Lee Pak Hung, called 'The King' by his household because of his legendary wealth and power, flees to Hong Kong in 1924 to live in a vast mansion with his nine wives, three sisters and forty-eight servants. This book, a work of historical fiction, gives the reader an insider view of the life in both rural and urban societies as the twentieth century dawned. The story focuses on eight particular women in his life -- four concubines, one daughter, a stepmother, a sister and a servant. The perspective of what life was like for a wide spectrum of Chinese women especially during the first decades of the twentieth century. From the pampered 'misses with a thousand pieces of gold' to the impoverished and desperate waifs sold into slavery at a tender age, these eight narratives, which can be read separately, are tied together by the overall story of the King and his immediate forebears.