THE REBEL OF THE WIND - THE REBEL OF THE WIND

TABLE OF CONTENTS95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoKTbFTbcfK
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

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

PART TWO: MAIN CONTENT95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡckUIcHry1b
7. Chapter I 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡesEnGbqGwJ
8. Chapter II95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1zvAhYPylf
9. Chapter III 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGgfUCLUfCi
10. Chapter IV 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNqpO0uHtlZ
11. Chapter V 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdSG8lYuXsV
12. Chapter VI 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6RgzqnM95r
13. Chapter VII95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡffY1C8CJio
14. Chapter VIII 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkNFd8WUaLS
15. Chapter IX 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLlFMrdfRAJ
16. Chapter X 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPQuTjKOlkD
17. Chapter XI95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsubNO6rtEQ
18. Chapter XII 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXJ57nlkpkX
19. Chapter XIII 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhStxomFDSr
20. Chapter XIV 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRdOU5Zk2n9
21. Chapter XV 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQtpBCastmS
22. Chapter XVI 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVGpRGfy1kd
23. Chapter XVII95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWpEKCzenVt
24. Chapter XVIII 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLJ5BA70G7c
25. Chapter XIX 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGZBXrnmjqH
26. Chapter XX

PART THREE: CLOSING95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6Zg8GS7L40
27. Appendix 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2YgfDCuLfy
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzyrR11GXHx
Which bloodline governs your thoughts each day?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLBUs9kFQX8
Are the values you believe to be “true” truly yours—or simply what you were taught to believe?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6nJxcC0kxx
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 Quy95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ68R5EvAtsq
Saigon, June 2025

DEDICATION

To the hybrid souls,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwF2Pjgl2g9
to those who stand at the edge of identity,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGUCWmIRPmf
to those who never chose where they were born,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb76jry597S
but still bravely choose how to live.

To all the “Ans” of the world—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYIoSmm2UH4
the flowers blooming in storms,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvAhpdJiQKw
who, despite being doubted, compared, and misunderstood,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDDPRwdj1wM
still choose to hold on to dignity and a noble silence.

To you—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvEwfmY3O2x
if you’ve ever been torn between East and West,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ20z2kAS2G9
between right and wrong, between reason and desire.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu24W3sWiSz
May you find yourself somewhere in these pages.

And one day,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv4MObdXUL8
you will know:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnOKZijWPyH
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ5VEm5WtCI
but also torn apart by society’s prejudices on gender, identity, and dignity.

A memory-erasing drug has upended everything.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0yRtGvoZDJ
But scarier than losing one’s memory—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTuhTebLHuR
is no longer knowing who you are in this world.

As the shattered mirrors of the past begin to reflect,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp1xszV42vT
as family, love, and hatred intertwine into an inescapable maze,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZLBfvzWcr
An must choose:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUx7yk69XBy
to become a pawn in the power game between East and West,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWScu0FktOe
or to rise and defend the rejected part of her own humanity.

In a world being assimilated and fractured,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6hypA3jDty
amid political schemes and battles for identity,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCUTGQDQV2O
The Rebel of the Wind is a journey against the current—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLv74rX1aoT
where one deemed “wrong” learns how to live “right” with herself.

A story of identity, forgiveness, and dignity.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbwXfv79abs
A sigh for those who were never chosen—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkIlMr8Bnbu
but still chose to exist.

And a gentle reminder:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY6mVj6x7jz
No matter how many bloodlines run through you,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyQkG9dCFup
you can still bloom like a lotus in the mud.

Copyright Page

© 2025 Phạm Lê Quý95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwVWMmvrxNp
Title: The Rebel of the Wind (Người Gió Nghịch)95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBFu0WfYW9B
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 – 202595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNpfVNwz69W
Published in Vietnam95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaROhtBXQSY
Copyright belongs to the author95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZUFUYSNoCJ
ISBN: (To be filled in when available)95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSryqjXkDng
Cover Design: Phạm Lê Quý95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNrHVOL1Ljr
Editing: Phạm Lê Quý95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNnt37mcUW7
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.”95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7PISLuvuWu
— Phạm Lê Quý

Editor’s Note

Author: Phạm Lê Quý

I did not write The Rebel of the Wind to find answers,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqnp8rqaZNa
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3zfvzqbzeA
It is the echo of a soul that once felt too “impure” to be loved,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMUcCWnCD5b
too “different” to be recognized.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4GIaDqhxIj
A soul that lived among clashing winds—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnYrUN8X9iW
torn by heritage, by prejudice, by love, and by unnamed silences.

At times during writing, I wanted to stop.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlSZAAHoLx3
Because truth—even fictionalized—hurts.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡthbMoLUFG9
But then I realized:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGEhUSDflCR
If I didn’t write, those like “An” would never have a voice.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Cn6SLLTE8
And if even one reader, somewhere, sees themselves in these pages,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡugQ7uBim0d
then every loneliness I’ve borne was worth it.

Some chapters in this book follow nontraditional structures.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPoDUZWObID
Some dialogues may carry metaphors or symbolism.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXIj8KyL9Bp
Please read with your heart, not just your mind.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkRwpjN51aG
Because sometimes, the deepest meanings lie not in the words,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC3Pqc4uG3P
but in the silences between them.

Thank you—for being brave enough to read a story that goes against the current.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1RL7dWj1B4
And thank you to the winds—because even when they’re lost,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmqzlyye6pY
they still find their way home.

— Phạm Lê Quý95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO8LqjPcHYw
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv98j6kJbFK
A long chime echoing from Indochina.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrmVRdxzdJr
A short ring like a French legionnaire’s final farewell.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUgzmPX10Kh
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfwzsEOWfiP
In French—writing about a love that was never acknowledged.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT26UbLysRP
In Chinese—writing about a promise betrayed by the past.

Each line of text became a bloodstream.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ1MqEsjgfW
Each page, a peeled layer of skin—searching for the soul that had once been wiped away.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkAFlWPBnzB
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEWihxMA9Zg
China – depth.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC7wExD7S3J
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?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiTY1EGqPWW
Who am I among these three bloodlines?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRR70NzDU5M
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjw4XpoQcy5
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB7sO0V6Y9D
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPddu97ThUP
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9DHfO9Zx3d
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuX15sa9tPk
She only wanted to be one.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡty50IMhbjs
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbpjbI2Y9Lh
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcxb0O310zM
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ8oxne9L0V
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyzlJYcmmv5
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKgt3o8DkXj
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡquYK3lKWq2
But not the An as she was—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoO82x9guDy
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqtuqqF8aYw
“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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiFCy1cWJNa
Then bear ten times what I’ve endured.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡATtiSnGfdP
You once thought I was pitiful.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU82q55KWOW
So now, I hope the world loves you—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡje1Zrz1EVT
In the way it pitied and despised me.”

It wasn’t a curse. It was a release.

An no longer needed Linh to pay.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZbFAnHYhd9
Because, in truth—Linh already had.

The cost of losing your identity is emptiness.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Dxp9vNqS3
The cost of loving a world that won’t accept you is loneliness.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPUq7I556nx
The cost of becoming a replacement is never being loved as yourself.

Linh now—might look very Western.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj0IMpBM1m7
But perhaps… no one truly sees her as Western.

And perhaps no one remembers that she was once a Vietnamese girl—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡklDPzM6bCO
Once knew the taste of fish sauce,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg9b8307Q9T
Once spoke her mother tongue,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB7VSRKdayg
Once understood the meaning of heart.

An picked up her phone and sent a short message:

“Linh,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0MReHu8a8O
I forgive you.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwClZtWMw3F
Because you didn’t take anything from me.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFXiVf9MFcY
You only took what you’ll never be able to keep.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyI8RmXsBLs
And I no longer want to hold onto them either.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwzJtIcYVnb
Your world is beautiful—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLLEMR1WAL4
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡObmHl3Lors
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUWKJkGmTP2
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—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVaFZz105bK
Like a wind-up doll in a music box no one opened anymore.

An woke in the middle of the night.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJAmPaDllHR
Alone.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUXIY5XMEzS
But lighter than ever before.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAWQsNlT1O2
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—95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZw7GQ0jr2i
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnL0W0RVcA4
“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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcnC4qWl3WQ
“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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ59Pht3AYRJ
Not to oppose men,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvig64PucuL
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuhJZsGao10
But because within Linh burned a fire that An needed to learn to tame — the fire of survival through sacrifice.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡASQYmDwVnG
But Linh… never understood that.

Linh began to look down on An.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCX42hstHKN
She believed that being seen with An devalued her worth.

“You’re like a crack on my face,” Linh once said in anger.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhslgbWZATe
“And you,” An replied, “are what grew from that crack.”

An no longer resented Linh.

She understood.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuz7pmRy4SO
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdyoFWq5urs
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8zzr5agl42
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj2MXI7L7Jg
Not because she was the strongest.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWyvt4JKAfO
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJWAr13RVe3
“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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7kcDvPgyNG
But only those who truly endure are remembered by history.”

Then she closed the page.

And quietly stepped outside.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgNZRN1SpeJ
She didn’t say goodbye.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOHmARVcv31
She didn’t wait for anyone to walk with her.

Because those who stand at the center of the cycle…95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0pf0TyP8St
Need no one’s validation.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPRPjg9mZdl
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUitecdecX0
“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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpP5ESWA3kk
To make her revert to being a “pure” Vietnamese — undiluted, unmutated.

An without feminism.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP52Ls1e5wM
An without gender distinction like Western women.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTH7d6LrsRo
An with no right to choose her own love — only what had been predetermined.

Because to him, Western women were a threat.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsOqQwirMEh
They lived for themselves.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9MygRgylCX
They chose themselves over men.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfNmUaGYiy6
They weren’t willing to be the good wife, the nurturing mother.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuEWGImxs14
They didn’t bear children to fulfill some sacred duty, didn’t sacrifice just to be praised.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUx9sDyuZyN
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyfsjk9SiCl
How to love.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpGHByTOm1D
How to erase themselves for their husband and children.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡargnNJVBVb
Even how to become the third wheel in their own life — just to keep the family whole.

An had once been undefinable.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeuoLAsNaP5
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvLo9tyMNvo
Still didn’t.

She didn’t need to be a man to be strong.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ndxia5rIG
Didn’t need to be a woman to know how to love.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfhVvr4Q8aG
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBKfaIztJLv
There would have been no Linh — the one who injected her with the drug.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVtXZ3RTTcA
No France.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTyGetupsa9
No cold nights hiding in the dreams of a Western woman.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsY335EZlbG
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4x0JURb1Kv
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdxXUb7TTqS
Even though she once despised them,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡze2lXtY3Nq
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?”95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHa3Le3Tk1Q
“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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRclNLjdHAP
An no longer needed anyone’s approval to define herself.

As for Nguyên… he kept pushing.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSUJQR3E85L
Not just with words,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvMzRCJAI8D
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcv2st5jThe
It was because she embodied intersection, not regression, that she could move her sister in the West.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDbxXhRMG5k
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhZGz99P7Qo
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYaa85SOxUf
Not mixed enough to be called Western,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHUocivMzRl
Not pure enough to be called Vietnamese,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4hzuCGtKIk
Not tough enough to be a man,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNiCdTSeTar
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp77QZ1RPcE
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0lUof9btv1
Her Eastern mindset, her tangled scars, her stubborn loyalty — they grew cold.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6I1g4EfOs1
They didn’t say goodbye.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhIMWQnkjoY
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMpYvoMlFsf
But no one wanted commitment.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIbpFtf1r1j
No one wanted marriage.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwzsxSYy4rm
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKMJwuy8c8x
A transitional model.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs9yGPP3qV4
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbYDPElRVTY
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9fqzKPlh1f
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzXHxnipBI9
Tourism, investment, culture, politics — all would fade.

Because An was the bridge.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL0HdDxHhiE
The display case.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIjRdukA9tl
The “living proof” of integration.

If she left, that image of harmony would collapse.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuEEIv2hbx4
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoOor1wb5cz
I am a small torch that lights up the darkest parts of my blood.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVoEbXuNb0h
But sadly, people only see the flame — and never notice my burning hand.”

She didn’t choose how she was born.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAOK3rCKW77
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPjBkgZmFw4
She would choose the latter.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKJf8wdUTVx
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCr5Q4icNWk
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5IR4HIWam2
For money.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Jsrjgw8fG
For fame.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1BJIacbkG2
For the illusion of reviving a fallen dynasty.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6xJWnk8HtE
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtdEYAVAnj3
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuvNy80PLoG
She wasn’t as naive as Nguyên assumed.

She had silently read the forged documents he sent to international collaboration offices.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp6qa8MF0ne
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOGVO1ektPJ
Not out of surrender.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0vueQegauu
But because she wanted to unify her identity.

She was tired of running between East and West.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeFArPEzRph
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy7sht9dr37
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡczqmjUq2kJ
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRUXzkkyZmh
I am myself.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzPw4kOP6B8
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQqUoV20Tzl
People here are in a panic. They see you turning East.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDVyJ12YRhN
They say you betrayed them. But maybe… they never truly loved you.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ67nuSBhb1p
Thank you for keeping both sides from becoming too powerful or too weak.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ79GKFLRhFz
And maybe… from now on, I’ll try living like you —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwfUe92lF31
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6vpnQyT8iQ
She just stood there.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd9Gr7lUHFK
Her presence alone was an irrefutable declaration.

That’s why Linh grew flustered.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4n9Vd57wbU
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmFbWCzjoI6
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9F2MOtwbtH
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbmYDl24af9
But the tears didn’t come.

Because deep down, she knew:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCgcJtHz5iz
That was the price of faking — even with good intentions.

An didn’t blame Linh.

She understood.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWxXa49nAA2
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgdWcNOLj6K
Imperfect, inconvenient, ungovernable —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwfBNrKctDV
But the only thing that was real.

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

Nguyên was no longer a ghost.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfOn9G4zpp2
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡISKtzuf28g
He hadn’t changed.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdDQXTSwwWN
He didn’t need to.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ434DttOLx6
Because he never wanted to evolve.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUAF4LUOxEz
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡls6FLotLr2
Because she didn’t know — she, too, was just a sacrifice.

Nguyên never loved Linh.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIwJhBH9sLm
He needed her — as living proof.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcHhBrQ2UyW
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDCf2AEMsr3
So that she, too, could die alongside An, if necessary.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDh7njfUgst
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6xrn35JDoO
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZquMMxK7Dg
Then he would not dare touch her.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5gKdw99Ewy
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnzgHRN6Hf6
He slammed the table.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzxN0Pb19SK
He screamed in An’s face.

But An did not fall.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxrYgP6BPjJ
She was no longer the An of the memory-erasing drug, no longer the An lost between three bloodlines.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEsuI1LoPzM
She was An who had unified her body, mind, and spirit.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeGsvKs41R2
An who knew she didn’t have to be anyone else.

And what frightened Nguyên most —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgV2zsE0uPj
Was not rebellion.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8xtIeyjBJB
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvxAUQmnK84
For the first time, she saw An —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMFALpB0aEw
Not as a shadow.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxQLYkbOhO9
Not as a rival.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKf5dTolBpC
Not as the original.

But as a sister, a friend,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX8XVvzQKhs
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo297krBtoq
No more envy.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOZzJVIEoJD
No more shame.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcKoDgH9RbY
No more walls.

An had succeeded.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4CJxGXqkVW
Not because she defeated Nguyên —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmDECwAs0eE
But because she refused to be a pawn in his game.

She had protected her dignity.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJfD1unr10i
Without falling.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡutkQPECaty
Without surrendering.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFsQ8VcgTbM
Without choosing a side.

She remained herself while others lost who they were.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2y6thgpyqh
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzYqcaRsV3a
Not by crushing it,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzyWHodkPKt
But by placing a mirror in front of her,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW0QgWtc2aj
So Linh could see who was truly using that dream to chain her down.

Nguyên left.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQIwd8kBkoG
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgu8IjnvJkd
No panic.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ19dBYK9ffL
Just presence — quiet and profound.

And that was when Nguyên let go of the wheel.

Because if he hit the gas,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxzktA5Ln6V
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJRHVdRrde4
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi782unFmjq
She survived because of them.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt4Ocy0zpRr
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcJo6qR0xXl
not the suits at summits,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIeAvZnnLHX
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ98LLqC8kJK
dedicated to helping immigrant women without papers, without homes —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv3dLb5SQBK
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPK5RnDWh8s
they never needed her to bow.

They just needed her to stand —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2jiFLqfQjw
as a witness.

And An did stand.

Not to rise above anyone,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡriSbrJQmXA
but to remind the world:

Gratitude isn’t found in skin color.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv8VQOVi3VU
It’s found in those who stood by you —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk5eQJXAjY3
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0cmacF1AIs
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLFg8Uta3bh
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRauQtjRukm
She knew Nguyên was using love as leverage.

He didn’t have to slap her.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSuTY76drmH
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWSviiOvde0
No binding contracts.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCl1FchxxOX
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXEY8VVGbXE
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.”95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7qBorEQvbW
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGfKYNrcbwz
But they held their heads high.

Because they knew — their daughter wasn’t betraying the nation.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFLmwFHNp5M
She was protecting the best parts of it from narrow-mindedness.

Nguyên knew.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7czWa86he9
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHKHNME5Izc
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUvlKtkrnmz
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡurn86ll50W
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6mcfg6EfYu
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBdCAWKeR3C
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo0uNiTT6IS
But not for reconciliation.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWtcmG6LODq
She came back for revenge.

Revenge masked as longing.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpAsxAbcrtZ
Revenge fueled by wounded pride.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzdkngZLV5J
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9EAQp17lFe
An wasn’t jealous; she simply wanted the truth acknowledged.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl9tt70PgCe
But Linh didn’t see it that way.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhlT6RCVIbE
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ92kPr0JKIr
The Vietnamese man — once the very reason for Linh’s fury — chose truth over lies.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYEHmHS69H9
He stayed.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVUbpgBFv3R
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5AngWfF2sl
Her old accusations held no more weight, so she reached back into the shadows… and attacked a different weakness:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSKNsiwJCgc
An’s sister’s past.

Once again, an innocent person was dragged to the stand.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYW5gbmIYYU
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYiH8kW0TdV
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqlPHI2ccAQ
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡClvfkNUVtG
He was the first to speak:

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

The room fell silent.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGVNCsNfcN1
Linh was there too — and for the first time, she said nothing.

She had lost.

Not because she lost An.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF6BrbFyB6d
But because she had lost herself.

The chapter closed on a windy afternoon.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtGNlItQaMk
An and her sister walked across the old bridge, one that had seen many currents flow beneath it.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2JEEsWIQUV
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRpipOOZsOX
But no.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Cg2HSIhtK
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoqBW9ivjfr
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBusBhE73Lt
Make them kneel and beg to remain in this world.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNTKGjWdix6
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQuDErLFEIy
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVwn1FrI0V8
Not out of patriotism —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2duBwJS7vQ
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJVLA40KBYb
To pull others into the mud, one must first dirty their own hands.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ64Hmd4fu5N
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfD73Agyi1h
But no one asked if she was happy.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXLZy8kUYrC
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb2BrlnAwOZ
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxJrRuZeGrp
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVFEY9bBGFw
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaFPfZL9PFl
She recalled learning French with her elderly tutor, remembered the gentle voices of those who once saved her from harm.

She understood:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDst2MhMo5p
Progress does not come from erasing the West.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKDUADD711G
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTdwlKA0mv5
not over the spilled blood of another.

Nguyên never saw this.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmjrRyLcydL
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMqsCqyuasS
A commodity.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDgwy05tKG0
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7a8mtoA1jy
No one truly wins when women must sacrifice their bodies and honor for the ambitions of men.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOIq5LOjbw2
No one truly wins...95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOSye8Dj4Te
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZLXtkmeoHO
No longer were there borders between East and West, between white and yellow, black and brown.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS0621NPAXR
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4VCjBWNyML
Westerners no longer preserved their golden hair, porcelain skin, or crystal-blue eyes.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvEV4Rip4ZQ
Asians lost their distinct monolids and pale golden tones.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWTPZNbcZfF
And Black individuals — bearers of radiant night — were diluted to the point of no longer recognizing themselves in the mirror.

Science stood confused.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHOaAI6q5Zz
Culture, disoriented.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNzc7JLHmQJ
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgwotIDgEp3
A world ruled by East Asians — in economy, in politics, in race.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2gj5Jywk8J
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ6cXjkKcj9
She was no longer French.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡev7x97uMZa
Not entirely Vietnamese.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqJXiAyNMg9
Nor fully Chinese.

She was everything.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIb6JhH5qYH
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?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkuN4unJplq
If I betray the foreign blood in my veins, who will forgive me?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9BcMNLvVqu
If I continue to live, to replicate myself through future generations, am I passing on pain — not hope?”

And she knew:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqL52XszEtL
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvYhEhBOJBI
They were haunted by a false philosophy:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3cm5ioh0N7
That only purity is glory, that only uniformity brings strength.

But the truth is:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv4ND2G21eL
Only through hybridity do humans learn their limits.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNw3knShOJm
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWHswsEDEZU
That dreams of racial supremacy are hollow.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNsse4Jkb1v
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 —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk4HfUVu4Eu
only when we release the obsession with dominating the world —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOhkuHC9wwv
can humanity truly begin its journey of becoming human.

An closed her eyes.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHziRv0k7Re
A droplet fell from the corner.

Not a tear —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBhuOlsJh27
but a bead of blood, blended from three ancestral rivers.

And she whispered into the wind:

“If there is reincarnation...95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAF1X8R0sFr
please don’t make me choose again.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdTOFPULesw
Let me just be myself — undivided, unmasked, unburdened by hate.”

Chapter XVIII: The Lotus Blooms in the Mud

So, which ending will you choose?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYEH7kAw0qh
Revenge, release, or waiting?

When every path leads to the same fateful crossroad —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiqgn2lNen0
where history intersects,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLCCmg5qeWb
where the future is redrawn from the past,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrvK6DzKnsm
and where guilt never truly vanishes…95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKppY2AHlbT
it simply takes on a new name: An.

People often say, “You reap what you sow.”95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq60cju2lc2
But that only applies in a world of singular colors.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc5isEnnYdx
In An’s world — where every cell carries three cultures, three bloodlines, three ways of thinking —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ99qsPMIH9Z
karma is no longer a circle.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnPOYdun5RA
It is a spiral, endless and ever-unfolding.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl6ppOW521R
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0q0qNbdpwr
Not by weaponry or wealth,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmT43ROLIDd
but through the very hybridity of their being.

Did Nguyên know?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrZnz6Yqu2g
While he was still busy playing political chess,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8dZ3pmmUCU
still lost in the dream of Asia dominating the world by destroying the West,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSibMVPN059
An was already planting seeds —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaINJx4ajYV
in thought,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9a2lyqIPdU
in culture,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUztWO5JTDE
in every restless heart still searching for home.

No need for preaching.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg2MVJ5b0pR
No need to fight.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ4ckLyaVRv
Just live — true to her conscience.

Did Linh understand?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbgZ71AYAIj
That the more she ran, the more she imitated,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyTPIJ2ZLkk
the more she became a shadow of herself.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA8VAMLC4OO
That her jealousy of An didn’t make her more Western —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjNaWP0TqAF
only more lost.

Meanwhile, An remained the lotus in the mud.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmhzirkjKuW
Not competing for sunlight.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeSLZjZX9rO
Not declaring herself purer than anyone else.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8XPwOYEuDm
Just quietly rising, silently blooming.

You choose revenge?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwtnTyHSmh5
Then prepare yourself for a lineage-long descent into ruin.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNXPYckP4bl
Interracial marriages will multiply.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmzEDZk0jHf
The world will blend.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ41ophGrTNO
Purity will disappear.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtqaFZHcyXM
Children like An — half Asian, half European —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBaLm44m1xW
will become the new race,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD0YV3cFqAp
a generation beyond all racial borders.

You choose release?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFCaQsKJffx
Better.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDXCnDGkaee
But not enough.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEjSsUzvE9k
Because if you stop there,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2l7EKUfwef
you’ll live forever in regret,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyKlJ47Z1Tf
haunted by unanswered questions.

Or will you choose to wait?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnjgxJJU65x
Wait for another An to be born,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0vplMfeJ3l
to bear the responsibility you couldn’t face?

Stop — while you still can.

While the world still holds the faded traces of Eastern purity:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvQhgezc7zt
the whisper of wind through bamboo groves,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq39Iikif1F
the scent of lotus tea at dawn,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxtxGC1qqGB
and the gaze of children who do not yet understand the color of skin.

An is smiling.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSphb6RTP4X
Not a mocking smile.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVYlgEjjNKi
Not a victorious one.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmL2PxONyzO
Just the smile of someone who understands.

Understands that life isn’t about winning — it’s about being right.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf9teU7aJ96
Understands that justice isn’t born from blood, but from dignity.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAXx6jS2RSs
Understands that to live like a lotus in the mud95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1MpOOfEKuL
is not to stay clean —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn2Ua60qhoy
but to stay true.

And when An softly whispered into the wind:

“Greed leads to loss.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv5Hdm2lxko
But me — I choose grace.”

Chapter XIX: The Crossroads of Five Souls

There are days when the world seems to hold its breath.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkzsUT0EMPx
The wind stops blowing.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡthbA1mRQAJ
Eyes stop seeing.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpUOIFPvkz8
And hearts cease to beat to the rhythm they were told to follow.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnH1RbK9QMR
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRD1uJX9EJ2
She doesn’t fully understand what’s happening, but she knows this:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnY6tPlFTMq
She is the result of an era where people chose blending over borders.

“You must learn to be Asian,” An tells her,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp86ks7pSd5
“but never forget the smile of the West.”

Little An is the embodiment of a question:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx9JwBFkXok
Is hybridity a curse or a chance at rebirth?95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRxZBl4E0Qu
In her heart is a tug-of-war — a lullaby sung in Vietnamese, a father’s embrace spoken in French.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnP4GCIYSLe
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgcqB2GlPjy
Extinction.

Nguyên once believed he was the architect of revolution, the crownless king of global restructuring.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk62lxD9KH4
But as more generations of An are born, he feels smaller.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSFvM45l2hX
He’s lost control.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkuyQslsgeL
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj9Cl5pT6jI
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡorq2Sqg52v
But when she looks in the mirror, it’s Vietnamese eyes that are crying.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUot0VsYCP3
Every attempt to Westernize only leaves her emptier.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs7n8k2ogNu
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKeviKgXhJz
But now, standing between the cold towers of the West,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl1eTEy0Dfl
she finds herself missing the morning calls of street vendors,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUNhFhTHLFq
missing the sound of her mother’s voice calling “con ơi” under the sunlit courtyard.

Linh no longer wants to be Western —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB5eQ769DiP
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyXJooeBVkw
the West shifts tactics.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz1TWqC0ZL7
They tighten borders, scrutinize documents, and even demand social media transparency from all foreign students.

“We won’t accept another Linh,”95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb8PP3JXEYa
a Western official declares in an emergency meeting.

The West doesn’t want history to repeat itself.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJB1A0QhmLL
They once invested hope and money in people like Linh — only to be betrayed.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZg9KgPkPkA
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡto3fv0TVvq
Nguyên trembles before her.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkp9pEA0lIJ
Linh is silent, as if she’s never uttered a word.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnzaiq2An40
The West is cautious.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkKRoRgGae5
Little An waits.

An doesn’t smile.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7YaUm5IXOG
She simply looks up at the Vietnamese sky, then turns toward Paris.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMomTKpPeAP
The wind brushes through her dark hair streaked with chestnut tones.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb4s1bnuWcM
In her gaze lies the distillation of centuries of war, ambition, mistakes — and hope.

“We will not win by eliminating one another,” she says.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYPDutR1xOq
“We will win by surpassing ourselves.”

And from that moment, a new civilization begins.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKLsDxoqAgP
A civilization not built on skin color,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1igiXLWYaa
not worshipping purity,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5be71wUJVh
but grounded in humanity.

This time, the lotus does not bloom from mud —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPaAEfV310K
but from the memories of pain,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡukPn10muyP
from forgiven resentments,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXyUMwXYMKe
and from hearts brave enough to live truthfully,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7utm9VNWOQ
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa5QSmUfhlY
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,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQnRS8lnmMk
but everyone has the right to choose how they live with it.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHKEN5y4c45
An — instead of denying or fleeing — learned to face it.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy3jDc54ZNY
She is neither proud nor ashamed; she simply accepts it.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7493IodyYo
And it is in that acceptance that she becomes an independent being,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIQlzsF6VXd
unbound by the myth of purity.

The lesson: You don’t need to resemble anyone to be recognized.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxsIg228EqI
You just need to be honest with yourself.

2. Revenge never heals.

Nguyên went to the furthest depths of hatred,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfmB0OemMNy
sacrificing everything to prove one thing:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvRxlJKbhRk
that Asians could dominate.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRQ70glHenv
But the further he went, the more he lost himself.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiibHI8Qkjt
Revenge didn’t bring justice — it only created more victims.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb8jOqypL5V
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:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX1qZeNhZib
be beautiful, be refined, marry a Westerner to change your life.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjIIprHcrCr
But the more she chased the shadow of others,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgeSx1YTnRq
the more she lost her own light.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbGSgZZsbaV
And when she finally realized it,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbQja5xc5Fu
she no longer knew where she belonged.

The lesson for all women:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwTifsWUxye
You don’t need to be a copy of anyone else.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0W9YtcBWVe
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9l78tENUrK
But they forgot:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIn6ISfwsDV
it was also the West that saved An, educated her, sheltered her.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ50HOuUjBMJ
Opposition cannot build a better world — only cooperation and mutual understanding can.

The lesson:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ76L4g7EeOz
Instead of dividing West and East,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHr11YgOjVc
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPzmAc2vryv
They are proof of a world in transition.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCrFKieU16b
A world where no one may look the same anymore.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5HqaZhroJ6
And because of that, each person must live more kindly,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGcGAymrbiH
more deeply,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT11VuZEFdF
to not feel lost among the many shapes of humanity.

The greatest lesson:95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuhWDMSVXDS
Humanity does not need purity.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwvLjV1CWT4
Humanity needs decency.

When you reach the final page of this story,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfkc40pcRz2
you may find yourself somewhere in An, in Linh, or in Nguyên.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiae5crtkQG
Maybe you too have once blamed the past,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqUIIqQPhUG
run from yourself,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgh5oDIgUFl
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOMXHadphMX
A lotus doesn’t need rich soil.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM3aAb0dcpv
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.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs020wSpZzQ
Some souls are stitched from many strands of blood — yet none are deemed “right.”95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxPq6ukbNFm
An is one such soul.

We have followed An through the shadowed corridors of identity,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2fVuzu461r
through the silent dungeons of prejudice,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwJ8d0fEQCh
and to the edge where love, gender, nationhood, and dignity intertwine into a labyrinth with no exit.

But An —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrcbd0vpZ60
she did not run.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMaHCjleH8V
She did not surrender.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaUJwJbtMw3
She did not pretend.

She walked straight into the storm,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2hpS4g7Eak
letting the opposing winds inside her strip away every protective layer.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXqaNaSCaUO
She stood bare before the world —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtGuvjgh83M
to learn that belonging is not a country,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf76amoQ7ZP
not an ethnicity,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeT5Z5EJFpQ
not a name on a birth certificate.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZqltu59VEB
It is the moment one lives truthfully with the self that was once buried under prejudice.

An is no hero.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM0HkXgrr6D
She doesn’t need to be.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJXcLYEq8jC
She is simply a living testament —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRlbya0DCyU
that even with the scars of three cultures,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm04F52IIPj
even when robbed of memory, identity, and the right to love —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNhMJlscont
she still preserved the one thing that mattered: dignity.

And in a world where everything can be exchanged —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRPIObJyR7C
money, nationality, gender, language, faith —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhqUvTI47qC
dignity is the last thing that must not be cheapened.

When you close the final page,95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNI97J5NYI0
you may forget the plot, the characters’ names, or the politics.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmNEz7C9nhY
But if you remember just one thing, please remember this:

“Some flowers only bloom against the wind.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE53XkqwmAc
And some people only shine when they stop trying to resemble anyone else.”

An is such a person.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn9uRXvWx1E
And if there is a little An inside you — lonely, imperfect, different —95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7IHvWEqIpJ
please embrace it.

Because contrary winds are still winds.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLX2DjRaKHA
And not all winds are born to blow in the same direction.

— Pham Le Quy95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVYi5vbJHut
End of the Wind Season, 2025

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