Chapters 1-6 Summary and Analysis

The prologue opens with Adeline Yen describing a situation in which she and her siblings are in the offices of an attorney, waiting for the reading of their father's will. Adeline and the others are given orders not to read the will past the front page and they comply. They are told that their father's estate has no money and that none of them are inheriting anything. Adeline says that in order to explain why they are all willing to do as their stepmother, Jeanne, says, she has to explain her own ancestry.

In chapter one, Adeline begins the story of her life with the story of her grand aunt who, at three years of age, refuses to allow her feet to be bound, bucking tradition and society's dictates. The family, including Grand Aunt and Adeline's grandfather, known as...