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Siu-Sing is the second protagonist of 2009 historical fiction novel Red Lotus (first published in the US as The Concubine's Daughter). She briefly appears at the end of Part One: Children of the Moon and is the lead character of Part Two: Red Lotus.
Biography[]
Part One: Children of the Moon[]
Siu-Sing is mixed-race, born to Li-Xia and Ben Devereaux. Li-Xia gives birth to her shortly after being attacked by Chiang-Wah, then entrusts her housekeeper the Fish to take the baby to safety before committing suicide.
Part Two: Red Lotus[]
Siu-Sing is taken to the Fish's hometown, where she is then raised by the Fish and her cousin To-Tze. To-Tze takes her as a martial arts disciple and teaches her the White Crane style. This causes her to be resented by Ah-Keung, To-Tze's previous disciple, for supposedly replacing him. Ah-Keung secretly murders both the Fish and To-Tze to spite Sing.
Sing and Ah-Keung then leave for Macao, where Ah-Keung sells her into indentured servitude at the House of Double Happiness, a meat processing plant, under the guise of being her friend. Sing then arranges to get herself sold into the Tavern of Cascading Jewels, a famous opium house staffed almost entirely by foreign women and run by a Japanese woman named Tamiko-san. While working as a pipe-maker for the tavern, she befriends Ruby, an Indian pipe-maker, and is introduced to Toby Hyde-Wilkins, a British military commander. She discovers that Ah-Keung, now a Yellow Dragon triad member, is the personal bodyguard of the triad's head.
Siu-Sing and Ruby eventually escape the tavern; they and Toby travel together to help Sing find her father Ben Devereaux. During this time, Sing and Toby fall in love. Ruby dies in a storm.
Sing is harassed on multiple occasions by Ah-Keung and eventually faces off against him in a duel. Sing defeats Ah-Keung, leaving him incapable of combat. She then finally reunites with her father Ben, now grievously injured and terminally ill, shortly before he dies. She marries Toby and moves into her parents' old house in Hong Kong.