THE ONE WHO CARRIES TWO WINDS - There are souls that belong nowhere – yet still choose to live, to understand, and to forgive.

THE ONE WHO CARRIES TWO WINDS85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJm2rzFN9cU
Author:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjy1E66c2DD
Pham Le Quy

"There are souls that belong nowhere –85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGydawLxf56
yet still choose to live,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuVrWLX1SuS
to understand,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg4jqULU1ar
to love,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXgGqVnPPmz
and to forgive."85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfR3SRRMmRO
Vietnam, 2025

Table of Contents

Foreword (Page 7)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTNGNgytyOL
Dedication (Page 9)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMjAz3d94Fu
Blurb (Page 10)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBomu5rQT6A
Copyright Page (Page 12)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx2Ubj5j7Qi
About the Author (Page 13)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgUkrGy3bRC
Editor’s Note (Page 14)

Chapters

Chapter I: The One Who Carries Two Winds (Page 16)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡasxi2kIGJU
A child with a Vietnamese body but a soul split in two — a tragedy begins, transcending borders of culture and time.

Chapter II: Strange Blood – The Western Curse (Page 20)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFpAhjEU1yN
When Western blood is transfused into his body, the spirit of a deceased woman begins to awaken within the boy.

Chapter III: The Unwanted Hybridity (Page 24)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbKXwxqa9OD
History is torn and imposed upon the next generation — when national prejudice turns a child into a stranger in his own homeland.

Chapter IV: Twin Sister – A Duplicated Soul (Page 28)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6hWYcVG9FF
Identity is fractured, the soul cloned — no one remains themselves when mirrors shatter and perspectives distort.

Chapter V: Schemes and the Price of Power (Page 33)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxQbdd0jzR8
Revenge, manipulation, possession — all to protect an illusion of honor, which is in truth, nothing more than hunger for control.

Chapter VI: The Swap and Inner Conflict (Page 38)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrJSZmkeQu9
The protagonist is no longer a singular being, but a fusion of conflicting selves: male and female, East and West, saint and sinner.

Chapter VII: The Ending or a Curse Repeated? (Page 43)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqooe2FWNPJ
No longer a line between enemy and kin — only the shadow of confusion remains.

Chapter VIII: Rivers of Blood – Oceans of Tears (Page 49)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcJ1rWvwCBO
The mixed-blood girl chooses to live like the wind — belonging to no one, owned by none, even if it costs her eternal loneliness.

Chapter IX: A Nameless Pride, Like a Lotus in the Mud (Page 54)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVzzOjBDuF4
Though betrayed, expelled, and denied, she still graduates — proving that no dream dies unless it chooses to.

Chapter X: A Message from the Survivor (Page 59)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5eFPPIwYFf
A final message — of apology and gratitude — to her parents and sister. A farewell wrapped in forgiveness.

Chapter XI: Forgiving Oneself (Page 64)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgnpqPBnVdi
She stares into her old wounds — not to blame, but to understand that even without an apology, one must forgive oneself to go on.

Chapter XII: Where Dawn Blooms in the Heart (Page 67)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡciXj0EdB0X
From a place once full of darkness, a gentle light emerges — not from without, but from the courage within. For once, she faces judgment head-on — and dawn begins blooming in her chest.

Chapter XIII: The Hands of the Imperfect (Page 70)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhW8NDgicXM
She no longer waits for perfect embraces. Those who were once clumsy, who once hurt her — are now the hands that touch her soul. And for the first time, she learns: forgiveness is touching without holding on.

Chapter XIV: Seasons That Do Not Repeat (Page 74)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU7SBYCMlJT
Time does not rewind. But each passing season leaves a lesson — of those who left, of what can’t be regained, and of how to live fully in the present moment.

Chapter XV: A Home Within the Chest (Page 78)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOSFtkRji7o
No need for a precise address, no need for others’ approval. At last, she builds a refuge within herself — where pain is named, memories laid to rest, and the heart learns to hold itself.

Chapter XVI: The Remaining Piece of Herself (Page 82)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhs2PlQLaeN
No more running, no more fitting into molds. She pauses, gazes into the rejected fragments — and the final piece is simply acceptance of her whole being, beauty and flaws alike.

Chapter XVII: When a Flower Chooses to Bloom Itself (Page 86)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFigXnLyTHD
No expectations, no promises of love — and still, she blooms. Like a nameless flower in the wind and dust, in a tangled world. Not to be seen, but because she deserves to live fully.

Chapter XVIII: Naming What Was Lost (Page 90)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW1stewslgz
No longer afraid of what has disappeared. She dares to name each stolen thing, each person who left, each dream that died young. For only by naming them can she lay them to rest — and allow herself to live on.

Chapter XIX: And Finally, I Choose to Stay with Myself (Page 94)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCvXdzL765D
She once wished others would understand, forgive, heal her. But in the end, with no one left to wait for, she chooses to stay — with herself, whole even in her wounds.

Chapter XX (Finale): Lessons Folded into Silence (Page 98)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJWA8WY0xg6
No need for speeches or debates. The grandest truths — of identity, of love, of forgiveness — are wrapped in final silence. For compassion is a language that needs no translation.

Special Appendix

Symbolism Explained (Page 102)
The Hidden Timeline of the Main Character (Page 102)
Quotes Marking Transformation (Page 103)
Spiritual References & Creative Inspirations (Page 103)
Character Family Tree (Page 104)
The Three-Lifetime Reincarnation Diagram (Page 104)
Music/Film Suggestions for Reading (Page 105)

Preview of Upcoming Work (Page 107)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZrIdzM5z8g
Afterword (Page 108)

FOREWORD

For those souls once pushed to the margins of life.

I didn’t write this novella to seek pity. Nor to earn praise.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpOTLksyP2e
I wrote it because there were days when I could no longer speak.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFzUkN72Wnk
I wrote it because some truths, if left untold, rot within us like unnamed wounds.

This book is not for those who seek happy endings, flawless characters, or tidy plots.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOuRu2fIGKl
Because life—and people like the protagonist of this story—have never lived in such a world.

This work is an echo from bleeding memories.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMQFu5lRP3R
It is a bell that rings inside the soul, though no one strikes it.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcO9QM4TK7n
It is the confession of someone who once blamed their family, society, and even themselves.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFF25VzKaH6
But also, it is the gentle manifesto of a survivor.

This book is for:

The children marked as “different,” yet never told why.
The students expelled not for their grades, but because their very presence was unwelcome.
The honest ones cast out because they were too gentle to be silent, yet too fragile to resist.
And anyone who has ever asked themselves: “Do I deserve to be loved?”

If you find yourself in a sentence, a chapter, or even a single glance of a character—hold it close, as a reminder: You are not alone.

We are all “those who carry two winds”—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIpqm02I42M
fragments of unnamed places, still breathing, still blooming in the swamps of life.

This is not a book to be rushed.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMKL9YGpU5Y
Read slowly. Breathe with it.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbOoG3zcVJ8
For some chapters will not be understood with the mind—but only felt by the heart.

Author: Pham Le Quy

DEDICATION

To those who’ve felt they never truly belonged,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK1MlMlotVE
who’ve been rejected, misunderstood, or torn between two opposing winds—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkx8zZvJDon
one of the past, and one of longing.

To the hybrid souls—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZB06dUdOOm
not only by blood, but by experience.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVwwf6aqMLz
Those who’ve lived on the fault line between East and West,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs2T0BJsjNL
between sacrifice and selfishness, between love and resentment.

This story is for you.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Lv6AkCEYu
And for me—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN2jokv9Cix
someone who once had to learn how to forgive.

BLURB

"When blood is no longer pure, can the soul still have a name?"

Born in the body of a Vietnamese boy—with tan skin, black hair, and the wistful eyes of the East—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEQseviOYm0
she (yes, she) never imagined that destiny would tear her apart.

A blood transfusion at age fourteen—meant to save her life—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUYNysYfXmB
becomes the beginning of a journey of possession, multiplicity, prejudice, and pain.

The soul of a Western woman—wife of a Vietnamese man from a previous life—awakens within her.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkOM3mgzqk7
From that moment on, she is no longer one person.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVACLIEGsZB
She becomes a fragment of history, an echo of the past, a threshold between East and West, male and female, sinner and survivor.

Rejected by schools, abandoned by her own twin sister, scorned by a society that despises “hybridity,” and belittled for her intellect, gender, and origin—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUfqlJhdXuY
she continues to live.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡckem0GIbux
Not to be accepted.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxHfHfGZ8Hj
But to prove: she is real.

She studies. She loves. She aches. She forgives.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmTbT8xIrYS
She does not choose revenge—she chooses existence.

No one sees the tear in her heart,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyuCF2kwK2v
but all see her rise.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4dHlhdi5rD
No one hears her sob in the shadows,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdtQPDgldxK
but all witness her smile—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK84RqLP3dN
like a lotus blooming in the mud,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ54N9FLzAlq
not as radiant as a rose,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe4yaDm89sg
but resilient enough to survive.

And if you’ve ever felt unseen,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPwgFeadetU
if you’ve ever felt like you didn’t belong—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpTpu4xiXd9
then this story is for you.

Not to pity you—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwBc2NoVfAe
but to remind you that somewhere in this world,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1ipL20vLCM
someone has lived as you have.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv8gkEV3R5C
And is still living.

Copyright Paper

All rights reserved.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf9RWXA9iF4
No part of this publication may be copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without written permission from the author or publisher, except for brief quotations used for critical reviews or academic purposes with proper attribution.

Title: The One Who Carries Two Winds85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMsRJuRyRS6
Author: Pham Le Quy85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8a6BcNf7NY
Editor: [if applicable]85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ15QFNurDoB
Cover Design: [if applicable]85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz1vO3Lvsla
Illustration: [if applicable]85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy0GvDLJr9m
Publisher: [Self-published or Name of Publisher]85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4HTtm4i2Hz
First Published: 202585Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeqLyZhScrJ
ISBN: [To be assigned if printed or registered]85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCpX6vVKoby
Country of Publication: Vietnam

All characters, events, and places in this novella are fictional.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPIIXIEQx2p
Any resemblance to actual persons, organizations, or events, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright Contact: [email protected]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pham Le Quy – a writer who does not claim to be an author,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsxBMhrvvMR
but rather someone searching for words for the things that never had names.

Born at the crossroads of many cultures, Quy carries deep questions about identity, belonging, and the meaning of compassion in a world increasingly divided by prejudice, norms, and inherited wounds.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTnZAtgLpiW
Out of that imbalance, The One Who Carries Two Winds was conceived—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs4Dp94bpvw
as a deeply personal yet universally resonant journey of healing.

With academic backgrounds in language, psychology, and education,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdwyuY5Tjj0
Quy does not write from training, but from living.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnqoFGK6QWL
For this author, writing is not a career—it is survival.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaGapvQ0pby
Writing to breathe. Writing to remember.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa5qzxxpFiT
Writing to forgive—oneself, and those who unintentionally caused harm.

When not writing, Quy teaches, researches, and listens.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOfaNiHL6oW
In the quietest moments, the author believes:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2L2jD02TQa
some stories can only be told through pain—and the courage to walk through it.

EDITOR'S NOTE (BY THE AUTHOR)

The One Who Carries Two Winds is not a conventional novella.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSKwncu4CJY
It is a blend of memoir, myth, biography, and literature.

Upon receiving the first manuscript, the author did not see this as a linear narrative,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr28kuIx6F6
but rather as the journey of a soul through three lifetimes, three layers of time, and three cultural landscapes—East, West, and the in-between.

The storytelling is intentionally non-linear, rich in symbolism and allegory,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjuYTQ582rs
unbound by traditional forms.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSEiJedeRIk
The chapters do not simply follow chronological order,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHNVYAdr4V3
but rather unfold like layers of memory, reincarnation, and self-discovery—each peeling back the psyche of the main character.

A few notes for reading:

The work employs frequent use of metaphor, personified souls, and ontological transformation. If read quickly, it may feel elusive. The author encourages slow, even repeated reading to absorb the layered meanings.
At times, the protagonist undergoes shifts in gender, identity, even ego—these are not plot inconsistencies, but deliberate artistic choices reflecting the fragmentation and reassembly of the self.
The chapters are constructed like spiritual psalms, each a step toward awakening—from trauma to understanding, from rage to forgiveness, from resentment to release.
Elements like genealogies, reincarnation cycles, hidden histories, bloodline dynamics, and social exclusion serve not only as cultural metaphors but as reflections of the very real pain of being “othered.”

This novella may wound you—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLgY49vb1oh
but it may also become your medicine.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZZdlxIRy6Z
A journey of self-healing.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0qUnSe188N
A voice for the silenced soul.

The author humbly presents this novella as something to be read—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhlDYsxX8Vp
not with the eyes,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPLpWxD3cCs
but with the heart.

Chapter I: The One Who Carries Two Winds

The boy was born on a July morning, when the southern breeze still carried the sultry remnants of summer, and the northern wind whispered a cold promise from beyond the horizon. People say that children born at the turn of seasons often carry dual destinies. But no one expected that this boy would carry two winds within him—one of origin, and one of fate.

He was named An—a name that sounded like a wish for a peaceful life. But from his very first cry, An was not cradled in familiar arms. There was no lullaby, no warmth of a mother, no steady presence of a father. The hospital recorded the names of his parents, but the room he returned to was a silent apartment on the twelfth floor, its windows shut, its walls sliced by the shadows of dusk.

An's parents were Vietnamese, living in the heart of bustling Saigon, but their hearts had long wandered toward dollar-shaped dreams. His father drove for an export company. His mother was an accountant who clung to numbers more than hugs. They believed loving their child meant working tirelessly, depositing money into savings, and leaving the child to the care of a housemaid. But An never understood how love could feel so absent. Dinner was a box of cold rice. Concern came in the form of sticky notes hastily slapped on the fridge. A birthday meant a lone candle stuck into a piece of stale bread.

The early years of An’s life passed like a slow-motion film. He learned to speak not through stories, but through TV news reports. He learned to write not for letters, but to jot down reminders for surviving alone. The house became a glass cage—transparent, clean, but utterly soundproof to the outside world. No children’s laughter, no hurried footsteps running into a parent's embrace, only the sound of wind slipping through window cracks and the dull yellow of streetlights fading like memory.

At school, An was the silent one. During recess, he sat alone in a corner of the yard, hugging his backpack like it was a small world no one else could comprehend. His classmates called him "weirdo," "bookworm," sometimes even "invisible." No one understood why he never smiled. No one knew that every time he was shoved, he bowed his head, never resisting, never crying. Perhaps because An’s tears had long been buried—like a dried-up well in a land where it never rained.

Yet in that dim space, a faint light flickered—from the classroom podium. The teachers, though they never spoke of it, always had a different look in their eyes when they saw him. In An, they saw a strange maturity, an ancient sadness, as if from another life. One day, his literature teacher quietly said after class: "An, your eyes look like someone who's lived through many winters." He didn’t fully grasp her words, but they touched something deep inside—a place even he couldn't name.

An loved books. Not because they made him smarter, but because in each page, he found fragments of souls lost in the real world. He read Dostoevsky like meeting an old friend, saw himself in Kafka’s obsessions, and cried at the final lines of Les Misérables — not from sentimentality, but because, for the first time, he felt understood.

Some nights, with wind brushing past his window, An would sit at a small desk, writing a journal in two languages: one in his mother tongue, and one in the language of the novels that had saved him. The ink wavered across the paper—sometimes confessions, sometimes whispers to a distant place in the universe. "I don’t know where I come from," An wrote, "but I know I carry two winds inside me. One from a past I couldn’t choose, and one from a future whose path I cannot see."

From a young age, An seemed to live more than one life. He had recurring dreams where he stood on an unfamiliar shore, heard voices in a language no one taught him, and saw his hands covered in blood for reasons he didn’t know. He once told an adult—only to be met with a dismissive laugh and advice not to dream so wildly. But deep down, An knew something remained untold.

Then one day, a strange wind blew through his neighborhood. It wasn’t hot, nor cold—but it carried a foreign scent: pinewood and aged paper, like the memory of a world never visited. For the first time in years, An looked up and felt something shift within—like a door quietly opening. He wondered, "Is the wind trying to tell me something?"

From that day on, An began recording his dreams. He called them "displaced memories." In them, there was war, a lost lover, a stone bridge leading to an ancient pagoda, and the laughter of a child calling him "Father." These images repeated, clearer than reality. An didn’t know if they were hallucinations or remnants of a past life refusing to fade.

At school, the principal summoned him after a composition left the faculty in prolonged silence. The essay was titled "The Loneliness of a Shadow." It had no personal pronouns—only the image of a shadow silently existing in others' worlds, never allowed to be itself. "Where did you learn to write like someone who’s lived through war?" the principal asked. An just smiled: "I don't know, sir."

An's world didn’t change. His parents remained absent. The housemaid still brought dinner. But something inside had shifted. The winds were no longer invisible. He began to feel them: the wind of his homeland, sorrowful like a mother’s lullaby; and the wind of a faraway place—so distant he didn’t dare name it.

One day, An stood on the rooftop, eyes on the sunset. The wind blew hard, tossing his dark hair like it was summoning a reunion forgotten for centuries. He closed his eyes. In that moment—no car horns, no school, no miscalled names—only two winds colliding, creating a silent note. And between them, An stood—like a bridge between two shores—not to choose, but to listen.

Chapter II: Strange Blood – The Western Curse

When An was fourteen, the first pain arrived one scorching afternoon at the height of a sunburned summer. He collapsed onto the classroom floor like a bird struck mid-flight, his mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood and his ears ringing with ghostly sounds. His classmates panicked, teachers rushed to help, but An—in a haze—saw only a red tide retreating from his body, as if the sea had come to carry away his memories.

The hospital was swift in its diagnosis: Helicobacter pylori—a vicious parasite that had silently eroded his stomach lining, like nightfall swallowing a lonely room. Blood poured out, urgently and endlessly, as if trying to erase a part of his soul. An lost over eighty percent of his blood—a number usually reserved for obituaries.

A transfusion was urgent. But the blood bank lacked his rare type. At that desperate moment, a Western woman—on a volunteer trip in Vietnam—agreed to donate her blood without hesitation. They called it a borderless act of humanity. But no one knew that the moment her blood flowed through the tubes and touched An’s heart, something irreversibly changed.

He survived. But from that second on, something inside him was no longer whole.

The first night after surgery, An dreamed of a vast lavender field. The sky above was a pale mint, gentle and strange. He stood there in ceremonial white clothes that belonged to no culture he knew. At the end of the misty path, a blonde woman waited—her eyes deep as forest lakes.

“An?”—her voice was soft as silk, yet it pierced his soul.

“I used to be your wife. Now, I am you.”

An awoke in a sweat, his body cold as if it had walked through snow. He stared at his hands—sun-kissed like any Vietnamese boy’s—but something within had changed.

From then on, the dreams returned—erratic, illogical. Sometimes, he sat by an old wooden window, writing letters in French. Sometimes, he was a woman trembling under air-raid sirens. Sometimes, he knelt before a cathedral’s cross, weeping for no reason he could understand. These were not An’s memories—yet they ached with familiarity.

One night, he opened his phone and searched: lavender fields, Provence, European wartime widows... and to his horror, every image he had dreamed of existed—in another hemisphere. He had never learned French, yet in sleep, he recited Apollinaire’s poetry, dreamed of the Loire River, and sometimes—cried for a man named Étienne.

An told no one. How could he? At fourteen, one is allowed to dream, but not to reincarnate. He feared his parents would send him to a psychiatrist. He feared teachers would label him “post-trauma hallucination.” But above all, he feared that speaking the truth would make it disappear—like dew under sunlight.

But the change wasn't only in dreams. Slowly, An’s habits shifted. He began drinking Earl Grey instead of iced coffee. He stopped reading Japanese comics and turned to Proust, to Colette. His writing became layered, tender—as if another hand were guiding his pen. His literature teacher asked quietly, “An, your writing has changed. Is there something you want to tell me?” An only smiled, eyes distant: “Maybe I’m just growing up, sir.”

He knew it was a lie. He wasn’t just growing—he was transforming. In his veins flowed the blood of that Western woman—not just biologically, but spiritually. With it came memories, longings, and a silent curse: to continue living, even without a form.

As he grew, the conflict within him deepened. On one side, the rooted self—An of Saigon, of dust and untold mother-tales. On the other, the unseen woman—a soul who had lost everything, now dwelling in her former husband’s body, rediscovering herself through each breath, each gaze. Sometimes, when he looked in the mirror, his familiar brown eyes shimmered with gray—like a European winter sky.

One afternoon, he found himself at a dusty bookstore, instinctively picking a fragile French novel titled Lettre à l’ombre. One line struck him silent:

“I shall live within the one I love—even after my ashes are scattered.”

He closed the book, hands trembling. That sentence—it wasn’t just a line. It was his reality.

No one believed him. But the universe did.

From that day, even the world around him shifted. Western winds—cold, scented with butter and old fairytales—began to sweep through tropical afternoons. Strange birds perched on his windowsill. Some nights, a violin melody floated through the air, though no one was playing. Once, he paused at a market stall, lured by the scent of toasted baguettes—something he’d never liked before.

And then, the soul spoke.

Her voice came not in words, but in feelings, instincts, memories trickling into his every moment. He never knew her name, but she knew all his pain. When classmates mocked him, she whispered, “Don’t bow your head. I once stood alone in an empty square and still sang.” When he wrote late into the night, she smiled, “I too once loved the light of candles.”

It wasn’t possession. It was coexistence.

An knew—he was now two people in one body. One, a Vietnamese boy. One, a woman from a distant land. Two winds. Two bloodlines. Two origins. Both abandoned. Both surviving. Both walking forward.

But he also knew—one day, he would have to face the truth. He had to discover who she was. He had to name the soul that had merged into his blood. He had to rewrite the story—not just of a teenager, but of a love that had died and returned in the most unexpected form.

And so, An was no longer just An.

He was the one who carried two hearts—one beating for the present, one for the past.

The curse had been cast. The path was unmarked.

But the wind had changed direction.

Chapter III: The Unwanted Hybrid

An never understood why his heart ached like a salted wound whenever he stood before French speakers who wore their pride like perfume. He couldn’t explain why, whenever he passed a war monument, an invisible guilt surged in his blood—like a verdict yet to be spoken, one his soul had already begun to serve in silence.

Only when the woman’s soul inside him began whispering fragmented memories did An start to grasp: this life was never his alone. He was a child born of fate’s collision—an unwanted hybrid, a grafted branch between two roots that once stood on opposing sides.

“You once called me a flower blooming on barren land,” the woman’s voice murmured on a cold, rainy night. “But I never imagined that land was a grave.”

And then, the images emerged—not through his eyes, but through his blood. A blonde woman, skin like porcelain, eyes as pale and distant as a frozen lake, stood in a white áo dài, at the altar of a wedding in a destitute Vietnamese village. Everything was silent—a silence not of blessing, but of refusal. No smiles. No firecrackers. That wedding was no celebration, but a sentence pronounced between two worlds.

The groom—a frail, quiet Vietnamese man—had once studied in France after the war. He had returned with hopes of building a home, but also with wounds no one could see: disdainful stares, refused handshakes, and the crushing shame of being called a “traitor to his people.”

Their love could not survive the weight of collective memory—the kind of memory that history smears on the faces of those still living: that Westerners brought opium, brought uniforms, brought boots that crushed native souls.

The wife had done no wrong. But in the eyes of the village, she embodied every wrongdoing embroidered over generations. And the husband—who had never once shaken hands with a French officer nor sold a single inch of his homeland—was nonetheless ground down by a hatred passed from tongue to tongue.

An felt his chest weighed down like stone.

He began to dream of the man being beaten—not with fists, but with insults, with condemning stares, and the icy silence of his own mother, who had once burned his wedding photo with her bare hands, saying, “You dare marry a Western woman?”

In the dreams, the woman did not cry. But her eyes looked like rivers that had run out of blood—too dry even for tears.

They were banished from the village, cast out to the remote highlands where the land remained untouched and hearts unpoisoned by prejudice. There, beneath pine-covered hills and a sky that made no distinction between races, they built a wooden home. They believed love was enough. But war came anyway.

One day, a unit of guerrilla fighters stumbled into the region. Seeing the blonde woman, they attacked. Not to violate—but to punish. This was what An would never forget: the woman—whose soul now flowed through his veins—was tied to a post like a symbol of the enemy, so that the men could “purge” their loss of homeland by torturing the innocent.

The husband came too late. He arrived to find her moaning in French, her voice trembling:

“Je t’ai attendu, mais je me suis perdue.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR6VtR94fTt
"I waited for you, but I lost myself."

He cradled her in the smoldering ruins of their home, her blood soaking through his shirt. He screamed, but the mountain winds were too high. No one heard.

An woke up clutching his chest, heart splintered in silent agony. He had never known love, yet his heart felt shattered. He had never lived through war, yet the sound of boots haunted him like thunder.

He understood: the blood had passed. So had the curse.

No one had taught him to hate. But whenever he stood near people who condemned the West, he shivered. When he heard someone sneer, “Those half-breeds shame our ancestors,” his cheeks flushed—not in rage, but confusion. Because he, too, no longer knew where he belonged.

He was the child of two forsaken souls: a woman who never found a homeland, and a man who was never forgiven. And now, they lived again—through him—as if trying to prove that love could survive, even in the ashes of history.

At school, An changed.

He was no longer the boy who bowed his head and stayed silent. In literature class, he wrote about fractured selves. In history, he asked, “Can history forgive?” He startled teachers, unsettled classmates. Some said he was “too Western.” Others accused him of pretending. But An knew: he wasn’t pretending. He was only the voice of two souls, finally speaking.

He began searching—medical records, hospital archives—for the woman who had donated blood. After months of quiet effort, a letter arrived.

Her name was Émilie Dufresne—a French-Swiss cultural researcher who had studied Indochina. In the letter, she wrote that on the night of the transfusion, she’d had a strange dream. She saw herself crying in a Vietnamese temple, clutching a faded photograph.

“Who are you?” she wrote.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqrJVviVlr3
“And why do I feel as if I’ve lived inside your body before?”

An never replied. He knew that answering would shatter something fragile. He wasn’t ready.

But he folded the letter, tucked it into a secret drawer of his desk, and wrote on it:

“I am the hybrid no one asked for. But I live—because I am the apology neither side ever spoke.”

Chapter IV: The Twin Sister – A Cloned Soul

Some lives are not lived once but unravel in layers—fractals of existence, like mirrors facing mirrors, reflecting endlessly with no trace of origin. An—or more precisely, the entity now living under that name—had already crossed three lifetimes. But fate, ever ruthless, split him once more. This time into a new form—more fragile, more complex, and far more painful: a “twin sister”—not by blood, but by soul.

It began one crescent-moon night. In his dream, An sat across from a girl in a long white dress, her hair cascading like silk, her eyes both tender and piercing, as if she could see through to the marrow of being. She didn’t speak, only looked. But that gaze reflected his essence—not his form, but a soul turned inside out.

She spoke without lips, with pure intuition:

“I am your twin sister. But I am also you.”

An woke with a jolt. Sweat soaked his collar. His hands trembled. He stared at himself in the mirror—and for the first time, wasn’t sure the reflection was truly his.

Then came the changes.

An no longer wrote like a boy. His handwriting softened, became rounded, like the gentle smile of a girl. He examined his nails and found them kept with an almost unconscious care, as though a tender instinct had bloomed from within. Passing by dress shops, his heart fluttered—not with desire, but with an eerie nostalgia, like part of his body long rejected had returned, asking to be remembered.

At school, people noticed—not because he was excelling, but because he was different. The boys began to keep their distance. The girls watched him with half-curious, half-guarded glances. Some whispered that An was “effeminate.” Others sneered, “He’s probably trans in the head.” But no one understood: An wasn’t just one person. He was two—or perhaps more.

He didn’t deny it. But he couldn’t affirm anything either. Because he no longer understood himself.

The soul of the Vietnamese man—the husband who had once loved and lost, exiled for daring to marry a Western woman—had been reborn. But this time, not into a masculine body, but into a soft, fragmented echo of a soul, split from its former frame to become his own “twin sister.”

Part of that man lived in An—a negative imprint, distorted, reversed. No longer a man. Not quite a boy. But her. A woman, living in a boy’s body, carrying the memories of both—and of something uniquely her own.

An began to call that part of himself A Nhi—a way to humanize, and to separate. But the more he tried to separate, the more she blended. A Nhi no longer appeared only in dreams. She crept into choices, into side-glances, into the moments when An paused at a stranger’s face—familiar yet foreign—perhaps because in another lifetime, A Nhi had once loved, birthed, or been born to them.

She whispered:

“I am the part you left behind when you became a man.”

An felt like he was carrying a soul—not in his belly, but in his chest, in his blood. A soft soul, deep and tearful, with more silence than speech.

Gradually, he let her speak for him.

In literature class, his essays shimmered with femininity—not fragility, but profound sensitivity. “Love is not possession,” he wrote, “but an echo that survives across lifetimes.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8fofhYVNIt
“Are you writing from personal experience, An?” the teacher asked gently.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWEHQVICnCl
He bowed his head, unable to answer.

In history, during a lesson on patriarchal feudalism, he stood up and said,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUuXz5YXHcw
“Men have always written history, but women carry the true memory of humankind.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCoGI3M3WYr
The class fell silent. Someone snorted. But An didn’t flinch—because he knew it wasn’t him speaking. It was A Nhi, rising from the depths of his unconscious to finally be heard.

Every night, An and A Nhi conversed in silence. He’d lie staring at the ceiling, feeling her presence beside the bed. She would tell stories—of living in a man’s body, of the helplessness of not being able to cry, of the pain of pretending strength when weakness hollowed her out.

“As a man, I lost the right to be soft. As a woman, I lost the right to be myself.”

An didn’t know how to embrace her—how do you hold someone who lives in the same body? But his throat thickened, and the tears that welled weren’t his alone.

One rainy afternoon, An saw his reflection in a misted window. And for the first time, he didn’t ask, “Who am I?” but:

“Who are we?”

There was no answer. Only the sound of rain—like a wordless lullaby for cloned souls.

He wrote in his journal:

“I am the body of a boy. But within me lives my sister—who is also me—who once loved me. I no longer live one life. I am a composite of unquiet ghosts, unnamed, unmet, misunderstood.”

That same day, he impulsively cut off his shoulder-length hair—a favorite of A Nhi’s. And right after, he wept. Not for the hair—but for the feeling that he was rejecting part of himself.

She said:

“It’s all right. I don’t live in your hair. I live in your heart. And no matter what name you bear—you are me.”

From that day forward, An lived with many names.

To his friends: he was An—the quiet, contemplative boy.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5SQKAMtovH
To the mirror: he was A Nhi—the unseen twin, always present.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYLvKNDZNSm
In dreams: he was both—the lover and the beloved, the one lost and the one reborn.

The world didn’t know what to make of him. His parents—if they ever found out—might deny him. His friends—if they ever saw—might reject him. But An no longer feared that. Because now, he was no longer alone.

He was a cloned soul—flawed, fragmented, and fiercely real.

And more than anything, he understood this truth: people may deny what is strange.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOAZFPgQkra
But they cannot deny this—

That inside every human being lives a twin sister, unnamed and waiting.

Chapter V: Conspiracy and the Cost

In the depths of every culture lies a lingering fear—a fear of difference, of hybridity, of anything that blurs the lines carved over centuries: East and West, man and woman, native and foreign. For Nguyên, the Vietnamese younger brother, this fear wasn’t just a feeling—it was a conviction. A belief that blood must be pure, roots unmixed, order preserved. And anyone who disrupted that order deserved to pay the price.

He grew up with invisible hatred. His parents had once been deceived by a Western woman in a failed investment deal. Since then, in his mind, “Western” meant cunning, deceit, shame. That rage grew with him—like a needle lodged in his spine: it neither killed him nor let him rest. So when he looked at An—or more precisely, at the mixed-race girl living inside An’s body—he saw not a person, but a symbol of all he despised: a Western soul cloaked in Vietnamese skin, a gaze that softened yet defied gender boundaries, a smile suspended between two worlds.

To him, An’s existence was an insult.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAROVBmajCI
To him, An was a cursed blend.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHJkUcmK6IY
So, he devised a plan—not to kill, but to defile. To punish.

It happened on a rainy afternoon. The city was soaked, like a soul sobbing in silence. An had been summoned to a student group meeting, but found himself alone in a locked room. In front of him: Nguyên, his face calm and chilling. Behind him: a hidden camera, a metal chair, and a vial of anesthetic.

An was naive. He never imagined someone of the same blood, same nationality, same tongue—would use that very familiarity as a weapon.

“If you wake up and realize you’ve been violated,” Nguyên whispered,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE4u00kCHYH
“you’ll know no half-breed lives in peace on this land.”

An fought back. A Nhi’s soul screamed. But the drug worked faster than pain.

And just before he lost consciousness, he heard the voice of the woman from long ago:

“There are pains that do not kill us—but tear us into pieces.”

He woke in the infirmary, body aching, memories hazy. He couldn’t recall exactly what happened—only that a piece of his soul felt torn. He didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. Just sat there—still—as though his spirit had left his body.

And into that silence, another figure stepped.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXlLsA7vQuM
Not Nguyên.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIxqpjWwlg3
But Linh—his sister.

Linh had once been the embodiment of Vietnamese grace—long hair, soft voice, straight-A student, always compared to An. But beneath that obedient façade burned a quiet fury: a longing to be chosen, seen, validated. She believed An—with his strange aura and mixed heritage—had stolen the gaze that should’ve belonged to her.

She couldn’t stand that the West loved An. She especially couldn’t accept that the man she admired—a French-Asian scholar who once praised An’s writing as having “the melody of two languages”—looked at him with warmth. She was furious that she’d never been called “unique.” She’d only ever been called “correct.”

And in a blind act of envy, she gave the order:

“Inject him. The memory-wiping kind. Erase his selfhood. Let him forget everything—and I’ll become him.”

The drug was administered. Not once, but in rounds. Gently, like a spiritual cleansing. Day by day, An forgot—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡInGGaapvRd
Not the world,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBKgzQrddk0
but himself.

He forgot he had been A Nhi.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5oyYWZU1lV
Forgot he had once been a husband.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡunaxpzlktU
Forgot the golden-haired woman who had wept in his dreams.

But what they didn’t know was this:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdPv4p55qa1
The soul cannot be killed by drugs.

In the fractured realm of forgotten dreams, A Nhi stood in a boundless white room—no walls, no exit.

“You didn’t kill me,” she said, voice soft as a dandelion seed.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡchyrwlPHZn
“You only erased the memories. But I live deeper than that.”

Night after night, she began piecing together shards of shattered mirrors. She wrote on them in phantom blood:

“Remember me. I am your sister. I am the betrayed self. But I will return.”

In the real world, Linh began taking An’s place. She wrote like him. She mimicked his speech. She wore his clothes—blended East and West, defied gender. She even mirrored the quiet sorrow he once carried.

At first, no one noticed. But something felt… off.

She didn’t have An’s eyes.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnZfhviSEzT
She lacked the ambiguity of a soul reborn through lifetimes.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVN2hLk0K3W
She was only a shadow.

Then, the teacher who once praised An’s writing spoke up:

“You resemble him—but you’re not him. There’s something… lifeless in your eyes.”

After weeks of wandering like a ghost, An dreamed again—of the sea.

But this sea had no waves.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC0FtOFTygJ
No color.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl6QDuKW7WI
Only A Nhi, waiting for him.

She reached out, gently touched his heart:

“We were violated. But pain cannot kill a soul. You have the right to return—not for revenge, but to rise.”

An awoke. His memory hadn’t fully returned. But his eyes had changed. They’d seen life torn apart—and still wanted to see more.

He walked into the schoolyard.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOIpBL1gEOm
And for the first time, he spoke aloud:

“Some people are born outside the norm. But that doesn’t mean they deserve to be erased.”

Nguyên froze. Linh stood still. The entire courtyard fell silent.

That day, A Nhi returned—not to mourn, but to live.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2zwZDHhnkp
An was no longer a victim. Nor a vengeful soul.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdSfeUaw08E
He was a witness—of all that had been twisted, denied, and finally… remembered.

And from the ashes of conspiracy, that soul rose—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBPJs2G4a4H
like wild grass blooming through the cracks of history.

Chapter VI: The Exchange and the Inner Struggle

Perhaps no one truly lives just one life. For some, memories intertwine, roles trade places, and the soul is reshaped by unseen hands. And only when everything that was once called “me” becomes distorted, do we begin to understand: there are selves too fractured to be named.

Since the light returned after the darkness of conspiracy and injections, An—or rather, the being that once bore that name—was no longer a single person. She was a shattered mirror, each shard reflecting a fractured identity:

A Vietnamese man who once loved across the shores of prejudice.
A Western woman bound by an unfulfilled vow.
A child abused between two cultures.
A former wife, still in love but unable to return.
A twin sister—replica of a soul.
A victim, whose body and memory were violated.
And above all, a survivor—of the past, of war, of human cruelty.

She—no longer accurately called “he”—was exiled from the West with a letter drenched in pity:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjp8dFG6v4K
“You do not align with the institution’s current cultural direction.”

What they didn’t say aloud was the truth: fear—fear of a being too complex to classify.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwoIBOaftuz
They didn’t know which gender box to place An in, which language, which identity.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4r6kBgglh1
So instead of understanding, they erased.

The plane brought her back to Vietnam—the land of her mother, the body’s birthplace. But the moment she stepped off the plane, she knew this was no longer home.

People stared at her with strange looks:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa8PgYmqSmU
“What kind of boy looks like a girl?”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfFvAMEjow9
“Has that mixed-race kid caught some Western sickness?”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEj9i1E02ab
“What’s wrong with those eyes—they look like they’re seeing through you?”

No one saw the broken mirror inside her—only unfamiliar traces on the surface.

An international education organization reached out. They didn’t truly care about her past. They simply saw a “multi-purpose” commodity: fluent in English, with a bit of past fame, and above all… an Asian appearance with Western eyes. They offered her a “mission”: to be a bridge in talks about gender, culture, and ethnic reconciliation.

They wanted her to be “the face of identity harmony.”

What they didn’t know was:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoDvyFrllP0
She no longer had a face to represent anyone.

She was paired at a public event with a conservative Vietnamese scholar—one who once declared on national television:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZUtHF42vju
“National identity must be pure. No mixing, no distortion, no dilution.”

They made her smile. Made her hold his hand. As if two extremes of the world could be reconciled with a single publicity photo.

She stood there, smiling, while within her, the screams of fragmented souls echoed:

The man in her whispered: “We are betraying ourselves.”
The woman sobbed: “We’re being used as tools again.”
The child asked: “Who’s living in my place?”

No one heard. Only her.

That night, she vomited violently in the hotel bathroom. The face in the mirror was no longer whole. Every time she touched her eyes, she saw someone else’s gaze. Each voice in her head had a different timbre. She no longer knew who she was—nor who was real.

Some mornings, she awoke speaking in a hoarse male voice.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA94aIedZgd
Some days, she looked at her hands and found them foreign, moving without conscious will.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDyJNoUdFmj
Some nights, she wrote love letters in French—perfectly, without having learned. Each word, each flourish, matched the old woman from her dreams.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTWeqrv5QbO
Some mornings, she stood before the mirror, applied lipstick, and smiled—not her own smile.

People said she was acting.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdp4CoNVHXZ
But the truth was:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6rRpnER6zY
She no longer had a self to perform.

A journalist came to interview her, wanting to write a feature on “the phenomenon of An—the one who carries many souls.”

She agreed, on one condition:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzIvuje4gqg
“Do not assign me a label.”

The article was published. It caused a stir.

Some praised her as a living emblem of diversity.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqgwQoqcSfE
Others condemned her as “a cultural aberration.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy4C4Zapfwk
Online, her name was slapped with every tag: genderless, traitorous, progressive symbol, Westernized joke...

She smiled—a smile crumbling at the edges.

“No one is wrong,” she said during a speech.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq06LZtfvL1
“Because I am everything you say I am. But also none of it.”

One day, she received a handwritten letter. No sender.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJAPSt0qzxz
Inside, a single line:

“Every wounded soul needs a place to rest. You are that place. But who will rest you?”

She read it over and over. And finally, wept.

No one had ever asked her that.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN18RPJeMsY
Not one person who stood beside her in the crowd had ever stopped to wonder what she needed.

No one asked:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJCMLOlxGp2
Are you tired? Are you in pain? Are you afraid?

She asked herself.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYdoSETWFly
And didn’t know the answer.

That night, she didn’t sleep.

She wrote a letter to a future “me”—some version of herself, if still alive, who might one day remember:

I was once the face of harmony, but in truth only a stage for endless battles.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS01SUQMedn
I was once the bridge between East and West, but in truth a rope pulled from both ends.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrq0EJ5wqrW
I lived under many names, many genders, many memories.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzh7A6jAcNz
But at my core, I was just a soul no one believed was real.

If one day you—my future self—read this letter, please forgive me:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3htCeHvGQN
Forgive me for wanting to die.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdICsTqgcmF
Forgive me for trying to live behind someone else’s face.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFLPUDMm57Z
Forgive me… for still not knowing who I am.

She folded the letter and tucked it beneath her pillow.

Then looked up at the ceiling—where there were no mirrors, only darkness.

And in that darkness, she was no longer alone.

Because all the broken pieces—man, woman, victim, survivor—were gathering again.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX8PJWzeH5M
Not to form a perfect figure,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ9NvDEJShi
but to form a human—one who needs no name.

Chapter VII: A Conclusion or a Curse Repeated?

They say destiny is a circle.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlkDgjyItZQ
But some circles never close—they just spiral endlessly, like a whirlpool dragging the soul downward. Not to die, but to dissolve.

Nguyên, the Vietnamese younger brother—the one who once orchestrated the conspiracy, who once carved fate with a blade—began to dream strange dreams.

In his dreams, he sat on a throne of bamboo, in a grand hall filled with Westerners—all dressed in áo dài, eating fish sauce, calling him “Master,” “Ancestor,” “The Reviver of the Race.”

He smiled.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeWYfHk8Wnm
He thought it was victory.

He dreamed of standing atop a mountain, holding aloft a map: no more France, America, or Britain—only Vietnam, stretched across the globe.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsPP4eGAwdi
He heard Vietnamese echo through European cathedrals, saw white children reading The Tale of Kiều instead of Andersen, saw Paris draped in red flags with yellow stars.

He called it “the dream of cultural revenge.”

But the deeper he dreamed, the more he lost his way.

One time, he pointed at a blonde child in his dream and said:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6hjW8cIB2t
“You must call me Grandpa.”

The child smiled and replied, in a Vietnamese laced with French:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgsO76pEx18
“But Grandpa... you’re my Grandma, aren’t you?”

That line sliced through his mind like a blade.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6DkOyCkrjf
He woke drenched in sweat, vision blurring, as if the world around him was melting into a river—and in that river, the blood of East and West had mixed, indistinguishably.

Nguyên went searching for his sister.

Linh—the woman who had once ordered injections, who once stole identities like pretty clothes.

He looked at her and asked:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyJrHGUGbjK
“Are you still Vietnamese?”

She smiled—a smile he’d never seen before, half gentle, half frost.

“What do you think it means to be Vietnamese?”

“Someone who hasn’t been Westernized. Someone who preserves their roots.”

“And what are those roots?”

He fell silent.

“What our ancestors passed down,” he replied slowly.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuBHEqdUEFj
“Blood. Language. Way of life...”

“Then tell me—did any ancestor ever marry a Westerner?”

That simple question left Nguyên speechless.

Then Linh said:

“You know… there are days I speak French more naturally than Vietnamese.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0VxlX2v8Ri
There are nights I dream of floating in lavender fields, not rice paddies.”

“So you’ve betrayed your people?”

“No,” she answered softly.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiEdSEPwiO8
“I’ve only accepted the parts of me I can no longer deny.”

Nguyên stepped out of her house, hollow.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJtMZ5P2XXv
All the ideals he had clung to—purity, heritage, honor—began to crumble.

He went searching for the mixed-blood girl—the one he once called a disaster, a chaos.

An—no longer bearing that name—was living quietly in a small house, teaching orphaned children.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡATo2Qv1CEW
Children who didn’t know their parents.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAYjiy9fd0K
Children who didn’t know whether their blood was “pure” or “mixed.”

He looked at her—the one who had once been his husband in a past life, now a girl with a fragmented soul.

She looked back at him.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKkpYvpwy3o
Her gaze held no anger, no blame—only the deep stillness of a dried-up lake.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I… don’t know,” he answered honestly.

“You want to ask me who I am?” she gave a faint smile.

He nodded.

She pointed to the children learning to spell:

“They don’t know who they are either. But they live, they learn, they love.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ03eM2PgqR7
Maybe… knowing who you are matters less than living like someone who knows how to love.”

He bowed his head.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEX8o1A0iXo
For the first time, he felt small.

That night, he dreamed of standing before a mirror.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9hISypbNIU
But it didn’t reflect him.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU6xiAUCoiw
Instead, faces—male, female, white, yellow, ancient, modern—flashed across the glass, appearing and vanishing.

In the end, the mirror shattered.

And a voice echoed in his head:

“When blood is blended, no one is the host. No one is the guest.”

The next morning, he wrote a letter.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgjS6Ply2aB
Not addressed to anyone.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC7wGa636ca
Just left it on the table:

**“I once wanted to make the world a replica of myself.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOonhFUduyJ
But I never knew who I was.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjRSoH9lJFp
I once hated the mixed.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB9GZvXC1t4
But now I understand: mixing isn’t betrayal—it’s a form of survival.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl0tstqOEEc
I thought I was preserving identity.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX9D6EJxecL
But really, I was afraid—because I never truly understood my own.

Now, I seek no one to punish.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfZNorRMeZq
I only wish to learn how to listen.”**

No one saw Nguyên again.

Some say he secluded himself in the mountains.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD7YugdvJxf
Others claim he went to Africa to volunteer.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD1JOxsJ5gz
Cruel tongues whispered that he went mad, struck by “cultural confusion.”

But those who truly understood said nothing.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvgt5MqyHsk
Because they knew: he wasn’t gone.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGdieQj5Ok7
He had simply dissolved—like all the things he once tried to fight.

And the mixed-blood girl?

She still lived.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhPYWIGqhIL
Still taught.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2yMrjEkKnq
Still wandered the markets, wearing a French scarf and a nón lá.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9PqfOYB2KE
Some days she wore an áo dài.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPiQLpsADTt
Other days, a vintage dress.

People didn’t know what to call her—he, she, madam, sir—so they called her the Nameless One.

She didn’t mind.

Because she knew:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzyyAVhKvbE
Once you’ve gone beyond names, there’s nothing left to prove.

On the final night of the changing winds, she wrote one line in her journal:

“This isn’t the end.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1rLXXMjq5X
But if it is a curse,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk4Aqx9OYww
Let me be the one to repeat it—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeXS7RtKAHQ
So those who follow won’t have to.”

Chapter VIII: Blood Becomes Rivers – Tears Become Seas

On a windswept hilltop, nameless and unmapped, she stood.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIV2BZHuY30
The evening sun spilled across her thin blouse like a dragonfly’s wing, her hair dancing between two skies—one soaked in Northern mist, the other stained with Southern dust.

No one called her “the boy she once was.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtLUkGQDTVe
No one remembered she had once been a man lost inside his own body, a wife seeking rebirth through another’s blood, a child whose soul was torn apart by unnamed ambitions.

She—the one who bore three lifetimes—carried no more names.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0MvOxcya3k
Only wind. And a curse.

That curse—like a sorrowful melody—whispered in the breeze, not in sound, but in trembling:

“To claim the West, you must become the West.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAuyhN9nHA1
To keep Vietnam, never touch another’s blood.”

She once believed that.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEJ5bAyxsT7
Once thought she was a mistake—an accident of history, a wrinkle in the silk of identity.

But when she witnessed the blood of three lives flowing through her veins, she understood:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡATx9Yd58KE
Blood is not wrong—only too many people demand that it be pure.

Nguyên, the younger brother, had once believed that by making the West Vietnamese, he would triumph.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡslrgnNw4WF
But he shattered—because no one can possess anything without losing part of themselves.

Linh, the sister, thought that if she stole An’s place, injected the drugs, rejected the foreign, she would be accepted.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQuJYDPG0Ef
But she was only ever accepted as a shadow—and spent a lifetime never finding her own light.

As for her—the mixed-blood girl—when asked one final time, “Who do you want to be?”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7OuiTVTcQt
She answered quietly:

“I don’t live to be someone’s wife.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpwzTZ74ZcG
Nor to be anyone’s version of anything.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0EMnNdGqXd
I live like the wind—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡblN4MxBOiq
Free, without gender, without language, without nation.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBeaM4uTLBc
No one can keep me.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3H5Q1LNHzZ
But I abandon no one.”

On the last day of her public life, she burned all her documents: passport, ID, birth certificate, even the degrees that once made people worship her as a symbol.

A friend once asked:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRN7VcBURcn
“Then how will anyone prove who you are?”

She smiled and said only this:

“I don’t need to prove who I am.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkssumHeUlP
I only need to be remembered as someone who once truly felt alive.”

Years later, stories were told—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFcdgzxclwI
That she crossed countless borders without papers. No one stopped her. No one ever really saw her.

They said—she once stayed in a monastery high in the Alps, where nuns had lost their languages but learned to listen to souls in silence.

They said—she once appeared in a Khmer village, teaching orphaned children how to write with nothing but smiles.

They said—she once lay on a boat drifting down the Perfume River, gazing at the sky and whispering:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlf2ndWjO7k
“Don’t name me, so I may become the river.”

But no one knew—on a night when rain fell like blood, she returned to the place where her soul had been torn.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVU31NfZeLi
The room where Nguyên staged his violation.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKgcvN3sSPZ
Where the drugs erased her essence.

She stepped in.

The room was abandoned. Door broken. Wind howling.

She knelt on the floor—where once her blood had dripped like red rain.

And for the first time in years, she cried.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡacIQS0jmlo
Not from hatred. Not from pain.

But from forgiveness.

A bowl of blood she poured from her own wrist—not to die, but to lift the curse.

Each drop that touched the ground bloomed into a pale lavender sprig.

And from within the wound, she whispered:

“The blood of three lifetimes never dries.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYQotEO9wFy
But if people still believe—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43MSJvB6Y2
That life is not to assimilate, but to understand.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl7z0gBgKVP
That love is not to possess, but to liberate.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhhp8osRHfM
…then from wounds, flowers may still bloom.”

No one found her after that night.

Only a single line, written in blood—dry but not blackened—remained on the cold tile floor:

“I am no one.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6HZkdTtibW
But I am everyone ever torn in two by borders.”

Some built statues of her along national frontiers—but carved no name.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDDODjayznU
Some wrote novels about her—but called her only The Winded One.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn99Cz5ykOp
Some called her a curse.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuf4e8qq55j
Some, an apocalypse.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSZMLCotNfK
Some—only whispered in the breeze—called her hope.

In a seaside village where the wind refused to choose direction,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhMxEQVSTdG
a child once drew in the sand:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2cYjUqb4YX
a figure with two arms—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIx8PfBd7w5
one holding a stalk of Vietnamese rice,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbjZPcKDUzr
the other a sprig of French lavender.

The child didn’t know who she was.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSNbcnA2101
But still, they drew.

Because perhaps…85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡadRQ3GMY3G
That soul never left.

It had only become the wind.

Chapter IX: Lotus in the Mud – Nameless Pride (Epilogue)

She walked out of her childhood like one emerging from a fire—smoke clinging to her skin, eyes red, hands trembling—but alive. And survival itself marked the beginning of a new journey: the journey of someone cast out, yet unwavering in preserving her dignity. Like a lotus blooming in the mire, needing no name to blossom.

Her secondary school years passed like an unending storm. She moved from one school to another, each bearing a different face but the same eyes—eyes filled with suspicion, judgment, and disdain.

At first, there were whispers:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBPdftiQrPv
“That mixed-blood girl is studying at our school?”

Then came scrutiny:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhzxxSwhVDq
“Was she really assaulted? Or did she make it up for attention?”

Eventually, came punishment: her grades lowered despite correct answers; her responses dismissed because the teacher “didn’t like her attitude”; excluded from group work; beaten in places without security cameras; called “low-class mongrel” in the school corridors.

From prestigious French schools to international academies in Asia, the institutions formed a silent, subtle alliance—a network of rejection. No one said it aloud, but everyone understood: she was the hyphen no one wanted in their pure-blooded system.

Even her twin sister—once part of her very soul—turned away.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBWJaVzophm
“You’ve shamed me,” her sister spat, eyes clouded with hate.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjRKiNwCVJ5
“I don’t want to be seen as having the same blood as you.”

But she didn’t cry.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrpEjrkOnzH
She simply told herself:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡecEdr9gJKG
“As long as I can graduate… that’s enough.”

And she did graduate.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFMRsZyaCPW
Not with fanfare, but with blood and tears.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnxCpVAnOJy
An international diploma—neither glittering nor prestigious like those awarded to the “pure” and privileged—but a testament to a silent rebellion.

They called her grades a failure. But they didn’t know they were forged through rigged scores, swapped exam papers, and nights of studying in tears out of fear of being expelled.

She never failed.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGgmv36z6xq
She was simply denied the right to succeed.

When college came—cruel in its irony—she was directly admitted into a medical school in Vietnam. But instead of accepting that safe haven, she returned to France—the very place that once stabbed her heart with prejudice.

No one understood why.

But she did.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ95B7nVWZdD
Some wounds must be faced directly to ever close.

This time, college wasn’t a place of learning, but a prison named “international cooperation.” She was allowed to study—but only for two years. Allowed to stay—but tightly surveilled in the hospital. Allowed to live—but only as a research subject, a guinea pig for Franco-Vietnamese medical education experiments.

She once wanted to die.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7IQijeKYgZ
Once stood atop the hospital roof, contemplating the fall—not from weakness, but from being too strong for too long.

Then COVID-19 struck.

The pandemic—tragic for the world—became her personal escape.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLlSucbY8Vn
She returned to Vietnam, studied Psychology online. At the same time, she enrolled in a second bachelor’s program in Linguistics at an international university in Vietnam—still connected to the same system that had once rejected her.

Online learning—her supposed salvation—turned into another prison.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡphwm1YPSu7
Teachers couldn’t see her face but still gave her low marks.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz5ZVpX0KQf
Excellent assignments couldn’t score above 7.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrp9rQbWxTE
She had no friends. No allies. Only screens, cold presentations, and grades that slapped her efforts.

They said, “Everyone passes online classes.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4rvqOqb6h8
But when she graduated with two Bachelor's degrees and one Master’s, they sneered:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcGDu6gBzfZ
“Bought degrees? Who even checks those?”

They didn’t know:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG3PSuT9WV7
Every presentation cut off mid-sentence due to dropped internet.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9YyUSt2eFo
Every paper rewritten after software crashes.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBrnJox5yGc
Every night awake until 3 AM completing demanding academic requirements—done alone, by herself.

They said she lacked hands-on experience?85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM30boxP7cu
What about the volunteer hours?85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiz2afWn3Na
The sessions with autistic children?85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsXr94yvppe
The home visits to the depressed—the ones no one else dared approach?

They said online degrees held no value in Vietnam?85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzvTEgXTccr
Then what of her in-person Linguistics degree from a Vietnamese-certified international institution? Was that fake too?

What about the internationally accredited TESOL certificate from Australia, the Pedagogy certificate from Vietnam’s Ministry of Education, the French Psychology diploma, the 1240 SAT score, and a 7.0 IELTS?85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmZPBdDxDOS
Who sold her all those?

No one had an answer.

She chose to pursue a Doctorate—not to flaunt degrees, but to prove that online education is not a crime.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7VPHN0roIo
That real study, real effort, real failure—are all part of the process.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcpdIQx78e2
No one graduates just because they have money.

They once called her the bottom of society.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFHxi4KjEur
But they didn’t realize: sometimes, it is from the bottom that the strongest souls are born.

Lotuses do not bloom in palaces.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡicGP2ZDrzI
They bloom in mud.

Some said the lotus isn’t as beautiful as the rose.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyYHZ74YVFY
But the lotus doesn’t need to be beautiful.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJoRxLkj9Ah
It only needs to live.

To live in silence. In loneliness. In obscurity.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43QQmfqCWP
And it is precisely from obscurity that the lotus blooms—radiant, for no one, for no applause.

She is that lotus.

And if you—the one reading this—consider yourself “normal,”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdQxYPsXh1O
but do not have even a fraction of the effort, faith, or strength85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx82CNev0v2
as the one you once looked down upon as “abnormal”…

…then perhaps it is you who should be ashamed.

Because sometimes,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp2Bt1gTwoO
“normal” is just the mask worn by those too afraid to leave their comfort zones.

And she—she lived through everything the world hurled at her—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXzvrb2GYPf
and still walked forward with pride,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmjy9m3OYNx
like a curse that had been transformed into something sacred.

Chapter X: A Message from the Survivor85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdRu1HQSg6q
(Written by the protagonist to their family)

There was a time I thought of myself as a child abandoned in a storm—no hand to pull me up, no one to listen. In those days, I lay alone in my room, the wind pounding against the window like the echo of my own resentment. I was bitter. I was angry. I blamed even the sky for birthing me only to let me carry every injustice, while others—while my younger sister—were allowed to live the childhood I never had.

I once believed you didn’t love me.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC7GFzYYvqo
I asked myself:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ73wsECZiH
Why didn’t my parents fight for me?85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuNzoKhv9Mr
Why didn’t they shield me the way other parents shield their children?85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ092qFBBowa
Why was I the one to suffer in my sister’s place?85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnvkUlcRZxz
Why was family the very thing that drove me into life’s dead ends?

Back then, my heart had no answers—only layers upon layers of despair, pressing down like boulders on a fragile soul.

But now, as I write these words, I understand.

Without those storms, perhaps I would never have become the person I am today—a person bruised and broken, yet capable of forgiveness. Flawed, but still capable of love.

I once thought I was a failure. I blamed you—often for things that weren’t truly your fault. But now I realize, even if you were wrong… it was through that very wrongness that I learned how to look within.

Because if I hadn’t had the capacity to hurt others, perhaps you wouldn’t have chosen to sacrifice me to protect them.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIm9YLlgCCh
Your silence, at times, wasn’t a lack of love—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTknrUrBsue
It was a lack of choice.

You let go of me to preserve the last ounce of peace for the family, for the relatives, even for those who never deserved it. That wasn’t favoritism—it was helplessness.

I used to think you feared hardship, feared poverty. But now I know:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ8G0GaNJip
You feared that I would be poor, that I would suffer.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR4wwUMrUL9
And above all, you feared that if you once stood up for me—and lost everything: honor, kinship, stability—then the very bond called “family” would be reduced to nothing.

Because if love becomes a reason to inflict pain, then that love is no longer love—it is poison.

And you, my sister—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEK8ZohsP1K
The little girl who was once the light of my childhood—are probably someone else now.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcEEos2lrMb
Someone with love, with friends, with joy.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBmRXSUzO7Q
Someone who no longer looks back to find the sister who once sheltered you, who once bore it all alone.

I know, you have your own wounds.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqSdDZWvypL
Maybe you think I’m selfish.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJE3pHkwgKn
Maybe you think I don’t deserve your love.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzFH8Az3lsH
Maybe, in your eyes, I was never a good sister.

But dear sister…

Everything I did—I thought of you first.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEH87QPtpI9
Whether protecting, sacrificing, or enduring—I never did it for myself.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxCQWPjwlyz
I only wanted you to have the childhood we both should’ve had.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZa9vqqOnZ
And if there’s one thing I regret most, it’s making you grow up too fast—to bear the love I should’ve given our parents.

Yes, I’m a fool.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlgEMsuYuJD
A fool who didn’t know how to express love, who couldn’t protect herself, and even more so, couldn’t make you understand that—

I love you.

Not in sweet words, but in quiet persistence:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNxBR7gTDwA
Like a sigh in the night.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKMGk4LchW5
Like the silent figure standing outside your classroom when you were bullied—never stepping in, only watching—because she knew if she entered, you’d be embarrassed.

You loved our parents in my place.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqJSUzsPh5i
You did what I didn’t have the courage to do.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxIIdcFkeup
And now, if I could go back, I would never let you endure that burden alone.

You deserve a happier life than mine.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXWnc772WCe
And if fate demands I pay the price, then I’ll live in the shadows—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPjJLnldOx3
So long as you can walk in the light.

I will continue to care for our parents as you once did for me.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡInHklyUmRv
Not as repayment.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDg6giAr2AE
But as redemption.

And even if we never become close again—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOVit7LeC8V
Even if the cracks between us never heal—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ51RVlSgXLD
I hope that this apology and this thank you will not come too late.

Whether or not you forgive me, whether or not you choose to return or move forward alone, is your right.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuINHdTX8Ix
I ask nothing.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ94ax69jT8w
I beg for nothing.

I only hope you understand:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKc7cKzOwgj
Only forgiveness and compassion can cure the poisons of hatred and selfishness.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3kAANnm3l0
But if you cling to the pain like a protective charm…85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwO9lOFFasx
The one who suffers most won’t be me, won’t be our parents—it will be you.

Because no chain is crueler than the one forged by our own hearts.

Mother, father, sister—

Today, I am no longer that child crying in the dark.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFgRj5DZHok
I am a survivor—not thanks to anyone,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs18unNENwP
but because of everything you unknowingly sowed.

And from those broken pieces,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ6NtyiqcUU
I’ve rebuilt myself into someone who knows how to love—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9cFBGz2L38
Even if that love came late.

If there is one thing I wish for, it is this:

Live truthfully with one another, while there is still time.

Because one day, when apologies and thank-yous are only flowers laid on gravestones—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6So8TEe9H3
It will all be too late.

Chapter XI: Forgiving Oneself85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYwcwV4lGTq
From the Journal of the Soul

There exists a kind of forgiveness that is the hardest of all—not the forgiveness of those who hurt us, but the forgiveness we give ourselves.

After all the years of bearing burdens, after countless nights spent writhing with questions that had no answers, the girl—who once resented her father, was angry with her mother, wounded her sister, hated life, and despaired to the point of wishing to vanish from the world—now stood face to face with the most silent enemy of all: herself.

It was she who had once spoken cruelly to herself after every failure.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxvic6kBug6
It was she who had cursed her mixed-race body, her soul that never seemed to belong anywhere.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUiSxWevpMR
It was she who, in moments of panic, had drowned in her own tears, accusing herself of being the source of every misfortune.

But now, standing in the quiet of midnight, in a room filled only with the sound of wind breathing and moonlight slipping through the window, she knew: it was time to embrace the child within her—the one who had been screaming for years, the one who had never been heard.

“Forgiveness is not forgetting,” she whispered to herself.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPvnwTs66WK
“It’s daring to look back and say:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlQhwbTPGBe
You were not wrong for being fragile.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHWhkyk0nIZ
You were not guilty for wanting to give up.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4OzG9Sa0Ij
You were simply human.”

And she began to write—to herself.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAY49vUoGRy
No longer the old accusations, no longer the endless indictments.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQk6MffcILq
But a gentle murmur—like that of a sister, a mother, a friend—written to the tender self she had neglected for so long:

“Little girl, you did not deserve such pain.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9SF6sHqQmq
You were incredibly brave to survive what others wouldn’t even dare to face.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRob6tLKE2e
You deserve love—not because you are perfect, but because you are you.”

Each line fell onto the page like tears finally allowed to flow without shame.

To forgive oneself is to accept that we, too, have limits.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUWtaeL8hEG
It is to release the roles of “the one who endures,” “the silent sacrificer,” “the ideal daughter,” “the invisible sister”—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF5AGhVWjf4
And return simply to being someone learning how to live.

No longer must she strain to prove her worth.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwMQBGm04db
No longer must she chase high scores, degrees, or the world’s approval to feel valuable.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTtBb14w9Mo
No longer must she wait for others to forgive her before she’s allowed to forgive herself.

She realized: she does not need anyone’s acceptance to justify her existence.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi2aZmynFKB
Her life, her presence, was already a miracle.

Yes, there will still be long nights.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUijKZ1PrHe
Yes, there will still be stumbles.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ49bAuMGYO2
But from this moment on, she will no longer wage war against herself.

She will live—not to untangle every misunderstanding,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKMUYtVdBvC
Not to make others love her again,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxxFVCZ8Hl8
Not to reclaim what was lost—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1FNbjR4CbS
But to understand this:

Every pain that once pierced the heart did not come to destroy it—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6SaWCjuuOn
But to open a door into it.

And in the deepest part of her soul—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpuqXVx2qYn
That was where she needed to pause, sit down, and take her own hand:

“It’s okay now… I forgive you.”

End of Chapter:

Sometimes, resurrection does not arrive with applause.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIsqQ9hiBux
It comes in the moment when someone stands quietly before the mirror—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgTyxLaKQGU
And sees themselves through eyes no longer clouded with resentment.

If forgiving others is liberation,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDx1EC0V5e7
Then forgiving oneself is the final redemption.

Chapter XII: Where Dawn Blooms Within the Heart

Dawn does not always begin with light.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJs09xADk2M
Sometimes, it begins with a stillness—deep and quiet—after a long night’s storm.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvApqxrGnxU
Just like the heart of that girl, after years of tempests, finally allowed itself... to rest.

Not rest in resignation, but in awakening.

After forgiving her family, forgiving her sister, and forgiving herself, she was no longer the same.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVBQE5YIBNp
No longer forcing herself to prove her worth.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBzMAPv3QIT
No longer exhausted from searching for a place to belong.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOLyYYpVqe0
No longer flinching at mocking words, or hiding from contemptuous eyes.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfCJv61ll8B
She was—once more—fully human.

For the first time, she accepted that she was a flower that bloomed out of season.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlMLa3fWeLu
And because of that, she was beautiful in a way no one else was.

Dawn doesn’t begin with the sound of an alarm.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbDilKC0GRA
It begins with a decision: no more blame, no more bitterness, no more living by scars.

From a survivor, she became a creator.

She did not build a home from the bricks others had thrown at her,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnyMBEonTdR
But from the tiny fragments of belief she gathered day by day.

She began to teach—not to flaunt knowledge,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEJAZSNldtV
But to give her students what she had longed for: someone who truly listens.

She wrote—not as a cry for help,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzOQD9eBNuv
But to spark something in others.

She loved—not to fill a void,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfGwIhVtu8x
But to grow alongside another soul.

Someone once asked her:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf1m5jihc40
“Why do you still choose kindness, when life has treated you so unfairly?”

She simply smiled:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSFppDYY91h
“Because if I live the way life once lived with me... then I’d no longer be myself.”

She no longer demanded justice from the world—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFeZzQQ3y7o
For she understood: justice is not about equal shares,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfbsGcGArYQ
But about the right to redefine happiness in your own way.

Her happiness was not in riches, fame, or recognition.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh4giTCNZUE
It was in placing her hand over her heart and hearing its rhythm say:

“I am still here. I am still strong. I am still learning how to love.”

At times, the past still returned like a bitter wind—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjwohzqeB1Z
Reminding her of darker days.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIgjs4u5WnJ
But this time, she did not run.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡng23uFEO1v
She sat down, smiled, and told herself:

“I’ve walked through more than this. And I deserve to be here, now.”

Dawn was no longer at the horizon.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgJifGHS2XU
It now resided in her heart—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxSsAdnUq3H
The very place where darkness once dwelled.

And from that place, light began to rise.

End of Chapter:

She stood at the front of the classroom, watching a student who was being bullied.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVS2kA466nA
She said little, only placed a gentle hand on the child's shoulder and looked into their tearful eyes:

“You have the right to exist.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ02rWqZt0ul
You don’t need to become someone else.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDphLu0ZtNh
You only need to live as yourself.”

It was the very thing she once wished an adult would say to her.

Now, she was the one saying it... to someone else.

And that is how dawn spreads.

Chapter XIII: The Hands of the Imperfect

Some handholds don’t come from weddings.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPFSLMGBUPU
Nor from romantic dates.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkth7U56nJL
Some handholds simply exist to keep someone from falling.

And that’s what she learned as she stepped into a new chapter of her life—a chapter filled with the imperfect.

She began volunteering in a small classroom where children with intellectual disabilities were sent, treated by others as "burdens."85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjpnqkr0wRn
But to her, each child was a shimmering fracture—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvf2qejZPXx
a star that did not follow constellations, yet still glowed in its own light.

Some could not speak.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrzuYEsDz8E
Some sat rocking in corners, crying endlessly.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡovzEr2gYR8
Some hit others, tore books, even scratched her hands raw.

But she never grew angry.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgMlGJ6EVDd
Because she too had once been like that—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7y9nfw5tt4
a "stranger" to this world, labeled as "abnormal," "unruly," "in need of isolation."

For the first time in her life, she didn’t teach letters.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlfMrKwYiVD
She taught empathy.

She didn’t push them to excel.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSODkiB8bxs
She didn’t force them to conform.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqDLdXKmP9u
She simply held each of their hands gently and whispered:

"You’re not wrong. You just need more time."

And then, the miracles began.

A child who once couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes now smiled when she entered the room.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0FcbRp2Run
A child who once scratched her now folded a crooked little paper crane and gave it to her.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWyPRuh8z5T
A child once rejected by his own parents whispered:

"Miss, I want to be a good person."

Each of those moments—tiny to others—was a second dawn to her.

She realized:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF0QDnFT4Of
The world is not saved by the great.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRAPZ7HCOa0
But by clumsy hands that know how to hold one another when the sky collapses.

She began to journal her journey with these "different" children—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhlAoYhU0cN
but each word wasn’t just a story; it was a resurrection of belief.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBu2ev8e9qu
The belief that no one is "useless."85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ETfQumay2
No one is born to be excluded.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡohOePxXSl5
Not her.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKclsRibGGD
Not her sister.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYmf9wlcAQ7
Not the children the world had dismissed with a shake of the head.

And then, the unexpected happened.

An international educational organization read her journals.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkVo0FVsM2h
They reached out—not to bestow praise,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhsiZNUOkKU
But to listen.

"We want you to train teachers for special education," they said.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgRm8mdBwGR
"Not because of your degrees, but because you understand what education has forgotten: the heart."

She didn’t decline. But she also didn’t feel honored.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡikeo7UKRYg
Because she knew—she stood for the imperfect.

She stood before the class, not teaching theory.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡojoiamtCPP
She simply told stories:

About a boy who once clawed her hand, now gently wiping a friend’s tears.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX4N6hGu8tA
About a girl once locked in darkness, now writing her first words:

"I want to live."

And then she looked toward the distance, where sunlight spilled down the steps, and whispered:

"We don’t need to be perfect to love and be loved.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxS4esxDHwP
We only need the courage to reach out—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXTA6l40smg
even when that hand is trembling."

End of Chapter:

In this life, perhaps everyone falls into a pit at some point.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ73G4kjDZV
But not everyone meets someone willing to climb down, sit beside them, and say:

"I’ve been here too.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJmcOqBr4jo
But I got out.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhSWrXgM4O6
And now, I won’t leave you behind."

She became that person—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcFv9Q3QwcD
Not because she was strong.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpA4ZnPCZEn
But because she had known pain.

And only those who have known pain...85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNKaxSGsdiB
can truly heal.

Chapter XIV: The Seasons That Do Not Repeat

There are seasons that pass without promising to return.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5zFsZTx25K
Not because the world has changed—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoBre7gjBgG
but because the heart has.

And she—after years of dwelling in sorrow that spun in loops,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡav74fWm8m9
after reliving memories like rewound tapes—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡturT7pe3MP
finally realized something:

Not every season is meant to return.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxmoU6XWNzr
Some seasons exist to come to an end.

That summer—the one where she curled up on a hospital floor,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRt3zcaEWed
bathed in cold white lights and the heavy rhythm of heart monitors—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnxmriwhSEX
will never return.

Because now, instead of merely surviving,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbxK58ZvEbB
she knows how to live.

That autumn—the one where she sat outside the school gates,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWWF5d5iHDw
watching classmates holding hands on their way to extra classes85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQJYmrJry9Z
while her name was struck from the roster—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnYg1Ft4yO5
will never return.

Because now, instead of waiting to be accepted by others,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeZQD44xMEf
she accepts herself.

That winter—the one when she thought of ending it all,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgAYycUgCvd
stood by a high balcony, wondering,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuH6ZoXt2Wc
“Would anyone cry if I disappeared?”—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc9OghB5n00
will not return either.

Because now, she would be the one to cry for herself85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡySzTXyIxIj
if ever again she dared to let go.

And this spring—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuzIYeB4wrq
the first spring where she no longer has to pretend to be strong,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc9wUdp5wLC
no longer has to force joy—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOrNVuwxPu0
has arrived.

She has begun to love the little things.

The first rain of the season.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMv35KvrAVG
A slow, unhurried afternoon.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9foXoAGdpV
A book left half-read.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVBICjtsQJo
A spontaneous smile85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRcblypvuHb
when sunlight filters through a crack in the door.

She is learning to live in the present—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI7nkotJ34H
not to forget the past,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxZTvbrpSb7
but to stop depending on it.

The past is a chapter in the book of life—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrHenlVvu5l
it needs to be read,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ22FJlG28pJ
it deserves to be cried over—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN5UDjzWoFA
but it must be turned.

Once, while teaching, a student asked her:

"Miss, if someone has been hurt too much,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuWH2ZNpNHV
do they still have the right to be happy?"

She looked at the student, her eyes glistening,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5vhPkV3LvW
and simply smiled:

"Not only the right.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡStiCcGqyVL
You need to be happy.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxq5Nn0R20K
Because those who’ve known pain—deserve healing more than anyone else."

Each season holds its own sorrow.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDCRHbJdMhG
Each year leaves new scars.

But like the sun that always rises,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnZDXY2XxPm
no matter how long the night—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjVoKAeJtaf
hope always waits at the end of the road.

Not blind faith.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ40gQR7rnAA
But faith that has once been broken,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpvAi27xTtm
and now knows how to rise85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmTROVysgxj
on the strength of its scars.

End of Chapter:

The seasons that do not return are not sorrowful ones.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRqE3uULxNz
They are proof of growth.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMdfcny0WCE
Of a life truly lived—of pain endured, of falls survived—and of still being here.

She knows there will be more fears.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfb5O3GMqLz
There will be days of confusion.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4kWF2jEiPa
There will be moments when lovers fall silent,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjEqKXh7CDB
when friends turn away,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtu5mDM0Ld7
when the world feels cold.

But she also knows this:

No one can take away the seasons she’s lived through.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFPVPOdXCNw
No one can erase the light that once bloomed within her heart.

And if any season must not return—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡafltSfjyKv
let it drift away85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBz15KMmE2I
like a petal falling at the perfect time,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjYVjLx0cYN
like the closing note of a well-ended song,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8hohNQ0tVD
like a part of her life once marked by pain...85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5TMRU2zY4z
so now she can cherish peace.

Chapter XV: The House Within Her Chest

People often spend their lives searching for a home to return to.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuMCpI394oG
A place with a warm light at the door,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtxoPNrOadO
a bowl of hot rice,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMSDIHuE9q1
and someone waiting to hear the words, “I’m home.”

She was once like that.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXMVj4h8F9y
She used to believe that a home was a physical place—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi7iiWa0J0z
an address, family inside,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxysXtJIV6l
framed photos hanging on the wall.

But through many losses, she came to understand:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRwl8LDpDD5
Some homes are not outside.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0jJYVehUXo
They dwell within the chest.

A true home isn’t the safest place—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGrmkc4CT5W
but the place where you are most fully yourself.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNcW8KDORru
Not a place without conflict—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMobtSv7Zt0
but where people choose to stay after anger has passed.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNeLMitukzg
Not a place of perfect comfort—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPIE0NjE3xq
but where you don’t have to pretend to be strong.

She began building that home—within her.

Each brick was an old wound,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb4hkmMhgVP
washed clean with tears.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOWEAJ7N6ep
Each door was a new belief,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKGmNmXAqyH
opened after years of being shut.

That house had no concrete foundation.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDxr04lYa6f
It was built on compassion—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfeys7xhB5s
for herself.

She learned to speak to herself each morning:

“It’s okay. You’ve done really well.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxDsQFIrmAW
“If someone hurts you today, come back here—this heart-home will hold you.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbVetuihWP3
“You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be real.”

And strangely, the moment she stopped waiting for someone else to give her a home,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfrqGPOYvJt
she began seeing homes everywhere:

– In the glance of a stranger meeting her gaze with a smile.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNYnEynTKLs
– In the rustling sound of a stray cat outside the door.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcHjNFW70aQ
– In the quiet moment alone with a cup of tea, no longer feeling lonely.

She wrote a line in her journal:

“I once had no home.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwjjGHbKKyM
But now, I am the home for my own soul.”

Then she remembered her mother.

The mother who once stood silent through her injustices,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1LGpTMsKHk
now marked by wrinkles.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ39yT6P2p4c
The mother who once couldn’t protect her,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHWpXOhR4P0
now looked at her with eyes full of sorrow and regret.

Once, she had wanted to scream,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg5n30Otx3o
“Why didn’t you protect me?”

But now, she simply looked at her mother and said gently:

“You may not have been my home.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE8mss8r8n6
But I will be your home—when you grow old.”

And so, she forgave herself—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm9qa421PLO
for her moments of weakness,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmvkFWkp7Bf
for the times she almost let go,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF51xEQtos7
for loving the wrong people and trusting the wrong places.

Because the home in her heart wasn’t a space only for the beautiful.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgwbP8v5p9g
It was a shelter for cracks and foolishness too.

End of Chapter:

Perhaps no one teaches us how to build a home inside.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAZQTuMkjD0
But each of us can learn—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNiio8fs2BQ
from ruin,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjQWWDK3gM3
from winters spent unwelcomed,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7dWYtCPIcf
from moldy rented rooms,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu6x1cFPXTm
from dreams cut short.

And once we learn to become a home for ourselves,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPTWOppS4Z4
we no longer fear being abandoned.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLWNUgBQgYQ
Because we already have a place to return to—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmIadC9WCOe
a place no one can take away.

Chapter XVI: The Missing Piece of Herself

There was a part of her—one she had never dared to name.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHFkGSFgZtY
A piece that lay still, shapeless, neither light nor dark, yet it was the most vital fragment in completing the picture of who she was.

That piece—was fear.

Not the fear of darkness.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMFbW5DVkw2
Not the fear of someone leaving.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN7N6grV4PR
But the fear of not being enough.

Not good enough.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Ztst8KYyM
Not strong enough.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhvkFZyJgPM
Not worthy enough to be loved.

She had hidden that piece in the deepest place—beneath layers of achievements, certificates, smiles, and endurance.

People looked at her and thought she was a fortress.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTrkGdI2rlq
But inside was just a little girl, lost, holding the piece in her hand, not knowing where to place it.

One day, she sat alone in a small room, after a tense lesson, after a brief argument with someone she loved.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVkm0gze1KF
Tears welled up—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwUIeEerISN
not because someone had insulted her,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwjpLHknI1E
but because she no longer knew who she was.

She looked in the mirror—her hair had changed, her eyes were different, her voice deeper, her dreams quieter.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfo2gcKSkCi
But where was the child who once believed that if she just tried hard enough, people would love her?

That child—was still there.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzNU6Ll0rTN
Trembling.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ41R257XdoU
But still waiting to be seen.

She sat down, opened her journal, and for the first time, instead of writing about others, about lessons or accomplishments…85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPfKBwmaL5Q
she wrote to herself:

“You don’t need to prove anything anymore.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIOwzstVpmt
You have the right to be tired.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw03yExGhrq
You have the right to be wrong.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT50qT3ZYl0
You have the right not to understand yourself—because even a heart needs time to learn how to beat peacefully.”

“If someone doesn’t love you because you’re not good enough, that’s not your fault.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuafqdWTuKH
And if, at times, even you can’t love yourself, that’s okay too—because you’re still here. You haven’t given up.”

From those words, she began to shed her shell.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYDYoO8N3OG
Not to expose everything…85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvVJs3BZsHw
But to feel lighter.

She walked in the rain without an umbrella.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHq1vBqHywS
She sent an apology to someone she had upset.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpyRmPMwb9l
She laughed when she saw a child fall and then get back up—because she realized, she had done the same.

Some days, that missing piece would stir again.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsGsfklnxXl
The fear was still there.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡib4X2DbfTt
The insecurity was still there.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoBRAQUyyWi
The feeling of being abandoned, misunderstood, rejected—still lingered.

But this time, she embraced it.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXuYy9M2upJ
She placed her hand on her heart and whispered:

“It’s okay. I still have me.”

And that piece—after years of rejection—finally fit into place.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCuWwQxNKyi
Not perfect.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzi7JYu9oQv
Not pretty.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHZOA8SLDnU
But exactly where it belonged.

End of Chapter:

People aren’t incomplete because they lack good things.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuABJ0djFMG
They’re incomplete because they’ve forgotten to embrace the parts of themselves that aren’t whole.

She had once tried to piece herself together using others’ expectations.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHLGhtHT0od
But now, she chose to mend herself with truth.

The truth that she had been weak.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcjs0R7bB0D
Made mistakes.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcuZBZ8AYsh
Felt envy, harbored resentment, tasted despair.

But also the truth that she—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBmNC3AAt2Y
was the only one who never let go.

And if she had to live another life,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXZkLsxtVY9
she would still choose to be herself—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeURRupSM6X
with every single piece.

Chapter XVII: When a Flower Chooses to Bloom on Its Own

She once believed:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLTwpVirV8a
To bloom, one needed fertile soil.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7je5Zkxwys
A gentle caretaker.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ47esYpF9cl
Water, protection, eyes that see, and voices that affirm.

So she spent her youth searching—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡltlNHuksJb
for a tender hand,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtXyDpf031F
for a roof wide enough,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4phldQFqp3
for a pair of eyes warm enough to make her believe she had the right… to blossom.

But life does not wait for anyone to bloom in season.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6liRgI0lPM
It crushes.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs2KwpX49bz
It suppresses.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb7ZYRGt1jr
It throws the softest seeds into the harshest gravel and stone.

And then… she realized:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnMAwIhVxq3
Some flowers don’t get watered.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5mbNowbLOC
They bloom because there is no other choice but to live.

They called her “thorny.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQYLDh15BJP
They said she was “so strong, she became cold.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2yCD2OxK8B
They said, “She’s strange. Not like the rest.”

But they didn’t know that what they called “thorny”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZByiyPZdxZ
was the result of once being tender—until pain made her numb.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk5SiRcVls3
That what they called “cold”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1niA1dNipY
was the echo of once caring too deeply—until she was left without a word.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZcEF2xNJpW
That what they called “strange”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM5xIr3pfvT
was a survival instinct when being herself was no longer safe.

And then, on a day when no one was watching, when no one hoped—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM4Z1WzMlqv
She bloomed.

No stage.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRAubjSBe0Y
No spotlight.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ96aN3pDhYO
No audience.

She bloomed quietly—like a small miracle.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyhasOiIgts
She bloomed because she had survived.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR2webuN0ef
She bloomed because she no longer waited for permission.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYJxn1d5FMb
She bloomed because she had learned:

“I don’t need to look like any other flower to be beautiful.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsVai9GKPuf
I only need to be me—and that is enough.”

From that moment on, she did everything with gratitude:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKxgP2pjKBB
– Ate a meal slowly, without rushing.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCAG9aCq5CV
– Wore a dress she loved, even if no one complimented her.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpkJ0mmT4U4
– Sent birthday wishes to someone who once hurt her.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1dOdD5MuCZ
– Forgave someone who never knew they had wounded her.

She told herself:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPBySAl9s6n
“If a flower only blooms when someone is watching, then it’s not a flower—it’s a tool.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBavDtypiB4
But I—I am life.”

Someone once asked her:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo7rzHyTlpw
“How do you keep living without anyone’s support?”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL81rEQOAvw
She smiled:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEGzVU3743e
“Because I waited for a very long time…85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGuxM7b8s8i
Until one day I understood: if I wait for a prince to come before I live happily,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjwGAwlDQcr
I will die of old age in a tower built from my own fear.”

So instead of waiting, she lived.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJwKWIMk2Pu
Instead of hoping someone would come back, she moved forward.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfOm5nrlXuQ
Instead of demanding justice from those who never understood the meaning of “hurt,” she learned to hold herself and say:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtoxr11RGZN
“It’s okay. We still have each other.”

End of Chapter:

A flower chooses to bloom—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzPAD3d7Dg9
not because spring has come,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX2py0zeimz
but because it has grown brave enough to know:

Every wound that once bled is now the lifeblood feeding its roots.

She doesn’t need applause to know she’s precious.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡON9Yu4RQD0
Doesn’t need to be lifted up to know she’s standing.

Because she has become someone…85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6tdu2fZC2p
who does not bloom to please the world—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAkMoPcecFn
but blooms because she is worthy.

Chapter XVIII: Naming the Things That Were Lost

She once tried to forget.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Hg6fF2dc3
Tried to fold the past into a drawer with no key,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7m6HKk1ny9
locked it with a smile,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZiLOx1CaI
sealed it with busyness.

But some nights, the wind slipped through her fingers,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa6zfr4qCbp
and in the sound of her own sigh,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8C0G1iV2tp
she heard something no one else could:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSEkDVzCN2r
The voice of the things that were lost.

Not loud. Not resentful.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtLCBq9m8D8
Just whispers that once were flesh and blood.

Someone once asked her:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡETwyIY4qCa
—“Why do you keep remembering sad things?”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbT03lTlRxg
She replied:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDiI2EMxf8L
—“Because some things cannot truly be released until they’ve been called by their rightful names.”

She decided to walk back down the path of memory—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvTg05DWoKU
not to hold on,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb3O1g6HdHd
but to say goodbye, like one would to a former love.

She named her first fear:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyYvw9Ve3V6
Abandonment.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrzTTr27Peh
She once clung to her mother’s shirt in the schoolyard while other children gathered in groups.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8M6L0Trmb1
Startled awake at night when the house was too quiet.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj9ASiDfstB
Once wondered: If I vanished, would anyone notice?

Then she named the first teacher who shamed her—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVLVBNUQ6U9
for not being “pure” enough.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdsjstQVSqS
She remembered his eyes—colder than winter.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN59AcbsNYo
The way he judged her,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpIq9oZkGvX
as if she were an unforgivable flaw.

She once resented him.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43yKfoppIJ
But today, she whispered:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpo4OPt8K6A
“Thank you, teacher. Because of you, I learned to stand—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVkEv6CMceO
even when no one stood beside me.”

She named her first love—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdiZVt0bYUD
the one who claimed to love her for being “different,”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOLYc5VUQa0
but left when that very difference stopped being “charming.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrW28cw66Q0
She once wrote hundreds of unsent messages,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGTFtvCQmtx
wondering what she had done wrong.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPyozWY3JGz
Now she knows:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOqMOUn6Cb0
She was never wrong.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIjMTDFqyvp
He just didn’t have a heart wide enough to hold all the layers of hers.

She named an old dream:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu8zIJIsQhU
To be seen.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5vV9tWDOhx
As a child, she thought if she studied hard enough, people would love her.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD8rTvxPHkY
As she grew older, she replaced that dream with degrees, titles, and posts that racked up likes.

But in the middle of that glow,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZSfub0oCxD
she felt empty.

And she whispered to that dream:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzf1zZ21ACO
“I’ve done my best.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi7oOXb79am
But now, I don’t live for recognition.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOomZrM1Huk
I live for peace.”

Finally, she named something formless—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRzEW0yCBkf
A version of herself that had died.

The child who loved the color yellow, believed in fairy tales, and called her father “Superman.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSLSFA7nY0o
The teenage girl who wrote journals in purple ink and texted her crush just to ask, “Have you eaten yet?”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeoNnuB00qi
The girl who once believed everyone in the world was trustworthy.

She cried when she named that former self.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGRl1uEZXMZ
Not out of regret.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE0i8QMGwAV
But gratitude.

Because without all those versions of herself—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR6ICB5vamd
there would be no woman standing strong in today’s storms.

End of Chapter:

To name the things that were lost85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSx49zfElsM
is not to dwell in the past,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY1GC7pdRo8
but to say a final goodbye—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUdDksf3FgY
like the way one sends off a loved one into the beyond, without lingering guilt.

Because she now understands:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPsQfKcJnvs
What’s lost is not always a loss.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtiHnvro2tl
Sometimes, it’s the price of growth.

And when we are brave enough to name our pain,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFdOZtYs8YJ
we become capable of naming joy—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpb6QyxHjzM
when it comes.

Chapter XIX: And Finally, I Chose to Stay with Myself

No one is chasing me anymore.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWpju3UhyyS
No one is abandoning me anymore.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvB4BvBq329
No one needs to love me just so I can feel worthy.

Because for the first time in my life, I sat down,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwEFLsplZXD
looked deep into my own eyes in the mirror,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIyFVb7z1xj
and no longer saw a seeker—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ79MN7s5SVW
but someone… who has come home.

All my life, I thought I had to belong somewhere:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmpSsOvUoFf
– A family that was whole,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrkkMMOXf13
– A community free of judgment,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcOfB34IUbU
– A love without conditions,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqsW3cO5g1C
– A title accepted by society.

I once ran from East to West,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHH7uvpqwTS
from homeland to foreign land,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnePG59qr0g
from childhood to the present,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5ZK8iqDnK1
from one wound to another,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqPfn6hi341
just to find a "home"—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlvQlsHoQwL
a place where I could be myself without being rejected.

But then I realized:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvlCdkn7Ng7
Nowhere is home if I don’t stay with myself.

Staying—was the hardest thing.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡccjIsebdyQ
Harder than forgiving others,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5jRKNyMk6x
was forgiving myself—for being weak, for being blind, for having endured.

Harder than searching for love,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdlW1czyF2h
was learning to love myself—even when no one cheered, no one applauded, no one waited.

Harder than surviving storms,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ624uX8Mhui
was standing still—to accept that:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiTZv1AMVQP
“I don’t need to go anywhere. I just need to not abandon myself.”

I no longer need anyone to call me “worthy.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwqj6OPaPO3
I don’t need to reach some peak to feel “enough.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡReXJJIKI46
I don’t need to defeat anyone to know my life has meaning.

All I need is to wake up each morning,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRH4jRK5y5K
see sunlight filter through the curtains,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6YhnOcr1pW
brew a cup of warm tea,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzoILtFXXWj
and smile at the reflection in the mirror:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3XuagzCqIM
“Today, I’m still here. And that is enough.”

I used to fear being alone—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfAygTam3ZT
so much so that I forgot the voice inside.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIeRaJsFUlF
But the farther I went, the more I understood:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvKxBio0pk8
Loneliness doesn’t kill.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfeLQ6UPgAZ
What kills slowly is not daring to live truthfully.

When I stayed with myself, I heard things I thought were lost:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGnXDdcLwl6
– The voice of my heart wanting to love again, but not in haste.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXH41Y05yd4
– The song of my soul, once broken, still humming.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdjCwlNxeri
– The sound of silence—not empty, but deep like a spring.

And at last, I understood:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM9zKawGCcy
I don’t need to be saved.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJrPJpgI1iL
Because I was never truly lost.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqIVk6HICln
All I needed was someone to be with me—and that person, is me.

End of Chapter – and also, the end of the story:

Not every story needs a happy ending.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSe5o1RN37Q
Some stories just need to end with the truth.

And my truth is this:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2mNZkpHxsG
I have walked through many people, many dreams, many wounds…85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ74gABOLEuy
To return—and remain—with myself.

I no longer seek the “perfect happiness.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRC8PDqprYm
I only need a quiet corner in my heart—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeFg6vyeAkT
a place where I can breathe,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWfSBEz2LLk
where I no longer have to pretend,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSc6Vsmm6eP
where I don’t need to prove anything to anyone.

And if someone asks:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdhwHPE6BiQ
– “Do you still want to be loved?”

I will smile and say:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMOwwqYmzD6
– “Of course. But this time, I’ll start with loving myself.”

Because…85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfojifqUCLp
When someone learns to stay with themselves,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWOb3HHC8iV
they can never be abandoned again.

Final Chapter: Lessons Wrapped in Silence

Not every story needs to end with applause.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyDYKOvOK1X
Some journeys only need a quiet moment—so that the reader’s heart can echo with lessons unspoken, yet universally understood.

This is the story of a girl—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCDGCbWK1Vq
a girl born between East and West,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9FvDM9khk5
a girl carrying wounds carved by history, society, and her own personal trials.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYqHoU8c28E
She has journeyed through many lives, many layers of pain and love.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZTYXIBB50j
And yet, in the end, what she leaves behind is not tears or resentment—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdVAnD1JREN
but light.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOziOTqdTHy
Small, perhaps,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH5qcifNMMy
but enough to guide others out of darkness.

Below are truths that no school ever teaches—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0e0DQItx7c
but she learned them with blood, tears, and unwavering faith.

1. No one is born to fit perfectly into every mold.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7xyZFIJkNh
She was once rejected—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgk3iURSJSj
not because she did anything wrong,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyDwgkU0BnM
but because she was different.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcSe71hGuLE
And in a world built on standards,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq43h0Rto3I
anyone who doesn’t match the majority is labeled “flawed.”

But the lesson is this:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfFEJpLhPH4
Being different is not a flaw. It is a form of courage.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsMxz3vKlO1
The courage to live authentically.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXoGL2rq4oV
The courage to not distort oneself for others’ approval.

2. Love is not always protection.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZns2K2QHbW
Sometimes, people love without knowing how to love.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBA6TnlT1ym
Parents may stay silent—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjmDrub4EWe
not out of hatred, but out of fear greater than their capacity to bear.

Loved ones may hurt us—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNtx1t1atAN
but that doesn’t mean they haven’t hurt watching us in pain.

The lesson is:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkkpojRvsIE
Forgiveness is not for others. It is for your own freedom.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4QRhvAKFnj
Because holding onto resentment keeps us shackled to the past.

3. No one has the right to judge the worth of a diploma—or a person—based solely on where they come from.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTsmI2HyV3L
She was once disrespected for studying online,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiW0Pt2AU2q
for being biracial,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpqrEEdC2PU
for not attending a “prestigious” school.

But what she accomplished—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs3HSvCHwSL
every lesson, every exam, every sleepless night spent chasing a deadline—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzhomMIO1p6
proved this:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2XL9LK9Rco
True value lies not in the paper, but in the journey taken to earn it.

A bought diploma is paper.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡONDy4jEn4m
A hard-earned one is part of a lifetime.

4. No one can truly love you until you learn to love yourself.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqAnMx2zBTM
She used to chase validation,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYodEhmaP57
used to try so hard to be accepted.

Until one day, she looked at herself and said:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF2Y2oZBbKM
“I don’t have to prove anything anymore. Living is already enough.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOnUET6AQBa
And from that moment on, she was free.

5. Sometimes, simply surviving is a kind of miracle.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFzti33ZSFj
In a world that only values success through status, wealth, or fame,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfgxeVDOk7G
she chose to define success as this:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs6KMOXNWZt
Still being gentle—despite everything that’s happened.

6. You don’t need to become someone else. You only need to return to yourself—and live that truth fully.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5qeRH21tHc
She was once the abandoned child,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ29SAY8n0hx
the sister who carried all the scars,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43k4nyAgqt
the expelled student,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvKCIwdPqYr
the one scorned for being “impure.”

But in the end, she was not a “victim.”85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkTb8W3pr4d
She was a survivor.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn34tuiG1EN
And more than that, she was someone who finally understood:

No one owes us happiness.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhM4637tYMN
We must be the ones to write our own ending—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJKXBCSvBAZ
even if our story began as a tragedy.

Epilogue:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEWTS7Dq6vN
Her story doesn’t need to be made into a movie or printed in textbooks.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ16OpSFf3DN
It only needs to be remembered—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOLrtgsLIJJ
by someone who once felt lonely,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQqmUSAwfDC
understood—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnYnXf54mi3
by someone who was once seen as different,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzPgh9HlNRR
wept over—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRNFRotL5TJ
by someone who once struggled to survive.

And if you are holding this book,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcAYwn7Ucfz
reading to the very last line,85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkJOOyJdsbP
then please hold onto the simplest truth she ever came to know:

Life is a long, challenging journey.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcohEGGilny
But if we remain gentle enough85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFsazMsst3Y
to not become the very thing we once feared—

then we have already won.

APPENDIX

I. Symbolism Explained

Two Winds: A metaphor for dual identities—two cultural currents, East and West—coexisting within one soul. It also represents internal conflicts between past and present, gender and selfhood.
Strange Blood: Symbolizes genetic memory, societal prejudice, and the invisible force of “karma”—a realm where no one chooses the blood they bear but must live with its consequences.
The Twin Sister: Represents the “humane ego”—a soul that has been copied, replaced, and distorted in its desperate hunger for love.
Lotus and Rose: Contrasting images of traditional beauty (lotus—resilient, silent) and modern flamboyance (rose—popular, adored).
The Final Wind: Liberation. Acceptance of impermanence. Letting go of the victim identity to live as a free spirit.

II. The Character’s Hidden Timeline

Past Life I: A Vietnamese man—husband to a Western woman—discriminated against while living in the West.
Past Life II: The Western woman—dies of illness, her soul merges into the body of a Vietnamese boy.
Present Life: The reincarnated soul exists in a male body with a female soul—born as a child carrying “two winds,” rejected by both East and West, and becomes a victim of prejudice, abuse, and power games.
Social Rebirth: The character matures through education, experience, and the conscious decision to let go of bitterness and live for themselves.

III. Quotes Marking Transformation

"I was once your wife. Now I am you." — The Western Soul
"Blood transfused, hatred inherited." — Fate
"If love is born to hurt others, then it is poison." — A message to the family
"We live not to assimilate, but to understand. We love not to possess, but to liberate." — Final Chapter

IV. Spiritual References and Creative Inspirations

Teachings on rebirth in Buddhism and East Asian cultures
Personal experiences of gender discrimination, mixed-race identity, and exclusion in education
Literary works with similar themes:
- Giấc Mộng Phù Hoa – Nguyễn Tuân
- The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
- The Color Purple – Alice Walker
- I See Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass – Nguyễn Nhật Ánh

V. Symbolic Spiritual Family Tree

Narrator (Main Character)

Vietnamese male body, Western female soul; divided across lifetimes

Western Woman’s Soul

“I was once your wife”

Deceased Western wife who entered Vietnamese boy’s body via blood transfusion

Vietnamese Husband (Past Life)

“You”

Vietnamese husband exiled in the West, discriminated; the narrator’s previous incarnation

Twin Sister (Symbolic)

A Nhi

A mirrored soul and embodiment of lost emotions

Vietnamese Younger Brother

Nguyên

Embodies conservative, purist views on bloodline and national honor

Vietnamese Older Sister

Linh

Manipulative, injected drugs to take over the narrator’s social identity

Parents

Not named

Represent silent, traditional generation—sacrificed child to uphold family honor

VI. Reincarnation Map (Three Lives – Three Forms)

Life 1:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwBkVi8D9Sa
Vietnamese husband → Discriminated in the West → Dies quietly85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnjQJrKrMS4
→ Reincarnated through blood
Life 2:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYVO1ma32GJ
Western woman → Wife of Vietnamese man → Dies of illness → Blood transfused into Vietnamese boy85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMfCQUG8Jaa
→ Spiritual merging
Life 3:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjiYot89Poi
Vietnamese boy with a Western soul → Rejected by both East and West → Faces violence, abuse, and exploitation85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmjBLTWmnrM
→ Becomes the “One Who Carries Two Winds”

VII. Recommended Music & Films While Reading

Suggested Soundtracks:

“Experience” – Ludovico Einaudi85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQFZmbqe68X
→ Soft, evocative of memory and inner life.
“Nuvole Bianche” – Ludovico Einaudi85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr9AMQVcqYI
→ Ideal for chapters on loss and rebirth.
“In This Shirt” – The Irrepressibles85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡteIM9PRmsi
→ A haunting song about gender, identity, and the pain of living outside norms.
“Breathe Me” – Sia85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwP0DdiM31N
→ Perfect for the story’s ending—survival, loneliness, and the yearning to be understood.

Complementary Films:

Cloud Atlas (2012)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsQLFI8P6Nt
→ A film about reincarnation, multiplicity of being, and soul connections across time.
The Danish Girl (2015)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡki3uIyrpug
→ The journey to reclaim one’s true identity across gender, society, and compassion.
A Silent Voice (2016 – Anime)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHzwZx7KVAv
→ A story of atonement and healing among those who once inflicted pain.
The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2Ytq2Vjl7i
→ A cinematic meditation on life, loss, and forgiveness—where beauty meets sorrow.

Afterword

As you close the final pages of this novella, perhaps you feel a hollow quietness—a vague sensation, like saying goodbye to someone once dear. Or maybe, you’ve glimpsed a part of yourself—or someone you once knew—in a character who first seemed distant.

The Windbearer was never written for entertainment. It is a mirror—sometimes warped, sometimes razor-sharp—reflecting back the truths we often try to forget: fractures within families, rejection by society, the dislocation within one’s own body. It is a report no one asked for. A cry no one heard. A memory no one wanted to keep but couldn’t bear to discard.

I wrote this story from the shards of my own lived experience. And yet, I also wrote it for those who have never dared to speak. For the children pushed to the margins. For those who were “not worthy enough” to be loved publicly. For the souls who chose silence because no one was willing to listen.

I don’t expect you to understand everything. I only hope you feel something—even just one line.

And if after reading this story, you find yourself a little gentler with your own heart—and a little more compassionate with others—then I know this journey of words was not in vain.

Thank you—for walking this far with me.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbEt4Uf5QxT
Thank you—for enduring each wound with an open heart.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxke6k0FweJ
The story may have ended. But the journey of loving, understanding, and forgiving continues.

Author: Pham Le Quy

85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfmEpbL1CM7

85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzIWcS44iVO

ns216.73.217.6da2

There are souls that belong nowhere – yet still choose to live, to understand, and to forgive.

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