You should go. They need a babysitter over there. The pay is ten million dong a month. Staying here in the village, you'll barely make enough to eat. I know someone who can take care of everything. Don't worry."
Linh lowered her head, lips pressed tight. The woman was a familiar face in the neighborhood—trusted by many.
She was seventeen. Her father had died in a work accident. Her mother lay paralyzed. Her little brother was only in third grade.
She had grown up in a tiled-roof house, where winters meant no warm clothes and summers meant fanning herself with palm leaves.
Ten million a month—that amount felt like a whole new life.
The night bus rolled quietly out of her poor village. Linh didn't cry, but inside her, a sea of anxiety surged with every kilometer.
She didn't dare tell her mother. She just left a small note, her handwriting shaky: "Don't worry, Mom. I'm going to work. I'll send money home soon."
…
Three days later.
Linh stood in a strange room. Cracked walls, cold tile floor, rusted iron bars on the windows. The air reeked of mold and despair.
A man stepped inside. He slammed the door shut, his eyes scanning her without hesitation—like he was appraising merchandise he had just bought.
"So, you're my wife, huh? Not bad. But listen carefully: no one's going to save you out here. Don't try anything stupid."
Linh backed away until her back hit the wall.
"No… I came here to babysit…"
He laughed—a sound that shattered every last illusion she clung to.
"Babysit, huh? You're my wife now. And a wife knows how to serve her husband."
Her knees buckled—not from exhaustion, but because her world had just collapsed.
She had been sold.
No documents. No family. No escape.
…
That night, she curled up in a corner of the old wooden bed. The door was locked from the outside. The room drowned in suffocating darkness.