June, now widely read, fixates on hostile online reviews and threads. She vents to industry friends Marnie Kimball and Jen Walker, who urge her not to read reviews and to ignore trolls. Despite their advice, June keeps doomscrolling, tracking every barb to gauge reputational damage.

Major critiques pile up: Adele Sparks-Sato’s review in the Los Angeles Review of Books labels The Last Front an exploitative, missionary-glorifying historical. A YouTube takedown by Kimberly Deng catalogs cultural errors and mocks a controversial scene. Xiao Chen’s Substack attacks the book and June’s motives. The focal point of outrage is an added scene where Annie Waters allows a Christmas kiss, spawning the “Annie Waters” meme.

June privately rehearses rebuttals, marshalling facts to counter claims of inauthenticity and simplification. She frames conversion and interethnic conflict as historically plausible and seethes at being policed by identity rather than craft. She resolves to project calm and authority in public.

At a Cambridge bookstore event packed with students, a Chinese American audience member asks why a white writer should profit from Chinese histories. June delivers a prepared defense: literature as empathy, research over identity gatekeeping, and opposition to censorship. The room offers modest applause; she moves on to safer questions.

A flashback recalls a Korean War exhibit visit with Athena Liu. June watches Athena meticulously harvest tragic details, interview an elderly veteran, and convert others’ pain into material. Concluding that Athena profited from suffering despite privilege and distance, June uses this memory to rationalize her own choices and authorship.