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

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

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

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

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

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

An said nothing.
She just stood there.
Her presence alone was an irrefutable declaration.

That’s why Linh grew flustered.
Very flustered.

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

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

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

Because…

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

The next morning, An read the news: A series of French scholarship funds were withdrawn from Vietnam.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

But she knew.

The West had awakened.

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

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

They couldn’t let it happen again.
They couldn’t allow a second Linh to infiltrate their culture.

So they changed policies:

·       Tightened marriage VISA approvals.

·       Expanded international student programs — but required disclosure of all social media identities.

·       Scanned interaction histories and cross-verified relationships.

·       Blocked all acts of covert cultural replication.

And most importantly:

They stopped funding Vietnam.

Not out of hatred.

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

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

“I need to rethink everything.”

Linh wanted to cry.
But the tears didn’t come.

Because deep down, she knew:
That was the price of faking — even with good intentions.

An didn’t blame Linh.

She understood.
In the journey of seeking love, not everyone manages to stay true to themselves.

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

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

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

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

An closed her laptop and sighed.

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

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

She had become… the authenticity check.

A genuine article displayed in a marketplace of counterfeits.

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

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

An was what remained after everything —
Imperfect, inconvenient, ungovernable —
But the only thing that was real.