7ZYQWF8
Not a victorious one.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlHF05HlIFu
Just the smile of someone who understands.

Understands that life isn’t about winning — it’s about being right.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5stfewNYz7
Understands that justice isn’t born from blood, but from dignity.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkouNthxppI
Understands that to live like a lotus in the mud21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvKJ6T7FOwk
is not to stay clean —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGRtyqW9CxS
but to stay true.

And when An softly whispered into the wind:

“Greed leads to loss.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8mMzUvprj7
But me — I choose grace.”

Chapter XIX: The Crossroads of Five Souls

There are days when the world seems to hold its breath.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgnbcr06IjZ
The wind stops blowing.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlWrjlawGLb
Eyes stop seeing.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6lpqhnF371
And hearts cease to beat to the rhythm they were told to follow.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRpfBrc6rjj
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTf3iwb1hhP
She doesn’t fully understand what’s happening, but she knows this:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFj997REYdj
She is the result of an era where people chose blending over borders.

“You must learn to be Asian,” An tells her,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNtXVvAb8WA
“but never forget the smile of the West.”

Little An is the embodiment of a question:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ4wWiijf7i
Is hybridity a curse or a chance at rebirth?21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2QbwETPsKY
In her heart is a tug-of-war — a lullaby sung in Vietnamese, a father’s embrace spoken in French.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpFnQqsHJ6B
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC5elcYFXbK
Extinction.

Nguyên once believed he was the architect of revolution, the crownless king of global restructuring.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuWS8IavurT
But as more generations of An are born, he feels smaller.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvroYmVDPII
He’s lost control.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNQBsZvq1J1
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF1JjPsyj4a
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡokKY8izXlB
But when she looks in the mirror, it’s Vietnamese eyes that are crying.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLAfPoUkcBd
Every attempt to Westernize only leaves her emptier.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBFNV3hIa4F
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbeM7hYpu8X
But now, standing between the cold towers of the West,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0onoeH9TLN
she finds herself missing the morning calls of street vendors,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ4a1WuKQnh
missing the sound of her mother’s voice calling “con ơi” under the sunlit courtyard.

Linh no longer wants to be Western —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLEumeGIoBd
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbbVGzdTWcP
the West shifts tactics.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEnBtCqTX0R
They tighten borders, scrutinize documents, and even demand social media transparency from all foreign students.

“We won’t accept another Linh,”21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQfcS8zQqjj
a Western official declares in an emergency meeting.

The West doesn’t want history to repeat itself.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj2Zc6JLWxG
They once invested hope and money in people like Linh — only to be betrayed.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAE8DAp41lc
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOEDBojFsSv
Nguyên trembles before her.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU0XSkvNZIp
Linh is silent, as if she’s never uttered a word.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeYVVEfOHsI
The West is cautious.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq8lUv2KddP
Little An waits.

An doesn’t smile.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK0C7BHldaQ
She simply looks up at the Vietnamese sky, then turns toward Paris.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCaVXUvopyC
The wind brushes through her dark hair streaked with chestnut tones.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAtsH83UJHv
In her gaze lies the distillation of centuries of war, ambition, mistakes — and hope.

“We will not win by eliminating one another,” she says.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuwYFK69jYf
“We will win by surpassing ourselves.”

And from that moment, a new civilization begins.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnhhW8wkrAS
A civilization not built on skin color,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ5OABp2X8c
not worshipping purity,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt53DnT6JMd
but grounded in humanity.

This time, the lotus does not bloom from mud —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJkKuJaaZX8
but from the memories of pain,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD80crMV3rQ
from forgiven resentments,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHQE1V4xdrd
and from hearts brave enough to live truthfully,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpkxQu0axT6
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEoY10zTRBT
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,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyL2zbdBjit
but everyone has the right to choose how they live with it.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvaTFUr8Zw7
An — instead of denying or fleeing — learned to face it.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCyUcIGijwU
She is neither proud nor ashamed; she simply accepts it.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIR2OEIqwSR
And it is in that acceptance that she becomes an independent being,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwBPIyOeKTR
unbound by the myth of purity.

The lesson: You don’t need to resemble anyone to be recognized.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP2QuuUeDBp
You just need to be honest with yourself.

2. Revenge never heals.

Nguyên went to the furthest depths of hatred,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDi0CZWvAII
sacrificing everything to prove one thing:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrr0d8sgoSU
that Asians could dominate.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfLaY06an66
But the further he went, the more he lost himself.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4KH8rWXrmM
Revenge didn’t bring justice — it only created more victims.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz4A1urETq2
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:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9dt45g345z
be beautiful, be refined, marry a Westerner to change your life.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJiNB8Nrj6g
But the more she chased the shadow of others,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf7vTkYTZbX
the more she lost her own light.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM12GdhoMTH
And when she finally realized it,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7cLP2OZXC5
she no longer knew where she belonged.

The lesson for all women:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaar3Vwnztd
You don’t need to be a copy of anyone else.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx3ts9Wymiw
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWL0iMIXEWp
But they forgot:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBhpW2PDc7u
it was also the West that saved An, educated her, sheltered her.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiviUqWQT5I
Opposition cannot build a better world — only cooperation and mutual understanding can.

The lesson:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAkZnbupJjm
Instead of dividing West and East,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk8rQi3ndDO
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW5RQ0MgAwH
They are proof of a world in transition.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO8MiVEwfKq
A world where no one may look the same anymore.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL2ASrbWoN3
And because of that, each person must live more kindly,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsO3hyfWCom
more deeply,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYKN3PuIJIk
to not feel lost among the many shapes of humanity.

The greatest lesson:21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8e9StflAv3
Humanity does not need purity.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtRtRXtXLAS
Humanity needs decency.

When you reach the final page of this story,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwOVVuxx6cp
you may find yourself somewhere in An, in Linh, or in Nguyên.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUixXROhlzE
Maybe you too have once blamed the past,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1AUQBNLx55
run from yourself,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvAXzVKmw2d
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX85o0e8CAQ
A lotus doesn’t need rich soil.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRAFOAeCCIg
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.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvIirNkEHiN
Some souls are stitched from many strands of blood — yet none are deemed “right.”21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWQThfsIluX
An is one such soul.

We have followed An through the shadowed corridors of identity,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEHBNrMwOnd
through the silent dungeons of prejudice,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMFI44W9rvS
and to the edge where love, gender, nationhood, and dignity intertwine into a labyrinth with no exit.

But An —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOqD5PZMVhh
she did not run.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX3RO4qyJoe
She did not surrender.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSC6fCJPYMi
She did not pretend.

She walked straight into the storm,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUoOwVCBiCj
letting the opposing winds inside her strip away every protective layer.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLIdVcZzvOl
She stood bare before the world —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ffxRw5efi
to learn that belonging is not a country,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPvSF9aMgMo
not an ethnicity,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoXoH7NLXe1
not a name on a birth certificate.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCQiD9fLDYE
It is the moment one lives truthfully with the self that was once buried under prejudice.

An is no hero.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEUgeNso4sn
She doesn’t need to be.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6UcMrTwP2h
She is simply a living testament —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVTmb5TCztV
that even with the scars of three cultures,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQTSfFFSRBc
even when robbed of memory, identity, and the right to love —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpFjxvmxRlp
she still preserved the one thing that mattered: dignity.

And in a world where everything can be exchanged —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpgbm4b6EOn
money, nationality, gender, language, faith —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcMzgfkR4mb
dignity is the last thing that must not be cheapened.

When you close the final page,21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAUlc7KPTCr
you may forget the plot, the characters’ names, or the politics.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnWQcnaw6Gt
But if you remember just one thing, please remember this:

“Some flowers only bloom against the wind.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi3heWvn626
And some people only shine when they stop trying to resemble anyone else.”

An is such a person.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPDCVHPMnGV
And if there is a little An inside you — lonely, imperfect, different —21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV3J4h9tm2W
please embrace it.

Because contrary winds are still winds.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUqYz3ZJu7b
And not all winds are born to blow in the same direction.

— Pham Le Quy21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡca4RnRFjZv
End of the Wind Season, 2025

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