I was not wrong to believe that the soil I stepped onto would become the birthplace 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. I saw it all. Not a single thing 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 so-called "ugly" features they claimed I had.
Perhaps it was just curiosity. Perhaps ignorance. But if that were true, then why did they look away every time I looked back? Why did they whisper behind cupped hands the moment I passed? Was I truly so savage in appearance? Was I really a wolf among sheep?
Ever since I arrived, 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 they seemed to think it was the other way around.
No. No. No. I shouldn't care. I tell myself that. Again and again.
But still, there's another voice. One that insists: You must look like a monster. That's the only explanation.Maybe it was the servant's clothes. Maybe that's what made me look this way. Yes. It had to be the clothes.
But then… would a beautiful face be mistaken for a monster just because it wore rags?
I shake my head.
Why should I care about their stares? Their judgment? I'm here to survive. That should be my only priority.
Yet nothing changed. Each time I caught my reflection, on water, on glass, on polished stone, I flinched.
Why?
Why didn't I have that woman's pale skin? That girl's delicate frame? Why not a small nose or a pair of soft, pretty eyes? Why did I have thick, wavy hair that curled like roots in the earth?
Why didn't I look like them?
Why did I look like… this?
Each insult. Each remark. Each act of cruelty. They clung to me like paint on canvas. I had never thought of myself as beautiful. But I had never believed I looked like a monster either.
Soon, I stopped feeling anything else. I was so fixated on my face that I didn't notice how much weight I was losing. Day by day, I grew thinner. My limbs frailer. My eyes hollower.
But at least that, I thought. Maybe now someone would call me… beautiful.
But no.
The stares didn't stop. The whispers didn't stop. That hope never came true.
My surroundings blurred. Every time I opened my eyes, the world spun. I needed food. I needed sleep. But I forced myself to stay awake.
What if someone harassed me in my sleep?
I didn't know what to do.
I couldn't feel my skin. The pain in my head drowned out everything else.
No one helped.
They laughed.
Children threw pebbles at me just to make me move. A woman spat at me, her voice rising in words that felt like curses.
I didn't understand what she said. I don't know Chinese.
Maybe that was a blessing.
My state worsened. Begging earned me scraps, barely enough to keep me breathing. My body grew brittle. Every step was a struggle.
Now, when I catch my reflection, I wonder…
Should I have begged harder? Danced for coins? Smiled at the ones who looked at me like prey?
Maybe then they would've tossed me something, just enough to survive one more day.
I thought I had already hit rock bottom.
Until I saw a group of people walking toward me.
Carrying a bucket of water.
And a coarse, stained cloth.