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A timeless novel inspired by the legendary real-life Chinese courtesan Sai Jinhua, an extraordinary woman who bridged two worlds in the twilight decades of the Qing dynasty, a tumultuous era of East meets West The year is 1881. Seven-year-old Jinhua is left an orphan, alone and unprotected after her mandarin father's summary execution for the crime of speaking the truth. For seven silver coins, she is sold to a brothel-keeper and subjected to the worst of human nature. Will the private ritual that is her father's legacy and the wise friendship of the crippled brothel maid be enough to sustain her? When an elegant but troubled scholar takes Jinhua as his concubine, she enters the close world of his jealous first wife. Yet it is Jinhua who accompanies him - as emissary to the foreign devil nations of Prussia, Austria-Hungary, and Russia - on an exotic journey to Vienna.