Chapter 1: Chapter 1 The city doesn't sleep — Where the Sun Returns

Motorbike smoke, fine dust, and the glare of huge LED signs were what filled Mộc Miên's lungs and eyes every day when she stepped out of the glass office building in District 1.

The clock struck eleven. The city seemed never to sleep—or at least, young people in marketing and design like Miên were not allowed to.

She dragged her low heels along the sidewalk. Her left hand carried a tote bag containing a heavy laptop while her right massaged the neck and shoulder muscles that had gone into spasm. Miên was twenty-four, an age people called the most vibrant of youth, but in the reflection of a convenience-store window she saw only a woman with a messy bun, dark circles, and pale, lifeless skin.

She stood still for a second in front of that glass, trying to get a closer look at her own blurry shadow. Four years ago, the day she first got her feet wet in the city to get a job, she also stood in front of a glass window like this, but at that time her eyes were bright, full of plans for a future where she would draw the campaigns of a lifetime, where her name would be announced in creative industry award ceremonies. Now, that dream has been eroded to the point that only a faint layer of dust remains on the surface, exactly like the fine layer of dust covering the saddle of a motorbike parked on the side of the road.

*Ting.*

The sound of a text message bell rang, breaking her tiring thoughts. Messages from the work chat group.

**[Head of Department Hà]:** *Miên, the Key Visual design for Brand A's Summer campaign was criticized by customers for being too pale in color. Please fix it tonight, tomorrow morning at 8am you have to send the v2 back to them for approval.*

Miên stood still in the middle of the flow of people passing by. Her fingers trembled as she read the message. She painstakingly edited that design for three days and three nights according to department head Hà's wishes. From a creative drawing, it was edited over and over again until it became a patchwork mess. And now, the fault is hers.

She clearly remembered every night she had stayed awake to follow Ms. Hà's wishes: the first time, Hà said the color was too dark for the festive atmosphere; the second, that the font was too serious and needed to feel younger; the third, she demanded the pastel palette specified by the client and forced Miên to destroy the entire layout and start again. Miên had followed every request to the millimeter, exactly as stated in the brief bearing Hà's approval. Yet now the entire responsibility fell on her like a stone from a clear sky.

**[Miên]:** *Miss Hà, that color is because yesterday you told me to use the exact pastel color code the customer requested. Now when I fix it, I have to start over again from the beginning. Can you give me until tomorrow afternoon?*

Less than ten seconds after the message was sent, Miên's phone rang. The name "Boss Hà" flashed on the screen like a bad omen.

"Mộc Miên, what kind of work do you do?" Ms. Hà's high-pitched voice rang out as soon as Miên put the phone to her ear. "If you work in a service business, you have to be flexible. When customers change their minds, you have to follow suit. Are you going to blame me? The company pays you tens of millions a month, not for you to complain. There's no new design on my desk tomorrow morning at 8 a.m., you can submit your own resignation!"

*Tut... Tut...*

Ms. Hà hung up the phone without giving Miên a chance to respond.

Miên slowly lowered the phone and looked up at the skyscrapers piercing Saigon's dark sky. Here, people were valued by KPIs, contracts, and endless deadlines. No one cared whether she had eaten dinner; no one cared that her spine screamed after fifteen hours in the wrong position.

She thought of her colleagues in the same room, their young faces already made old by lack of sleep. Some drank coffee as thick as juice to fight constant drowsiness; others secretly bought mild sedatives so they could nap after a stressful shift. No one dared speak out, because dozens of other applications were always waiting to take their places. The machine did not need to know who they were. It only needed them to keep running.

At twenty-four, Miên had left her windy highland hometown dreaming of becoming a creative director and designing brilliant campaigns. Reality was a dream-crushing machine that had turned her into an emotionless typist, a tiny cog replaceable at any moment.

She remembered the scent of damp soil after afternoon rain on her grandfather's tea hill, the bright yellow sunlight filtering through old pine needles, and the bowl of sour soup with Giang leaves her grandmother used to cook—the refreshing taste no five-star restaurant in the city could recreate.

She remembered the snail-shell wind chimes hanging on her grandmother's front porch. Whenever the highland wind moved them, they rang with clear notes. She remembered evenings by the fire, listening to stories about her grandfather growing coffee, and the feeling of her grandmother stroking her hair to sleep without a thought for tomorrow's deadline. In the heart of the glittering city, the memory surfaced so clearly that Miên could almost smell kitchen smoke and hear insects chirping in the night.

A tear rolled down Miên's cheek, carrying the salty taste of self-pity and exhaustion.

She walked into a 24-hour convenience store, bought a can of cold coffee and a plastic-wrapped sweet bread. That would be her dinner, and also her breakfast for another white night locked in a cramped motel room, facing the cold Photoshop software.

Miên's nine-square-meter room is located deep in a small, winding alley, where yellow streetlights shine through the iron-barred window. She sat down on the old swivel chair and turned on the laptop screen. Cold blue light shone on her haggard face, reflecting in her bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep. Her hands glided across the keyboard with the speed of a pre-programmed machine, without any hesitation or emotion.

That night, Miên didn't cry anymore. She chewed the dry bread and frantically adjusted the design layers, turning the customer's vibrant colors into dazzling shapes that hurt the eyes. She works like a machine, no longer putting any emotion or love into it.

At nearly four o'clock in the morning, when the v2 design was completed, Miên sat silently watching it appear on the screen. It is a lifeless painting, mechanically beautiful, properly composed but hauntingly empty. She suddenly wondered if this was what she had dreamed of creating. The answer appeared clearly in her mind, cold as the night outside: no. Never this.

At eight o'clock the next morning, Mộc Miên walked into the office. Ms. Hà was standing with her arms crossed in front of her desk, a frown on her face.

"Where is the blueprint?"

Miên calmly took out a USB drive from her bag and placed it on the table. Then she opened her briefcase, took out a carefully printed A4 sheet, and placed it on top of the USB drive.

Ms. Hà glanced at the paper, her eyes widening in surprise.

It is not a campaign summary, nor is it a hospitality bill.

That is the Leave of Absence Application.

"I..." Ms. Hà stammered, losing her usual authority. "What are you doing? I'm just threatening you to motivate you to work, are you that childish?"

"I'm not childish, ma'am," Miên said, her voice unusually calm, no longer shy of a probationary employee who had just passed her one-year probationary period. "I'm just returning my true value. The complete blueprint is on the USB. From now on, you can find someone else to be your 'motivation'. Hello."

Around, several colleagues stopped typing and raised their heads to look at this rare scene. Some people widened their eyes in surprise, some people slightly raised their lips as if secretly cheering, but no one dared to speak up. The silence of the whole office, strangely enough, was the most sincere praise that Miên received after four years of dedication here.

Mộc Miên hugged a cardboard box containing a few cheap personal items and walked out of the office. When the elevator closed, obscuring the surprised eyes of her colleagues, Miên let out a soft sigh.

She just smashed her rice bowl with her own hands. There is uncertainty ahead, with rent and living expenses waiting. But strangely, she didn't feel any regret. For the first time after four years of living in this city, she felt so relieved in her chest.

Stepping out of the building, the morning sunlight shone straight into Miên's face, so bright that she had to squint her eyes. Standing in the middle of the noisy rush hour traffic, she felt like a small grain of sand lost in a concrete desert. No job, no direction, just a light cardboard box in hand and an empty heart yearning to be filled with something more real.

She took out her phone and dialed a number she hadn't called in a long time.

The bell rang three times, and the other end of the line picked up. A simple, gentle voice, slightly hoarse with age, spoke up.

"Hello, are you Miên? Is it hard to work in the city?"

Hearing that voice, Miên's solid defensive wall suddenly crumbled. Tears fell freely from her eyes, but her lips were smiling.

"Grandma... this weekend, I'll go home to visit you."

"Hey, are you telling the truth? I'm so happy! Let me prepare a pot of braised fish with the sour soup with Giang leaves you like. I've even dried a few pounds of sticky rice to make sticky rice for you to eat for breakfast," the grandmother's voice was filled with joy over the phone, without the slightest suspicion that anything unusual was happening to her granddaughter.

"Yes, I miss you so much," Miên replied chokingly, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "I remember the smell of smoke from our kitchen too."

The call ended, Miên stood silently in the middle of the crowded sidewalk, letting the stream of people rush past on both sides. In her mind, the image of the noisy city gradually gave way to a blue highland sky, where there was an old tile roof and a grandmother waiting.

This city is too cramped to accommodate exhausted hearts. It's time for Miên to find her own sunshine again.