Red Lotus

• Anyone Can Die: The book does not hold back on the deaths and violence happening to significant characters. When even the first heroine Li-Xia meets her untimely demise halfway through the thick tome, all bets are off.
• Arc Words: "Run from no one and hide from nothing", symbolizing the heroines' resolve. These words are even engraved on Li-Xia's grave.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Pai-Ling (Beauty), Li-Xia (Brains), Siu-Sing (Brawn).
• But Not Too Foreign: Ben Devereaux is half-Chinese from his mother and was born in Shanghai.
• Cool Old Lady: The Fish, one of the few characters to appear in both parts. She is a kindly old Tanka woman who is close with Li-Xia and is the mother figure to Siu-Sing after Li's death.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Being set in 20th-century China, the story features a lot of this, especially the treatment of women.
• Doorstopper: The book is almost 500 pages.
• Feminist Fantasy: The story is about generations of women making happy lives for themselves and their loved ones amidst the oppressive patriarchal society of early 20th-century China at varying degrees of success.
• Food Porn: There are many detailed descriptions of Chinese dishes.
• Generational Saga: The story spans three generations of women.
• Generational Trauma: A large part of the novel is how the challenges and experiences faced by each woman affects the generation after her.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Freedom is a strong theme in the novel, with both heroines refusing to have their freedom taken away either by violence or by a seemingly prosperous Gilded Cage.
• The Power of Sisterhood: The book both affirms and deconstructs this trope. On one hand, female friendship and women caring for each other are portrayed as good, but on the other hand, women like the sau-hai who brutally enforce celibacy and hurt other women in the process in the name of female protection are portrayed as bad.
• Significant Birth Date: Siu-Sing is born on Chinese New Year. According to Chinese age-counting customs, this makes her already one year old at birth.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • Pai-Ling, Li-Xia's mother, dies in the first chapter, but her influence is felt across the lives of her daughter and granddaughter. Keeping her legacy alive is a major character motivation for both of the book's heroines.
  • Chiang-Wah the Fierce is mostly mentioned sparsely as a background influence and only appears briefly once, but he majorly changes the course of the story by assaulting Li-Xia and causing her death.
• Thicker Than Water: Carrying on generational legacy and honoring one's (loving) family is a major theme.
• The Triads and the Tongs: They are a constant background presence and all three generations of the women centered in this story have been threatened by them in one way or another.

  Li-Xia: No melon can be sold on a street corner, no lantern can be lit in a fan-tan parlor, no pipe can be smoked on a divan, and no building can rise without being touched by the hand of the tong.

• The Unpronounceable: Ben Devereaux's last name is considered too hard to pronounce for the Chinese, so it's read as "Di-Fo-Lo".

• Abomination Accusation Attack: Both Yik-Munn's Offing the Offspring attempts are conveniently interrupted by a white fox. This gets Li-Xia accused of being an Asian Fox Spirit her entire life.
• Abusive Parents: Yik-Munn, Li-Xia's father, after failing to get a son born, mistreats Li-Xia and tries to get her feet bound in hopes of marrying her off to a rich man.
• Acid Attack: Li-Xia gets acid poured on her face by triad member Chiang-Wah right before giving birth.
• Ad Hominem: When Ben Devereaux is indignant at the sight of sau-hai sisters trying to drown an innocent woman, his sailing master Indie Da Silva points out the European equivalent, Burn the Witch!, practiced not so long ago.
• Agony of the Feet: Pai-Ling had Golden Lotus feet; Yik-Munn tries to have this done to Li-Xia to make her a worthy wife, but she outwits every attempt until he gives up. Goo-Mah also has bound feet, but in her advanced age, she can't walk and her rotten feet stink up the room.
• Artistic License – History: At one point, Ah-Jeh mentions Koxinga in the present tense, even though he should have died in 1662.
• Asian Fox Spirit: Yik-Munn's attempted murder of young Li-Xia is interrupted by a white fox. This coupled with Li-Xia's rebellious personality causes her to be hated and feared by others who believe she's the embodiment of a fox fairy, but can't kill her lest she actually gets possessed by one.
• Berserk Button: Pebble, who was once a lantern girl, doesn't like it when her friends idolize a life serving Ming-Chou or the sau-hai. When Li-Xia graduates from cocoon gatherer to spinner, she understands why.
• Big Damn Heroes: Ben Devereaux saves Li-Xia's life as she's thrown into a river to drown.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Li-Xia is conveniently spared from two Offing the Offspring attempts in childhood by a white fox. The sau-hai sentence her to death, but Ben is there to save her. She however does not survive a coordinated revenge attack involving a triad.
• Cinderella Plot: Li-Xia is a spirited woman who faces abuse from the people she grows up with until her life is turned around by meeting a charming, kind-hearted man.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive:
  • Ming-Chou, owner of Ten Willows silk farm, routinely has workers picked out to be his sex slaves, knowingly allows sau-hai-affiliated managers to commit abuse among his workforce, and is guilty of fraudulent business practices.
  • Ah-Jeh, his second-in-command, earnestly believes in sau-hai principles of female protection, but does things like personally hand-picking sex slaves for her boss to line her pocket and beating workers who don't work well enough to the point of driving at least one to suicide.
• Cradle To Grave Character: Li-Xia's entire life is shown from her birth to her death by suicide.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Li-Xia can't afford to raise her daughter or keep her in the Villa Formosa because she's just been attacked by a triad member, and they and vengeful household staff might target her daughter next, so she instructs the Fish to take the baby somewhere far away. This means that Ben doesn't get to even see his own daughter either.
• Does Not Like Men: The sau-hai very much look down on men and believe All Men Are Perverts, which is why all their members are forbidden from falling in love with them.
• Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: The sau-hai all wear black, pin a white handkerchief to their chests, and secure their hair with distinctive combs. The only colorful things they own are umbrellas.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Pai-Ling jumps from a second-story window onto a harrow, thinking that her husband has killed her daughter.
  • Morning Star was a weak silk farm worker who was brutally beaten when she fell sick and couldn't work efficiently. She secretly wove a rope and hanged herself. The tree where she hanged has no silkworms making cocoons in it, and even other animals don't approach it.
  • Li-Xia drowns herself after giving birth to Siu-Sing and having her sent to safety.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Li-Xia accuses Ah-Jeh of knocking her unconscious so the latter can molest her while healing her and checking her virginity. Not only does the latter not deny, but she also pulls a "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization.
• Due to the Dead: After Pai-Ling's death, Yik-Munn just has her haphazardly buried in the fields. When Li-Xia is employed at Ben's trading company and has wealth and power at her disposal, one of the most significant things she does is making her father host a proper funeral for Pai-Ling.
• Enemy Mine: Yik-Munn still hates Li-Xia, but once she's directly responsible for Goo-Mah's death by bile reflux, he gains a bit of gratitude for her.
• Evil Aunt: Goo-Mah (Great-Aunt), Yik-Munn's older sister, is a malevolent old woman who tightly controls the clan's finances and rules over them with an iron fist. She is so nasty that even Yik-Munn hates her and wants her dead.
• Evil Wears Black: The sau-hai are a major villainous force, and they wear a distinctive black uniform.
• Eye Scream: Chiang-Wah tried to burn one of Ben's ships as revenge for the latter's beating him in mortal combat, but only ended up with a scarred face and a lost eye. He later inflicts the same fate on Li-Xia via Acid Attack as another act of revenge.
• Fat Bastard: Superintendent Ah-Jeh is described as a short, stout and intimidating woman of high ranking in the sau-hai society, and is a Corrupt Corporate Executive of the Ten Willows silk farm.
• Green-Eyed Monster: This is the motivation behind the villainy of some of Ben's housekeepers. They fear that Li-Xia, who has a reputation of embodying an Asian Fox Spirit, uses dark magic to gain Ben's favor and take control.
• Haughty Help: Ah-Ho is a sau-hai-affiliated servant in Ben's household. She is rather entitled to Ben's generosity and has irrational hatred for Li-Xia the moment she comes into the house, reasoning that the latter gets undeserved attention, and makes valiant effort to ruin her life. It's all but outright stated she has a hand in paying off Yellow Dragon to savagely attack Li-Xia. She is also hateful towards the Fish, a fellow servant, and uses ethnophobic sentiments against her.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Yik-Munn is a blatant misogynist who buys a young bound-footed woman as a concubine and brutally rapes her so she can bear him a son. When that fails and the poor woman jumps to her death, he abuses his daughter and tries to sell her off to the highest bidder.
• The Hero Dies: After her life goes horribly downhill in the Villa Formosa, culminating in a criminal assaulting and mutilating her on New Year's Eve night as Revenge by Proxy against Ben, Li-Xia kills herself after giving birth to Siu-Sing and instructing the Fish to take her to safety.
• How They Treat the Help: Ben prefers treating his hired help well and paying them decently to bonding them to him with contracts.
• Hypocrite:
  • Ah-Jeh, being a sau-hai member, disdains her boss Ming-Chou and thinks he's a pervert like other men, but this doesn't stop her from following his orders and picking out silk farm workers to be his sex slaves for personal profit. Also, for all she crows about protecting women from perverted men, she sees no problem with physically and verbally abusing female workers and issuing a Join or Die ultimatum to Li-Xia for rebuffing Ming-Chou's advances.
  • The sau-hai operate on a principle of female protection, but they are quick to use their expansive network to dig up dirt on and brutally destroy women they don't like.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Li-Xia strongly values freedom and doesn't want it taken away in any way, shape or form, be it having her feet disfigured or being cooped up in a Gilded Cage for the rest of her life. This is why she quickly becomes disillusioned with the sau-hai and chooses execution over joining them.
• I Know Your True Name: Number-Three Wife trusts Li-Xia enough to tell her her real name, Ah-Su, and instructs her to keep it secret.
• I Was Quite a Looker:
  • Goo-Mah used to be quite a Dude Magnet and gained connections with Shanghai high society. Now that she's way past her prime and can't walk due to her bound feet, she passes the time by being an unpleasant, spiteful old woman.
  • Little Pebble apparently used to be fetching enough for Ming-Chou to have her made a lantern girl.
• Imperial China: This part begins in 1906, meaning the first half is set during the end of the Qing dynasty.
• Impoverished Patrician: Yik-Munn's clan can afford expensive things and extravagant religious offerings, but the finances are controlled strictly by his older sister and, since they're farmers, can still fall on hard times.
• Join or Die: Li-Xia refuses to be taken as a Sex Slave for Ming-Chou and spits in his face, so he wants her executed. Ah-Jeh orders Li-Xia to either join the sau-hai or face death for her actions. Li chooses the latter, but then Ben steps in and saves her life.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: Li-Xia has to put up with a lot of crap for serving under and eventually marrying Ben. This includes racist remarks and Slut-Shaming from both her people and his at best, having her own servants pay off a triad to orchestrate an attack on her at worst.
• Marry for Love: This moral is arguably most pronounced in this part; it asserts that women shouldn't be forced into marriage, but they shouldn't be forced to remain celibate either. Li-Xia refuses all attempts to mold her into a glorified commodity to be married off for money and prestige, but also refuses to join the controlling, restrictive sau-hai. She finds happiness by marrying Ben Devereaux, a man she comes to love.
• Misplaced Wildlife: True white foxes (Arctic fox, Vulpes lagopus) aren't native to China, though the fox Yik-Munn encounters might be an albino fox.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: Virginity is a requirement for any woman looking to join the sau-hai, and those already members are strictly forbidden from getting into relationships with men.
• My Greatest Failure: Pebble is hung up on how she didn't notice that Morning Star, who was in her group, was preparing to kill herself and couldn't stop her.
• No OSHA Compliance: The Ten Willows silk farm is a terrible workplace, with poor living conditions for low-level workers and abusive superiors that straight-up beat, sexually enslave and even murder workers. Their conditions are noted to be below standard for the Guangdong province until Li-Xia with newfound wealth steps in to fix it.
• Official Couple: Li-Xia marries Ben Devereaux, but their happiness is short-lived.
• Offing the Offspring: Yik-Munn has killed his female babies before, deeming them a burden on the family, and is about to do the same to a newborn Li-Xia has a fox not appeared, making him too scared of an Asian Fox Spirit to go through with it.
• Porn Stash: Ben keeps a ludicrously gilded book that has a bunch of erotic drawings inside.
• The Power of Sisterhood: Deconstructed; the sau-hai are a network of women who provide their members with means of survival and protection against male aggression, but they're also an all-female mafia in all but name. They are used as skilled workers and secret intelligence for wealthy employers, they strictly enforce celibacy and abstinence and carry out brutal punishments upon transgressors, up to and including murder. Li-Xia initially admires them for their prosperity, safety and apparent graciousness, but is quickly disabused of this notion when she actually spends time around them.
• Psycho for Hire: Chiang-Wah the Fierce is a triad boxer who gets defeated by Ben. He becomes vengeful after this defeat.
• Revenge by Proxy: In order to put an end to a blood feud between his family and the Yellow Dragon triad in Shanghai, Ben dueled and defeated their champion Chiang-Wah the Fierce. Chiang-Wah was sore after this and tried setting one of Ben's ships on fire, but this only ended with his losing an eye. Years later, Chiang-Wah disfigures Ben's wife and damages one of her eyes as one last act of revenge.
• Riches to Rags: Pai-Ling's family was once wealthy and influential before the Boxer Uprising came, costing them their wealth and name and getting them terrorized by The Triads and the Tongs. They end up having to sell off Pai-Ling, their youngest daughter.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • Goo-Mah dies in Chapter 3, but she is the one introducing Pai-Ling to her brother due to her connections with Shanghai high society, thereby facilitating Li-Xia's existence and ultimately setting the plot of the entire book in motion.
  • Ah-Su doesn't show up after Li-Xia departs for Ten Willows except to be appointed as the mung-cha-cha's tutor off-page once they're freed, but she teaches Li-Xia about Pai-Ling and gives the former books that the latter used to keep, thus letting Pai-Ling's legacy live on throughout the story. Ah-Su also teaches maths and business basics to Li-Xia, allowing her to eventually become a businesswoman.
• Sore Loser:
  • Chiang-Wah's pride was hurt after Ben defeated him in mortal combat, so he schemes to take revenge on Ben even though the blood feud between his clan and Ben's family was over.
  • After Ah-Ho gets sacked for her actions, she comes back to cruelly sneer at a broken, disfigured Li-Xia who has just had to part with her newborn daughter. It's implied Ah-Ho has a hand in paying off the Yellow Dragon to attack Li-Xia as revenge for making her lose her job.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Yik-Munn doesn't have a high opinion on women who are the slightest bit empowered.

  One woman with brains was more than enough under Yik-Munn's roof. An educated female would bring nothing but trouble to any clan.

• Suicide by Sea: Li-Xia goes out this way.
• Tear Up the Contract: Li-Xia purchases the mung-cha-cha's contracts with Ten Willows so when the group moves into their own silk production plant, they can burn these contracts to finalize their freedom.
• Token Good Teammate: Ah-Su, a.k.a. Number-Three Wife, is the only wife of Yik-Munn's who is genuinely nice and caring. She befriends Pai-Ling and, after the latter's death, cares for Li-Xia.
• True Companions: Li-Xia finds friends in the mung-cha-cha, a group of fellow silk farm workers lead by Little Pebble. Years later, she frees them from their slave labor contracts and makes them head of their own silk production plant.
• Unconventional Wedding Dress: Li-Xia is married in a simple yellow traditional outfit.
• Villain Opening Scene: Yik-Munn, the spice merchant and abusive patriarch, is the first character to be introduced. The third-person limited narration from his POV gives exposition and reveals his not-so-pleasant views about women.
• Wanted a Son Instead:
  • Yik-Munn buys Pai-Ling from a disgraced clan so she can bear him more sons, but she ends up giving birth to Li-Xia.
  • The Fish follows superstitions to ensure Li-Xia's baby would be a boy, but Li herself wants a girl. Nevertheless, the Fish still properly protects and cares for Li's eventual daughter.
• Wham Episode: Li-Xia dies halfway into the Doorstopper book after being set up as the sole protagonist by the cover blurb.

After the disaster at the Villa Formosa that results in Li-Xia's death, the Fish takes Li's newborn daughter to her (the Fish's) homeland and reunites with her cousin To-Tze. The two name the baby Siu-Sing, meaning "Little Star". Sing grows up in the mountains and is taught the White Crane style of martial arts by Old To, but earns the animosity of Ah-Keung, his previous disciple. The two then depart for the world beyond the mountains, with Siu-Sing looking to reunite with her father Ben.

• Action Girl: Unlike her grandmother and mother, Siu-Sing is trained in martial arts. This eventually leads up to her final battle against the part's Big Bad.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Ah-Keung grew up bullied by village children, who called him "the dog boy".
• Artistic License – History: While Po-Lin Temple, the site of the final battle, is real, it wasn't built a thousand years before the time the story supposedly takes place as claimed in the text. It was only founded in 1906 – in-universe, that would be the year Li-Xia was born.
• Been There, Shaped History: J. T. Ching was gifted a Japanese sword by Hideki Tojo.
• Big Bad: Unlike the previous part with all villainous figures having roughly equal impact, this part has a central villain: Ah-Keung, who has the most screentime and is ultimately the cause of most of the hardship Siu-Sing faces.
• Brought Down to Normal: Sing duels and defeats Ah-Keung in hand-to-hand combat, leaving him alive but unable to fight ever again.
• Crapsaccharine World: The Tavern of Cascading Jewels is full of nice architecture and luxurious items that's far from the nasty meat production plant Siu-Sing previously lives at, but is still a brothel that commodifies foreign women and is run by an exploitative female Predatory Pimp who poses as a caring mother figure. Little wonder that Sing and Ruby eventually escape from there.
• Elegant Classical Musician: Siu-Sing is a graceful èrhú player.
• Entitled to Have You: Even though he terrorizes Sing from childhood, assassinates her loved ones and then deceives her into believing he's her friend just to sell her off into indentured servitude, Ah-Keung still considers himself entitled to Sing's attention.
• Establishing Character Moment: As Siu-Sing gags from the human mummy confection, Toby fetches her a napkin and tries to soothe her while Ching mocks and insults her, then changes the conversation subject to divert attention away from her. Later, when Sing works elsewhere, he steps in to fend off both Tamiko-san and Ah-Keung, even though they haven't spoken to one another before this point. These moments sell him as Sing's eventual Love Interest.
• Eye Scream: The attack on Ben's flagship leaves him permanently injured and unable to see again.
• Force and Finesse: Ah-Keung is ruthlessly ambitious and prefers brute force, while Siu-Sing believes in Silk Hiding Steel and seeking peace. This is reflected in their different martial arts styles. In the end, it's Sing who wins.
• Foreign Fanservice: The Tavern of Cascading Jewels is staffed almost entirely by foreign women. There are only two workers of Chinese descent, and one of them, Siu-Sing/Topaz, is mixed-race.
• Freudian Excuse: Ah-Keung's difficult childhood factors into his violent nature. This plays a great part in Siu-Sing's decision to spare him in the end.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Ah-Keung's animosity with Siu-Sing starts when his master takes her and the Fish in, which he perceives as replacing him.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Captain Toby Hyde-Wilkins is a kind, caring English man with blond hair.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Siu-Sing gets racist sentiments thrown her way and seen as trash for being mixed-race, and Ruby was an outcast in her native India for being born to a white mother.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Ruby lets herself get blown away by a storm and fall to her death so Sing can live.
• Home Sweet Home: Toby suggests Sing move to England for her safety, but she chooses to live in the Villa Formosa to honor her parents.
• Hot-Blooded: Ah-Keung, a villainous example. He is strongly passionate and determined, but is also entitled, prone to anger and hatred, and lacks empathy.
• I Ate WHAT?!: Siu-Sing tries a honey confection at a dinner for foreign dignitaries and finds it delicious, but when it's revealed to be mellified man, she immediately chokes and vomits in front of the important guests.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Just like her mother, Siu-Sing cleanly spells out that she doesn't want to be under the thumb of a man or a woman, and she refuses to have her body or sexuality be traded like a commodity.
• Killed Offscreen: Chiang-Wah is confirmed to be dead by J. T. Ching. He is shot dead by Ben himself.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Chiang-Wah is Killed Offscreen by Ben himself for the atrocity he commits to Li-Xia.
• Macho Masochism: Ah-Keung joins the Yellow Dragon triad shortly after being granted graduation from disciple status by Master To. He gets three burn marks on his head as part of initiation rites.
• Nausea Dissonance: J. T. Ching happily describes what goes into a mellified man as he enjoys the dish, then sneers at Siu-Sing for gagging at it. Later, Tamiko-san admonishes Sing for reflecting badly on her.
• Official Couple: Siu-Sing gets together with Toby Hyde-Wilkins.
• Opium Den: The Tavern of Cascading Jewels is the most famous opium house in Macao, staffed almost entirely by foreign women.
• Parental Abandonment: Ah-Keung's parents abandoned him at a temple because he was born with a twisted foot.
• Passed in Their Sleep: Ben dies in his sleep 7 days after reuniting with his daughter.
• Perpetual Frowner: Ruby has largely lost her smile because her face has been badly scarred and because of the crappy life she's had.
• Predatory Pimp: Tamiko-san a.k.a. Ah-Jin is the owner of the Tavern of Cascading Jewels. Underneath her motherly act and apparently providing care and luxuries for her workers is just a controlling, cold-hearted exploiter who treats the pipe-makers like property.

  Tamiko-san: You will eat well but carefully. If a doctor is needed, I will provide one. […] All I ask is that you listen and learn. Always remember that I have purchased you; you belong to me and to this house until your future is decided. Do you understand this?

• Pretty Boy: Toby is a young, fair-skinned man with "hair the color of ripe corn" and eyes "as blue as indigo ink".
• Psycho for Hire: Ah-Keung is an aggressive and thuggish martial artist who becomes a triad bodyguard.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Ah-Keung is Master To's second-to-last disciple before Siu-Sing. His sense of entitlement and petty enmity drives him to resent Master To and turn against his teachings, join a triad and finally kill Master To with snake venom.
• The Quisling: J. T. Ching, head of the Yellow Dragon triad, is an open Japanese sympathizer who threatens British military leaders stationed in Hong Kong to surrender to Japanese invasion, reasoning that this avoids bloodshed. Colonel Pelham and Captain Hyde-Wilkins call him out on intending to betray his own people. Later, Siu-Sing holds this against him, threatening to report him and send him to jail if he doesn't leave her and her family alone.
• Rock Theme Naming: All the female workers at the Tavern of Cascading Jewels receive names after precious stones. Sing herself is called Topaz, and she befriends a woman called Ruby.
• A Scar to Remember: Ruby tried to escape the tavern with a boy she fell in love with, but the two lived in poverty. When Ruby gave birth to her child, she was forced out of her home and was caught back into the tavern, where Tamiko-san beat her and left her with permanent scars on her face and body so she would be seen as unattractive and be easier to find. The sight of her scars underneath her excellent clothes is one of the things that allow Sing to see through Tamiko-san's bullcrap and recognize the tavern's Crapsaccharine World nature from day one.
• Searching for the Lost Relative: Siu-Sing's forefront mission is reuniting with her father Ben Devereaux.
• Sex for Services: Tamiko-san sneers at love, but considers sex a currency women should use to manipulate men into giving them material goods and status.
• Shipper on Deck: Ruby is aware that Sing and Toby are in love and encourages them to get together. Sure enough, they have sex about 3 pages later.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Master To dies just before Siu-Sing leaves the mountains, but he has shaped her personality and philosophy. His decision to take her in and raise her also sparks Ah-Keung's villainy in the first place.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: The Fish is suddenly found dead when she and a young Siu-Sing are going fishing. This is especially shocking as she is of the Tanka people, who have a waterfaring culture, so she couldn't have drowned in the shallow water she's found in. It's later revealed that Ah-Keung has murdered her.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Ah-Keung kills the Fish and Master To solely out of hatred for Siu-Sing.
• Title Confusion: The "creator's fault" variant: the Chinese text underneath the English title still says "children of the moon".
• Their First Time: Sing and Toby eventually have on-page sex. The former admits this is her first time sleeping with a man.
• Touch of Death: Siu-Sing learns this technique as part of her martial arts training. She ends up using it in the final battle, but weakens the strike enough to leave Ah-Keung alive but permanently weakened and unable to fight.
• Trauma Conga Line: Ben's life is a long parade of hideous crap after Li-Xia's death. All his efforts to search for his daughter are for naught: commoners don't know her and government officials aren't interested in searching for her. He gives up and leaves Hong Kong for his homeland Shanghai where he finds success selling arms to La Résistance, but then the ship he's on gets blown up by the Japanese. Badly injured and ill, he spends the rest of his days barely hanging on to life.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Siu-Sing ultimately spares Ah-Keung, partly because her master taught her that killing people is wrong and partly because she feels empathy for his tragic past.
• Unconventional Wedding Dress: Sing gets married in a yellow dress replicating that of her mother.
• Walking Spoiler: Siu-Sing herself, by virtue of being Li-Xia's daughter. This means her very existence spoils the central romantic arc of the previous part, and makes all characters first appearing in this part walking spoilers by extension.
• Wartime Wedding: Sing and Toby marry in December 1941. Everyone attending the wedding is in uniform, and it's noted that several recreational establishments have been converted into hospitals. Toby also has to return to service the day after the wedding.
• Wedding Finale: The part, and thus the novel, ends with Siu-Sing marrying Toby and achieving a happy life at the Villa Formosa.
• Would Harm a Senior: Ah-Keung feels that Siu-Sing is taking away the love and care he's entitled to, so he murders both the Fish and Master To, even though the latter has taken good care of him and taught him enough to build a life for himself.