diff --git a/R/lzstringr-package.R b/R/lzstringr-package.R
index 63d9415..ca92989 100644
--- a/R/lzstringr-package.R
+++ b/R/lzstringr-package.R
@@ -3,11 +3,38 @@
 ## usethis namespace: end
 NULL
 
+decode_utf16_surrogate <- function(values) {
+  # Initialize an empty character vector to store decoded characters
+  decoded_chars <- character()
+  # Function to decode surrogate pairs
+  decode_surrogates <- function(high, low) {
+    # Calculate the Unicode code point from surrogate values
+    # Formula: 0x10000 + (high - 0xD800) * 0x400 + (low - 0xDC00)
+    code_point <- 0x10000 + (high - 0xD800) * 0x400 + (low - 0xDC00)
+    # Convert the Unicode code point to a character
+    intToUtf8(code_point)
+  }
+  i <- 1
+  while (i <= length(values)) {
+    if (values[i] < 0xD800 || values[i] > 0xDBFF) {  # Not a high surrogate
+      # Direct conversion for regular characters (like space)
+      decoded_chars <- c(decoded_chars, intToUtf8(values[i]))
+      i <- i + 1
+    } else {
+      # Decode surrogate pairs
+      decoded_chars <- c(decoded_chars, decode_surrogates(values[i], values[i + 1]))
+      i <- i + 2
+    }
+  }
+  # Combine into a single string
+  paste(decoded_chars, collapse = "")
+}
+
 safe_compress <- function(string, f) {
   string <- enc2utf8(string)
   string <- iconv(string, from="UTF-8", to="UTF-16", toRaw=TRUE)[[1]]
   result <- f(string)
-  chr_result <- rawToChar(as.raw(result))
+  chr_result <- decode_utf16_surrogate(result)
   Encoding(chr_result) <- "UTF-8"
   chr_result
 }
@@ -16,7 +43,8 @@ safe_decompress <- function(string, f) {
   string <- enc2utf8(string)
   string <- iconv(string, from="UTF-8", to="UTF-16", toRaw=TRUE)[[1]]
   result <- f(string)
-  chr_result <- intToUtf8(result)
+  chr_result <- decode_utf16_surrogate(result)
+  Encoding(chr_result) <- "UTF-8"
   chr_result
 }