In the southern Province of Guangxi amidst the turmoil of the Taiping Rebellion and the Opium War, a woman is kidnapped and her husband shipped out as a coolie to Singapore. Yet from despair came good fortune. Seen through the eyes of one family, this is a moving story of the scourge of opium and one man's plight and rise in fortune in British Malaya. Chan Ling Yap's third novel has all the assurance of her first two successes - and more. A strong story line, deftly rendered in brief and readable instalments, takes us from the turbulence of a China unmercifully exploited with opium by the west.