THE REBEL OF THE WIND

TABLE OF CONTENTS29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtIZII6c3ml
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

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

PART TWO: MAIN CONTENT29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHUd3fXFvo2
7. Chapter I 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPi5oyUv6LR
8. Chapter II29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnxv8Kgm7dH
9. Chapter III 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIp98rX05OJ
10. Chapter IV 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnXBSxiSbL0
11. Chapter V 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAnERxeRb6k
12. Chapter VI 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ30IAMs48pu
13. Chapter VII29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIAoiTRWFJv
14. Chapter VIII 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOxEcjZdTBE
15. Chapter IX 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgnfsz5oSrU
16. Chapter X 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzn8d5KHHtJ
17. Chapter XI29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyrZi0gSz6B
18. Chapter XII 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPVXZQE70w0
19. Chapter XIII 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBkHEod9Xv7
20. Chapter XIV 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH6vVMEGjg4
21. Chapter XV 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡabcIcJdElC
22. Chapter XVI 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZwadnEVqZ0
23. Chapter XVII29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJqsscXTRpe
24. Chapter XVIII 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBthnpUC0B7
25. Chapter XIX 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7vzKtfeHI3
26. Chapter XX

PART THREE: CLOSING29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcR8XbO36M0
27. Appendix 29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnScYgUsZZq
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTmUtQlbNP6
Which bloodline governs your thoughts each day?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPxZjZyevs6
Are the values you believe to be “true” truly yours—or simply what you were taught to believe?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2k590CvPGT
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 Quy29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ760942Iprg
Saigon, June 2025

DEDICATION

To the hybrid souls,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnmR8zyqowz
to those who stand at the edge of identity,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyhhlVrNb4V
to those who never chose where they were born,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdfnZ5ANbji
but still bravely choose how to live.

To all the “Ans” of the world—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnKilCMXSdW
the flowers blooming in storms,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoETFIHraUs
who, despite being doubted, compared, and misunderstood,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ2UPoRK47Y
still choose to hold on to dignity and a noble silence.

To you—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX0u0GnwIzk
if you’ve ever been torn between East and West,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz43wQkPC7G
between right and wrong, between reason and desire.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3o5YgPNcGI
May you find yourself somewhere in these pages.

And one day,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX1cqKa3Oyi
you will know:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUysY8Nj8Mo
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8nTce16PDn
but also torn apart by society’s prejudices on gender, identity, and dignity.

A memory-erasing drug has upended everything.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgXljfRIrgH
But scarier than losing one’s memory—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi7IpuhnhGj
is no longer knowing who you are in this world.

As the shattered mirrors of the past begin to reflect,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkkPx6w4VyQ
as family, love, and hatred intertwine into an inescapable maze,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZOzvNhjkvh
An must choose:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqBwK2NDZFq
to become a pawn in the power game between East and West,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG4MzNMFaEf
or to rise and defend the rejected part of her own humanity.

In a world being assimilated and fractured,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYOEJCGieYw
amid political schemes and battles for identity,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuAqy3atmDE
The Rebel of the Wind is a journey against the current—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqdWlABwuhJ
where one deemed “wrong” learns how to live “right” with herself.

A story of identity, forgiveness, and dignity.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2VA2b4dD9O
A sigh for those who were never chosen—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZDoNpzUe0M
but still chose to exist.

And a gentle reminder:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL2SOrUw4uX
No matter how many bloodlines run through you,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxVIxDO3fcp
you can still bloom like a lotus in the mud.

Copyright Page

© 2025 Phạm Lê Quý29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDz9Psgo6nh
Title: The Rebel of the Wind (Người Gió Nghịch)29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡul0ANVFI4i
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 – 202529Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkkoTUWVImz
Published in Vietnam29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDtraPWkr0O
Copyright belongs to the author29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdPnq1fJF5v
ISBN: (To be filled in when available)29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTcX0qPiXSA
Cover Design: Phạm Lê Quý29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPFFBOl1mNy
Editing: Phạm Lê Quý29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8ccXsE2teU
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.”29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMZWLZY0TEp
— Phạm Lê Quý

Editor’s Note

Author: Phạm Lê Quý

I did not write The Rebel of the Wind to find answers,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwKbyxKxp9M
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIAZbULKk3P
It is the echo of a soul that once felt too “impure” to be loved,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA70OHFIp7C
too “different” to be recognized.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtrIal0rB4z
A soul that lived among clashing winds—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgPlsAXCWzr
torn by heritage, by prejudice, by love, and by unnamed silences.

At times during writing, I wanted to stop.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPadIXBEvGw
Because truth—even fictionalized—hurts.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc2QTsErsxl
But then I realized:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZxc2axpAeG
If I didn’t write, those like “An” would never have a voice.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIFGFczwH9u
And if even one reader, somewhere, sees themselves in these pages,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdx0BTkThtw
then every loneliness I’ve borne was worth it.

Some chapters in this book follow nontraditional structures.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfWoCgTbb3q
Some dialogues may carry metaphors or symbolism.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsuIgWgFbXe
Please read with your heart, not just your mind.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvoNXsRgmAG
Because sometimes, the deepest meanings lie not in the words,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI6mtqmP5j4
but in the silences between them.

Thank you—for being brave enough to read a story that goes against the current.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcoXJQopIy4
And thank you to the winds—because even when they’re lost,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1RKBIfzEyZ
they still find their way home.

— Phạm Lê Quý29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqTkjAkaheT
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdZ9ZvR0R3q
A long chime echoing from Indochina.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOvQpZaS9Dy
A short ring like a French legionnaire’s final farewell.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL5ieEJf0yz
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjwn1dceOzQ
In French—writing about a love that was never acknowledged.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNTWbX5vwkN
In Chinese—writing about a promise betrayed by the past.

Each line of text became a bloodstream.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsK7d3drvP6
Each page, a peeled layer of skin—searching for the soul that had once been wiped away.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzeeaqzbn8H
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOkUEXrLSCc
China – depth.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9HNj41kJXf
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?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzgpOahw4PY
Who am I among these three bloodlines?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR4KNRHjGFG
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJQt4tsmfY2
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmSTBrTz3yz
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLuiFVOkN5X
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXdIHrSfxgY
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFqemsbD4kZ
She only wanted to be one.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPrKiBPRxrI
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfCP4sHJCFo
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgZ1m3HHpQZ
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiFAPH05Pnf
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxnTDiu2mad
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeT8TOXRWHI
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZO5PIZFGLC
But not the An as she was—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdELve03KBD
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzfi7KwNuwD
“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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqmCqEqpUOX
Then bear ten times what I’ve endured.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFi83YcRZdg
You once thought I was pitiful.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9dItyqThjX
So now, I hope the world loves you—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHpCsJJOhMO
In the way it pitied and despised me.”

It wasn’t a curse. It was a release.

An no longer needed Linh to pay.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA0a2GPZYa4
Because, in truth—Linh already had.

The cost of losing your identity is emptiness.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmrE6psC2mt
The cost of loving a world that won’t accept you is loneliness.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuZM3vD4YtS
The cost of becoming a replacement is never being loved as yourself.

Linh now—might look very Western.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOqc8FDPY4A
But perhaps… no one truly sees her as Western.

And perhaps no one remembers that she was once a Vietnamese girl—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1deTFRNN79
Once knew the taste of fish sauce,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeAoSaDhZUI
Once spoke her mother tongue,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMsYdHwjFZx
Once understood the meaning of heart.

An picked up her phone and sent a short message:

“Linh,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaAfLhj6BQ7
I forgive you.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡusyVekZ1AE
Because you didn’t take anything from me.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIiSFuenGVV
You only took what you’ll never be able to keep.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1blU29xynp
And I no longer want to hold onto them either.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxrJPsPWvz0
Your world is beautiful—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmiuMWFxFia
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDozYCMyWIn
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP9H3V9fUYt
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—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpIqLSVky0a
Like a wind-up doll in a music box no one opened anymore.

An woke in the middle of the night.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTuSUi5ygez
Alone.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7iWIazI4Sw
But lighter than ever before.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm4Eo68Hiti
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—29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt12pEjYjLr
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnSuHfrNxvu
“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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGNcGFUMIMe
“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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡedcc4P7gGu
Not to oppose men,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTvu37nXZMu
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFDiyBwUJLG
But because within Linh burned a fire that An needed to learn to tame — the fire of survival through sacrifice.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyzuI4LEY8f
But Linh… never understood that.

Linh began to look down on An.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAPIxQeDEIB
She believed that being seen with An devalued her worth.

“You’re like a crack on my face,” Linh once said in anger.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB304XwwMdX
“And you,” An replied, “are what grew from that crack.”

An no longer resented Linh.

She understood.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm9cT6ju6dq
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu8KfHcNzGL
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMOlSP2d68S
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2bn67HlGgB
Not because she was the strongest.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK8QkZ4mfkS
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfd44ad2rDA
“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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtxcHNTVjdV
But only those who truly endure are remembered by history.”

Then she closed the page.

And quietly stepped outside.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFqcFxjPWgf
She didn’t say goodbye.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJUhQWaqscv
She didn’t wait for anyone to walk with her.

Because those who stand at the center of the cycle…29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5K09vkrl94
Need no one’s validation.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKumA0WjCJG
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBd4Alw9mNx
“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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI5CfphkuhS
To make her revert to being a “pure” Vietnamese — undiluted, unmutated.

An without feminism.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡByupyXigUm
An without gender distinction like Western women.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf5HiN6TN9Z
An with no right to choose her own love — only what had been predetermined.

Because to him, Western women were a threat.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtrYAbOTtCm
They lived for themselves.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5oX9YvTvUC
They chose themselves over men.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpn6qOhau9D
They weren’t willing to be the good wife, the nurturing mother.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYT80dl26m8
They didn’t bear children to fulfill some sacred duty, didn’t sacrifice just to be praised.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwKpOCiMT1r
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAlTmiidGS1
How to love.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB076iScmIs
How to erase themselves for their husband and children.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa7flnzZSwg
Even how to become the third wheel in their own life — just to keep the family whole.

An had once been undefinable.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhZSqBj8WQQ
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡamJiRnhwoE
Still didn’t.

She didn’t need to be a man to be strong.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAjlBkgCeyB
Didn’t need to be a woman to know how to love.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUnzuHSVt9c
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK1XZ0IID7n
There would have been no Linh — the one who injected her with the drug.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYXI7FOZJZP
No France.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxb8mIfrN97
No cold nights hiding in the dreams of a Western woman.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6OOYwW329z
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNYfy8hImyk
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaOsfu2HnJW
Even though she once despised them,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYUzwUhiiIK
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?”29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ57O2Qs0rE4
“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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTklZkdqYy8
An no longer needed anyone’s approval to define herself.

As for Nguyên… he kept pushing.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAewTdJQXPh
Not just with words,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJALWiBEJts
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7QNp1s4ndr
It was because she embodied intersection, not regression, that she could move her sister in the West.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUC5EAi4yZX
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSxIquEJPKJ
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6l90Z7i6sM
Not mixed enough to be called Western,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxY0LgxiAFd
Not pure enough to be called Vietnamese,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5JvWlvM3QG
Not tough enough to be a man,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwxd5coDlAk
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvGFvfUbK1d
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9xEWq8Y14l
Her Eastern mindset, her tangled scars, her stubborn loyalty — they grew cold.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhVXBCHVkhG
They didn’t say goodbye.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeSwdDxuqjH
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡloRgc41APJ
But no one wanted commitment.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9x8iVTvaOX
No one wanted marriage.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBO1t4tdqE8
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeBjwzK9xxV
A transitional model.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDwA3yS9OJx
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS1SGqwzZDd
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHGrZOXA0Pj
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj9kwFsYjfb
Tourism, investment, culture, politics — all would fade.

Because An was the bridge.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkQo2NVVars
The display case.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHyOKm72uA1
The “living proof” of integration.

If she left, that image of harmony would collapse.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWiPBaeNcMe
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrbxtQyDCtY
I am a small torch that lights up the darkest parts of my blood.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOprkcOKTXb
But sadly, people only see the flame — and never notice my burning hand.”

She didn’t choose how she was born.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKb86oVFzVV
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKuusveNFdl
She would choose the latter.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX6iMDVYulD
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAGNPY38gF4
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXoZHzm4LTf
For money.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnoPoOkv3pa
For fame.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmYsFxxrqmr
For the illusion of reviving a fallen dynasty.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSvYvHf7ULw
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHVGqkpskqn
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1eiTY5dlWq
She wasn’t as naive as Nguyên assumed.

She had silently read the forged documents he sent to international collaboration offices.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTFtnOQZ4nV
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡib2Qkyu40m
Not out of surrender.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV0xA1eCUP3
But because she wanted to unify her identity.

She was tired of running between East and West.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwJ1YmsF9W1
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9nKAOabkvt
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ66GPInnxav
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWCeP9dEnqu
I am myself.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvYVT2oZE8C
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjF87dQ8LiM
People here are in a panic. They see you turning East.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMiwvcYxCPk
They say you betrayed them. But maybe… they never truly loved you.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9QraQt8oHO
Thank you for keeping both sides from becoming too powerful or too weak.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJk99VOnpMV
And maybe… from now on, I’ll try living like you —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUZT6UAyu82
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsACBnnVXrK
She just stood there.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5VrinIvMlF
Her presence alone was an irrefutable declaration.

That’s why Linh grew flustered.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQWC1icoUnl
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyIxinpwogS
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvFSBwcOEy5
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGb5knopuZe
But the tears didn’t come.

Because deep down, she knew:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgXY3LQvw26
That was the price of faking — even with good intentions.

An didn’t blame Linh.

She understood.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5h72wivffk
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJF9ogeSfOd
Imperfect, inconvenient, ungovernable —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ694YDKFqEo
But the only thing that was real.

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

Nguyên was no longer a ghost.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2Y0Mk3cWCh
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP197AMPOM4
He hadn’t changed.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡla4sx4uk2L
He didn’t need to.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmqixZAck7S
Because he never wanted to evolve.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdt6PWlsdHY
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHfOusQ4ADo
Because she didn’t know — she, too, was just a sacrifice.

Nguyên never loved Linh.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuho3o7YE9G
He needed her — as living proof.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcmp96ZZCyQ
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Xr7GlYP5g
So that she, too, could die alongside An, if necessary.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo6wSeWWvtc
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWb08VjQLVe
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEotUh1CoYc
Then he would not dare touch her.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmGbKl0StBg
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCdSp4k6Y8J
He slammed the table.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Acb3IIiFe
He screamed in An’s face.

But An did not fall.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzKD4xarrAw
She was no longer the An of the memory-erasing drug, no longer the An lost between three bloodlines.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSbYudOfpZb
She was An who had unified her body, mind, and spirit.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOyEgsoXgJQ
An who knew she didn’t have to be anyone else.

And what frightened Nguyên most —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNdsjhUBPrq
Was not rebellion.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKSl0ukhHw2
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxHhF2wS86J
For the first time, she saw An —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXDNLZiHJQm
Not as a shadow.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡedrlGT7ML2
Not as a rival.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ00EFCJw2Zi
Not as the original.

But as a sister, a friend,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPqdijhkL1J
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy5hmFLYmNH
No more envy.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7etQgwnVHE
No more shame.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh87094RLBG
No more walls.

An had succeeded.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡusT7ethUMY
Not because she defeated Nguyên —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyWWfD74QiO
But because she refused to be a pawn in his game.

She had protected her dignity.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ69pROEJG23
Without falling.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTApzuQDvco
Without surrendering.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRNRac132qB
Without choosing a side.

She remained herself while others lost who they were.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtl5bfanBfZ
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJSojdpAfaf
Not by crushing it,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8KLDnD2uC0
But by placing a mirror in front of her,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrQjWes2io2
So Linh could see who was truly using that dream to chain her down.

Nguyên left.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5EVqazxnRt
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMUWz04ELdZ
No panic.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnR5LcxN1Od
Just presence — quiet and profound.

And that was when Nguyên let go of the wheel.

Because if he hit the gas,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpW8nHNJamv
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1aSuedi77p
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7pyGSGStYL
She survived because of them.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmFDVB5L7NG
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMVoElB2XZA
not the suits at summits,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡedn0wQBEvK
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyZNa27pQGK
dedicated to helping immigrant women without papers, without homes —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJLaHZznytJ
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbs9OLyAYbN
they never needed her to bow.

They just needed her to stand —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoJ5a7vydcZ
as a witness.

And An did stand.

Not to rise above anyone,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5RpOywLjaI
but to remind the world:

Gratitude isn’t found in skin color.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLrezmLuetE
It’s found in those who stood by you —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxpp1T9cTut
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6iutuxoNPD
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDpINecPwhJ
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd0J1Zk33Ai
She knew Nguyên was using love as leverage.

He didn’t have to slap her.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0CRijtcjhY
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMP1Xe6hf4D
No binding contracts.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4P7kecr834
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZg9dNgUWL3
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.”29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeaoGP80z1v
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnyckow9B1O
But they held their heads high.

Because they knew — their daughter wasn’t betraying the nation.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgTqwDWOGc5
She was protecting the best parts of it from narrow-mindedness.

Nguyên knew.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVErfLUVIr0
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxImy4saKX0
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL5jE8UWQbt
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkQ7M8CtImF
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiMTnXJAUhJ
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg11w5zxMSV
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgPeCQwFyT1
But not for reconciliation.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSeHdjkjgwE
She came back for revenge.

Revenge masked as longing.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8SaX4BX4c1
Revenge fueled by wounded pride.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJQ8joZC2qq
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCoLaGBqCu4
An wasn’t jealous; she simply wanted the truth acknowledged.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt13vRTePNN
But Linh didn’t see it that way.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvKxni1cTHl
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWs5qCdeEFC
The Vietnamese man — once the very reason for Linh’s fury — chose truth over lies.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk6srpiax9x
He stayed.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtHLZPqsBcu
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOGelxqBDqd
Her old accusations held no more weight, so she reached back into the shadows… and attacked a different weakness:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ3McB3llyu
An’s sister’s past.

Once again, an innocent person was dragged to the stand.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5kQu3Hk2ki
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡehvy50kSUF
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwSpa2ZwHGf
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzcXVy35V28
He was the first to speak:

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

The room fell silent.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXD5w51aeLn
Linh was there too — and for the first time, she said nothing.

She had lost.

Not because she lost An.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjqP3M0a8yt
But because she had lost herself.

The chapter closed on a windy afternoon.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEvVtbPEoO1
An and her sister walked across the old bridge, one that had seen many currents flow beneath it.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuj1Y0lZYQt
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjGEbgIOS1Y
But no.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ27AmoTnJp
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPdll4idPRY
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBuzxe6t9eA
Make them kneel and beg to remain in this world.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡItlB9doo4p
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyOfWaDIP0l
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡknpZ7gJIOh
Not out of patriotism —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1k0zLC7DPV
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8rlcN4HVWr
To pull others into the mud, one must first dirty their own hands.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwMpxhjJzsN
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYb5UwjYhwQ
But no one asked if she was happy.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7J2m6iKi4B
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡITNI5a5p9s
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaE67PRaEGF
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdO4koqiWSM
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7TUk3cr0p3
She recalled learning French with her elderly tutor, remembered the gentle voices of those who once saved her from harm.

She understood:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6oWhHFNUQI
Progress does not come from erasing the West.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3mX5dJEQs7
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6e0KksTjlP
not over the spilled blood of another.

Nguyên never saw this.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQBHNu4aSTo
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLPXh7QDjA9
A commodity.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZLuxBjI6Gs
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvzBeWjSCtF
No one truly wins when women must sacrifice their bodies and honor for the ambitions of men.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡinKznQyBHA
No one truly wins...29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmKSvz2qBYI
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡThtYeEHlPK
No longer were there borders between East and West, between white and yellow, black and brown.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4n5gilQ6th
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTb2jRKqgkb
Westerners no longer preserved their golden hair, porcelain skin, or crystal-blue eyes.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyOyGPyqPIU
Asians lost their distinct monolids and pale golden tones.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWI6ucYMmBF
And Black individuals — bearers of radiant night — were diluted to the point of no longer recognizing themselves in the mirror.

Science stood confused.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLnOJd2PS0x
Culture, disoriented.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjIuFhgkbFj
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzaWThSmTtO
A world ruled by East Asians — in economy, in politics, in race.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkG4IFTniy1
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiDCoa4OoO9
She was no longer French.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWp5OrfQbn4
Not entirely Vietnamese.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKgJfgwJdoa
Nor fully Chinese.

She was everything.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzIWQICTD8f
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?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmLFB3zUQGJ
If I betray the foreign blood in my veins, who will forgive me?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNa6uhrdPY8
If I continue to live, to replicate myself through future generations, am I passing on pain — not hope?”

And she knew:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbFgfRyW3UD
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnXTg2uTE8k
They were haunted by a false philosophy:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwebN5RF7Ig
That only purity is glory, that only uniformity brings strength.

But the truth is:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡogU7E1GE10
Only through hybridity do humans learn their limits.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPgjrIKT82R
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9YT2lqbyuK
That dreams of racial supremacy are hollow.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhSM7k22A7S
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 —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrvJdwasrmH
only when we release the obsession with dominating the world —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ19gxJsP8sV
can humanity truly begin its journey of becoming human.

An closed her eyes.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuGJ133UvnH
A droplet fell from the corner.

Not a tear —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43ImQ69vEK
but a bead of blood, blended from three ancestral rivers.

And she whispered into the wind:

“If there is reincarnation...29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgReNUEkZFY
please don’t make me choose again.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFxTzSQuquA
Let me just be myself — undivided, unmasked, unburdened by hate.”

Chapter XVIII: The Lotus Blooms in the Mud

So, which ending will you choose?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSOGXA6XbVi
Revenge, release, or waiting?

When every path leads to the same fateful crossroad —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVMgjFHo1E3
where history intersects,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc3uirZcell
where the future is redrawn from the past,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmXzuMS0VCx
and where guilt never truly vanishes…29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ey60Hjf5C
it simply takes on a new name: An.

People often say, “You reap what you sow.”29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuzzULeQJ1W
But that only applies in a world of singular colors.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2oYx2m0FCx
In An’s world — where every cell carries three cultures, three bloodlines, three ways of thinking —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhUrD5Umjnb
karma is no longer a circle.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFUndZslVMS
It is a spiral, endless and ever-unfolding.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS27cherSlv
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1JWlQvxU8b
Not by weaponry or wealth,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHQ6YjNZSRM
but through the very hybridity of their being.

Did Nguyên know?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSuzAQYuNSE
While he was still busy playing political chess,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL5a0V3WABh
still lost in the dream of Asia dominating the world by destroying the West,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgEKGvwhQFw
An was already planting seeds —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXhtR2zKv6i
in thought,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0DmUpvUxDd
in culture,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBd1eWOfkEw
in every restless heart still searching for home.

No need for preaching.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv4TzjA9DC1
No need to fight.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh4sMtVDpRK
Just live — true to her conscience.

Did Linh understand?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAbyAenrskW
That the more she ran, the more she imitated,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoXvJ7lENCE
the more she became a shadow of herself.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVtko3MUtnG
That her jealousy of An didn’t make her more Western —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiVhvbq3dEM
only more lost.

Meanwhile, An remained the lotus in the mud.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx7XTu97QL3
Not competing for sunlight.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6RSTbApEzX
Not declaring herself purer than anyone else.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu5xdAyUdqu
Just quietly rising, silently blooming.

You choose revenge?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡESopNMOfCn
Then prepare yourself for a lineage-long descent into ruin.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaA0hxLlM38
Interracial marriages will multiply.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgeO0Hnydpq
The world will blend.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvObWAR6ca7
Purity will disappear.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcRojFRrded
Children like An — half Asian, half European —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXKWQkX5apV
will become the new race,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Ln9TODPAk
a generation beyond all racial borders.

You choose release?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSeaTSHhOim
Better.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY3877wZLsA
But not enough.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMjq4e00cQB
Because if you stop there,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8WtLoLBnTZ
you’ll live forever in regret,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOKL9X47A6E
haunted by unanswered questions.

Or will you choose to wait?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA8qgR0PCwI
Wait for another An to be born,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8ZmY6TTBeZ
to bear the responsibility you couldn’t face?

Stop — while you still can.

While the world still holds the faded traces of Eastern purity:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3GzuRZOBdL
the whisper of wind through bamboo groves,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmb9c5gCFqO
the scent of lotus tea at dawn,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr9d20FnQmc
and the gaze of children who do not yet understand the color of skin.

An is smiling.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa07EOmQ0lW
Not a mocking smile.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiDC7AakHh8
Not a victorious one.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7rna3JXDop
Just the smile of someone who understands.

Understands that life isn’t about winning — it’s about being right.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhuoGDAtfEI
Understands that justice isn’t born from blood, but from dignity.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGVkUfTjwPl
Understands that to live like a lotus in the mud29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9A1NUXOjjY
is not to stay clean —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4Q8qkoAXpD
but to stay true.

And when An softly whispered into the wind:

“Greed leads to loss.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAH4XE3SeTX
But me — I choose grace.”

Chapter XIX: The Crossroads of Five Souls

There are days when the world seems to hold its breath.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9RRFPtIApv
The wind stops blowing.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK67jWiScGk
Eyes stop seeing.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNcPi2Vs8Pq
And hearts cease to beat to the rhythm they were told to follow.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHZ7g2Vj9kg
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcGnMVvDPbb
She doesn’t fully understand what’s happening, but she knows this:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ69BprtTNG0
She is the result of an era where people chose blending over borders.

“You must learn to be Asian,” An tells her,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu1kbjFXF2p
“but never forget the smile of the West.”

Little An is the embodiment of a question:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyy9Gw7ommz
Is hybridity a curse or a chance at rebirth?29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSDMFipCzrG
In her heart is a tug-of-war — a lullaby sung in Vietnamese, a father’s embrace spoken in French.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjWxYUihXjY
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzPe3WqCb0u
Extinction.

Nguyên once believed he was the architect of revolution, the crownless king of global restructuring.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYEI2Uakltk
But as more generations of An are born, he feels smaller.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjBtWIRvVh5
He’s lost control.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkeVH6q2G6q
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrjPA9m5ngI
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMzZB2bOQFS
But when she looks in the mirror, it’s Vietnamese eyes that are crying.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOEWGgG0SNi
Every attempt to Westernize only leaves her emptier.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwerU87zzaW
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy8nt2C668z
But now, standing between the cold towers of the West,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYwfLbBYo5j
she finds herself missing the morning calls of street vendors,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7tKIbs2uw0
missing the sound of her mother’s voice calling “con ơi” under the sunlit courtyard.

Linh no longer wants to be Western —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQMJLTr6aZ5
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuwd8Dfrqpt
the West shifts tactics.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYmEpJXgVkK
They tighten borders, scrutinize documents, and even demand social media transparency from all foreign students.

“We won’t accept another Linh,”29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkZXFJXLMAB
a Western official declares in an emergency meeting.

The West doesn’t want history to repeat itself.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ6Q2NfuGLn
They once invested hope and money in people like Linh — only to be betrayed.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlIrxK7cl3n
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmrLhzO1ZaY
Nguyên trembles before her.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlHdCQ9Wmo1
Linh is silent, as if she’s never uttered a word.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhueyvG2BNJ
The West is cautious.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDsqZSjMOHw
Little An waits.

An doesn’t smile.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRqY9LfVK0G
She simply looks up at the Vietnamese sky, then turns toward Paris.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcghUlj3YXb
The wind brushes through her dark hair streaked with chestnut tones.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnO9iQuKThp
In her gaze lies the distillation of centuries of war, ambition, mistakes — and hope.

“We will not win by eliminating one another,” she says.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyTzRi0Lfzj
“We will win by surpassing ourselves.”

And from that moment, a new civilization begins.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDod9hgXSDl
A civilization not built on skin color,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJpUfjRILv7
not worshipping purity,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0CrhW5ZRUn
but grounded in humanity.

This time, the lotus does not bloom from mud —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe9wp1uxsbe
but from the memories of pain,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxYXUD9RoYv
from forgiven resentments,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiU5SYQknFm
and from hearts brave enough to live truthfully,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEr7KhMCKWh
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl0vdpc7gQJ
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,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXgg57MmbSE
but everyone has the right to choose how they live with it.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0THnaK7L1g
An — instead of denying or fleeing — learned to face it.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqpumtsINwe
She is neither proud nor ashamed; she simply accepts it.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡquVxXCBnC1
And it is in that acceptance that she becomes an independent being,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsyOooo10xj
unbound by the myth of purity.

The lesson: You don’t need to resemble anyone to be recognized.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdR9pNVvpif
You just need to be honest with yourself.

2. Revenge never heals.

Nguyên went to the furthest depths of hatred,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFYeeOtLJIT
sacrificing everything to prove one thing:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvXyLiCLuot
that Asians could dominate.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu5kHDBnXeh
But the further he went, the more he lost himself.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsOtXS6uXZE
Revenge didn’t bring justice — it only created more victims.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmOooG2Yy5f
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:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2kClTxqRfL
be beautiful, be refined, marry a Westerner to change your life.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfg5MfRMu4g
But the more she chased the shadow of others,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiyru8gp64r
the more she lost her own light.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6T1fUU3omj
And when she finally realized it,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5TKQcwOnQK
she no longer knew where she belonged.

The lesson for all women:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXmDKGgqonY
You don’t need to be a copy of anyone else.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡktx5XwR7fe
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVAv54syXJy
But they forgot:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUi59bs1H16
it was also the West that saved An, educated her, sheltered her.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxtlu1s5hWe
Opposition cannot build a better world — only cooperation and mutual understanding can.

The lesson:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWTjbJj7SEO
Instead of dividing West and East,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNYVI8N3xTn
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuc1rzri3f0
They are proof of a world in transition.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwFD9J2LSAM
A world where no one may look the same anymore.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG7RRhk8jkB
And because of that, each person must live more kindly,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCkugF8OPm0
more deeply,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXjVK7bizy0
to not feel lost among the many shapes of humanity.

The greatest lesson:29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAmnT1t7sZp
Humanity does not need purity.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkgmFL7m4Pj
Humanity needs decency.

When you reach the final page of this story,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU0TIwwmWDa
you may find yourself somewhere in An, in Linh, or in Nguyên.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY7eZRfYmVR
Maybe you too have once blamed the past,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTynm3rcRR3
run from yourself,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuZbQ3ZOosN
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNIovINQxxa
A lotus doesn’t need rich soil.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJosZsrfGJ5
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.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4KHysbns7c
Some souls are stitched from many strands of blood — yet none are deemed “right.”29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu8vDZzmCd1
An is one such soul.

We have followed An through the shadowed corridors of identity,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkS0jlFEoF4
through the silent dungeons of prejudice,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbgymzRk9sc
and to the edge where love, gender, nationhood, and dignity intertwine into a labyrinth with no exit.

But An —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRTTm7rT06R
she did not run.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnsPMJCuwpX
She did not surrender.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWaPa9UTdzC
She did not pretend.

She walked straight into the storm,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvBwzgKM9TI
letting the opposing winds inside her strip away every protective layer.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKtIAi3e4zh
She stood bare before the world —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZTnFeHe1eg
to learn that belonging is not a country,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvRQQyTEB8i
not an ethnicity,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Wb89Ao0CR
not a name on a birth certificate.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmxo7Yq4Epl
It is the moment one lives truthfully with the self that was once buried under prejudice.

An is no hero.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEUvFixFol6
She doesn’t need to be.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJAYOAOBG0n
She is simply a living testament —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡklDwkonLND
that even with the scars of three cultures,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWzkkE0iJup
even when robbed of memory, identity, and the right to love —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZpqs7qpczR
she still preserved the one thing that mattered: dignity.

And in a world where everything can be exchanged —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe2fBYF75ZE
money, nationality, gender, language, faith —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoEKQe4dOIW
dignity is the last thing that must not be cheapened.

When you close the final page,29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM1Cvakz6N6
you may forget the plot, the characters’ names, or the politics.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJwQxVamZ96
But if you remember just one thing, please remember this:

“Some flowers only bloom against the wind.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoQ9qssNi7S
And some people only shine when they stop trying to resemble anyone else.”

An is such a person.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡidhR3bmCS1
And if there is a little An inside you — lonely, imperfect, different —29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEHhkQaPBwG
please embrace it.

Because contrary winds are still winds.29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXGak2Dd4qY
And not all winds are born to blow in the same direction.

— Pham Le Quy29Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdQIWwOe5lX
End of the Wind Season, 2025

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