I was not wrong to believe that the soil I stepped onto would become the start of memories I would carry like scars for the rest of my life.
Crude stares. Rude remarks. Fingers pointed at my face, then at a cartoonish sketch of an ogre scrawled on parchment. I saw it all. Nothing escaped me.
The world where I once never looked in the mirror twice had become a world where I scoured every reflection, desperate to see the "ugly" features they swore I carried.
Perhaps it was just curiosity. Perhaps ignorance. But if that were true, then why did they look away every time my eyes met theirs? Why did they whisper behind me?
Was I truly so savage in appearance? Was I really a wolf among sheep?
All I am is a foreign girl in a Foreign country. Yet they treat me as if I am something else.
Children laughed at me. Women snickered. Men turned their eyes away with visible disgust. It was like living in hell, except I was the sheep cornered by wolves. Though somehow, in their eyes, I was the predator.
I told myself not to care. Again and again. Survival, that was the only thing that mattered.
In the streets the only thing in my mind should be how to keep on living, how to protect myself. But why did I care about what useless things others mocked at me for. Was my appearance that bad?
Maybe it was the servant's rags I wore. Maybe it was my disheveled hair, or the grime clinging to my face. Yes, it had to be the clothes.
But would a beautiful face ever be mistaken for a monster, just because it wore rags?
Why should I care about their judgment? Why should I bend beneath their stares?
And yet—I did.
Each time I caught my reflection, in water, in glass, in polished stone, I flinched.
If only I looked more like them—pale. The only thing that differentiated me and them, our skin.
Why didn't I look like them?
Why did I look like… this?
Their cruelty painted me, stroke after stroke, until I began to believe it. I had never thought of myself as beautiful. But I had never believed that I looked like a monster either.
Soon, I stopped noticing anything else. My face consumed me. My reflection consumed me. So much so that I did not see how thin I had grown, how fragile my body became. Each day, I ate less. Each night, I slept less. I told myself it was to stay alert—that I couldn't risk being harassed as I slept on the streets.
But really?
I was wasting away.
My vision blurred. My skin clung to my bones. I told myself: Perhaps now they will call me beautiful.
But no.
The stares never softened. The whispers never ceased.
And then came the day when my hell grew darker still.
---
I remember the bucket first.
A coarse, stained cloth dangling in a man's hand. The bucket of water sloshing against his hip.
They walked toward me with the gait of hunters closing in on prey.
Even though they had power, I was the monster.
Sadness wouldn't help me survive. Fragility would only hasten my end. So I smiled.
Maybe they meant to help. Maybe they wanted to clean me up.
I was wrong.
Painfully, stupidly wrong.
Yes, they wanted to clean me—but not the dirt from my hands, nor the soot from my face. No, they wanted to scrub the dark off my skin.
The bucket dropped. The cloth soaked. My left forearm seized in their grip. And then—
Rub.
Again. And again. And again.
The fabric tore at my skin like fire. Each stroke a burn. Each drag a wound. My mother had never let mud touch this skin, yet now it was being scraped raw as if filth lived in the very blood beneath it.
My screams echoed through the street. They laughed.
Was this cleansing? Was this care?
No. It was torture wrapped in the guise of civility.
I struggled. Begged. But their hands held fast.
The pain mounted. My arm throbbed until it felt no longer part of me. Hours passed—or maybe it was minutes, maybe days. Time lost all meaning as the cloth scoured deeper and deeper until—
Blood.
Only when my skin broke and red ran down my wrist did they finally stop.
And then, as if the act had been nothing more than a game, one of them asked my name.
I knew that word. Míngzì. The same word the man who kidnapped me had asked in Bharat. Ironic. I never even learned his name.
"…Meilina," I whispered.
They laughed.
The name my mother once whispered with love now became another joke on foreign tongues.
When they left, it was midday. The streets were full, yet no one offered help. Some stared. Some mocked. Most ignored me.
My arm burned. My head spun. My vision dimmed.
I tried to stand. I failed.
That was when I noticed him.
---
The boy.
He couldn't have been more than seven or eight.
I flinched, expecting stones, curses, pain. But instead, he extended his hand. In his palm—bread.
My first thought was poison. A common tactic. But poison or starvation? What difference did it make?
So I ate.
Each crumb was divine. Each bite a gift.
He did not laugh. He did not stare. He did not call me a monster.
When I finished, he said nothing. He only tugged my hand gently, urging me to sit beside him.
I hesitated. But his presence soothed me. In this land where every face twisted with cruelty, his was calm.
His name was Yichen. He already knew mine.
The way he said it—so softly—it reminded me of home.
Not like the laughter. Not like the mockery.
For the first time since I arrived, I felt warmth.
---
But safety is dangerous. Safety is something you fear to lose.
Yichen held my hand and led me down the road.
I followed, hesitant. Terrified. Where was he taking me? Was this another trap? Another game? I hadn't left this street for a week.
Until I saw it.
The mansion.
It loomed like a jewel of red and white, its roof tiled like rubies. Hibiscus bloomed in its gardens. Roses sprawled across carved trellises. Domes and archways soared like palaces in the stories my mother used to tell me.
It was beautiful. Too beautiful.
I froze.
This was not a place for someone like me.
And then I noticed her.
A woman approached. Graceful. Serene.
Her eyes found me—not with disgust, not with hatred, but with something I couldn't name. Something dangerous.
Kindness.
Too much kindness.
Her hand touched my back, gentle, guiding.
Toward the mansion.
Why?
Where was she taking me?
Would she help me?
Or would she finish what the others had started?