Four Treasures of the Sky is not a sequel to Dream of the Red Chamber, nor is it a piece of fan fiction. It is a novel that traces the journey of a girl named Daiyu who was kidnapped from China in the late nineteenth century, stowed in a coal bin on a boat, and brought to San Francisco where she was sold to a brothel. She escapes the brothel and finds work and friendship in a small town in Idaho. But she and her friends are falsely accused of murder and are themselves murdered by vigilantes. The story has its roots in real events. In an afterword to the novel, Jenny Tinghui Zhang tells readers that her father had seen a “Hanging Tree” in Pierce, Idaho, where on September 18, 1885, five Chinese were hanged by vigilantes in retribution for the murder of a shopkeeper. The vigilantes were...

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