An epic, heart-wrenching story of a mother and daughter's journey to their destiny. L otus Feet. He would give his daughter the dainty feet of a courtesan. This would enhance her beauty and her price, making her future shine like a new coin. He smiled to himself, pouring fresh tea. And it would stop her from running away… When the young concubine of an old farmer in rural China gives birth to a daughter called Li-Xia, or "Beautiful One," the child seems destined to become a concubine herself. Li refuses to submit to her fate, outwitting her father's orders to bind her feet and escaping the silk farm with an English sea captain. Li takes her first steps toward fulfilling her mother's dreams of becoming a scholar―but her final triumph must be left to her daughter, Su Sing, "Little Star," in a journey that will take her from remote mountain refuges to the perils of Hong Kong on the eve of World War II. "The wealth of detail about Chinese history and culture gives this book an edge over other stories that tell a similar tale." - Historical Novel Society Pai Kit Fai has lived and travelled extensively in the Far East, in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India and the Philippines, studying Oriental methods of fitness and healing. His literary work includes five novels and five nonfiction books published in Australia and the UK, and his U.S. debut novel, The Concubine's Daughter . The Concubine's Daughter By Pai Kit Fai St. Martin's Press Copyright © 2009 Pai Kit Fai All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-312-35521-0 CHAPTER 1 The Fox Fairy A year later, all thoughts of fox fairies had faded in the minds of Yik-Munn and his wives. He did not doubt that this was what had visited him in the mustard field. If the girl child had died, the fox would have entered its body and haunted those responsible to their graves and beyond. But Yik-Munn had gone quickly to the temple and paid the abbot to exorcise bad spirits and to purify his house with due ceremony and with no expenses spared. The priests had come in scarlet robes and black caps to sprinkle chicken blood on the doorposts and hang the Pa-Kua mirror, so that unwanted spirits would be driven away by their own ghastly reflections. The Lion of Purification had pranced from room to room with choking censers of burning ash, and much banging of drums and clashing of cymbals. Ropes of firecrackers exploded among the peppercorn trees and outside every door with a din that the deepest pits of the underworld could not ignore. The Lions had collected a generous lai-see, the fat red packets of lucky money offered with much ceremony to their gaping jaws, and the temple had accepted a donation to the deity that would cause the gods to smile as one. All was well, the priests assured Yik-Munn. The fox had passed on too quickly to have entered the child's body, and the child had survived. The fox fairy lived only in sepulchers, graveyards, and untended tombs. They were no friend of the living, yet companions of the dead, with the power to become a woman of great beauty to seduce an unsuspecting man. But the prosperous and lordly Yik-Munn, the fortune-teller announced for all to hear, was still young at heart with the strength of the wild horse — one with great face for whom prayers were regularly said at the temple. He was assured that the female he had sired would bring much to him in return for his compassion. If her hands were small enough and her fingers fast, the silk-weaving factory of Ten Willows might take her. If her hands were too large and her fingers short and strong, she could be sent north to the Yangtze Valley to pick oranges and peaches, apricots and jujube; or downriver to Canton, Macao, or Hong Kong, to be sold to a rich Chinese or Parsee merchant — even to the household of a foreign devil. The prospects of profit for such a girl, Yik-Munn told himself, were many and varied. He was greatly relieved by such propitious omens. He had told his women to feed the child and keep her in an outbuilding. That Pai-Ling the concubine had accidentally fallen from the window and to her death upon the iron spikes of a harrow was certainly a misfortune, but could not be blamed upon the innocent. He had beaten Number Three for creating such a fuss about it. She also had to be locked away while his sons pulled the concubine's body from the rusty tines that had pierced her body. Waiting until nightfall to see her buried in the ginger field, he had left it to them to wrap her in a suitable shroud and choose a spot unknown to him, where the earth was soft and the grave could be deep. It would cause less trouble for his family if she were disposed of without great ceremony. Otherwise, the story that the House of Munn had been host to a fox fairy and that demons roamed the fields of Great Pine Farm would spread like locusts along the length and breadth of the river. * * * Number One and Number Two hated the child. They did not believe the priest or th