Four Treasures of the Sky

Set in the 1880s against rising anti-Chinese sentiment in America, the novel follows Daiyu, a Chinese girl named after Lin Daiyu, a tragic heroine from a classic story her grandmother tells her. In the story, Lin Daiyu dies spitting up blood after learning her beloved has been tricked into marrying another woman. Daiyu has always hated her name and its association with tragedy.

Daiyu grows up in a fishing village near the port city of Zhifu, China. Her parents are tapestry merchants whose designs attract wealthy officials and mysterious visitors in plain black clothing. When Daiyu is 12, her parents vanish, and a letter months later confirms their arrest. Her grandmother dresses her in boys' clothes, shaves her head, and sends her to Zhifu, telling her to disappear and that they will communicate through the rain, a mysterious promise.

Adopting the identity of a boy named Feng, Daiyu finds work at a calligraphy school run by Master Wang, who hires her to sweep and clean in exchange for food and shelter. When he discovers she has been secretly studying by eavesdropping on lessons, he begins giving her private instruction, teaching that calligraphy cultivates character and unifies one's present and potential selves.

At 13, Daiyu is lured from the Zhifu fish market by a charming stranger named Jasper, a human trafficker. She wakes drugged in a dark room, where over 380 days of captivity an old woman teaches her English. Lin Daiyu begins appearing as a spectral figure, a supernatural companion who enters and exits Daiyu's body, speaks counsel, and acts through her.

Jasper's men bind Daiyu and pack her into a coal-filled bucket. She is shipped as cargo to San Francisco, marked as property of Master Eng and his estate for delivery to the Hip Yee tong, a criminal organization controlling much of Chinatown. Upon arrival, she is stripped and displayed with dozens of other girls. Madam Lee, a former prostitute who runs the tong's most prestigious brothel, purchases Daiyu for 2,000 dollars, valuing her English skills.

At the brothel, which operates as a laundry by day, Daiyu is given the name Peony. She bonds with Swallow, a girl who takes violent customers in place of younger girls and secretly shares her food. Before Daiyu's first customer, Lin Daiyu climbs inside her body as a protective presence. The customer is Samuel, a half-Chinese, half-white 18-year-old whose white half brothers forced him to visit. He cannot perform, and the two talk instead. Through his nightly returns, they become friends, and Samuel tells Daiyu about Idaho, where Chinese men work in mines, a possible route back to China.

When Madam Lee orders Daiyu to serve paying customers, Daiyu asks Swallow to escape with her. Swallow declines, revealing she was sold to the brothel at age six and has been chosen to train as the next madam, but promises secrecy. Samuel's half brothers create a diversion at the brothel, allowing Daiyu and Samuel to flee. Samuel provides men's clothing and a forged identification paper for "Jacob Li." They board a train to Boise, but on their first night at an inn, a gray-haired man from the train sexually assaults Daiyu at knifepoint after discovering she is female, while Samuel lies frozen nearby. Devastated, Daiyu takes her papers and leaves him.

By spring 1885, Daiyu has spent nearly two years in Idaho living as Jacob Li, working at Pierce Big Store, a Chinese general store run by Nam, a jovial man in his fifties, and his stern partner Lum. She plans to save enough to sail back to China. Nelson Wong, a violinist born in Pierce to a Chinese miner father and violinist mother, both deceased, enters her life. Daiyu is drawn to him despite her resolve to trust no one.

Anti-Chinese hostility escalates. Emboldened by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, a federal law barring Chinese immigration, a mob attacks the store and beats Nam. Daiyu rushes out to shield him, and Nelson pulls them both to safety. Nelson introduces Daiyu to William, a wealthy Chinese friend in Boise who offers to investigate her family and invites her to San Francisco to work with the Chinese Six Companies, an organization fighting for Chinese rights. Daiyu secretly accepts, seeing it as her route home.

Daiyu discovers Nelson's secret relationship with Caroline Foster, the white sister of one of his violin students, and grieves a love she can never act upon. In Boise, she encounters Samuel, now a beggar whose hand has been destroyed by tong agents; he reveals he never exposed her identity. When news arrives that 28 Chinese miners were massacred in Rock Springs, Wyoming, Nelson commits to pursuing legal action and asks Daiyu to help. She refuses, reveals she is leaving, and they part in anger.

A letter from William delivers devastating truths. Daiyu's parents aided the Heaven and Earth Society, a secret organization protecting lower classes and Ming dynasty loyalists from the ruling Qing court, encoding communications in their tapestry designs before being betrayed. Both were executed. Jasper, whose surname Eng connects him to the name on Daiyu's shipping crate, was killed by the tong after her escape, and Swallow disappeared from the brothel, likely because Daiyu's flight exposed her complicity.

The news devastates Daiyu but clarifies her parents' legacy as people whose intentions and actions always matched. Lin Daiyu begs her to leave for China, but Daiyu refuses, choosing to stay because Chinese people are dying. She traces the characters of her name for the first time, resolving to live up to its power rather than flee from it.

Daiyu returns to Nelson, and together they draft a letter in calligraphy to the Six Companies. On the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday, Nam, Lum, Nelson, and Daiyu celebrate together, and Daiyu feels she has found a family. The next morning, Sheriff Bates arrests all four plus Zhou, a Chinese man newly arrived in Pierce who is mute because his tongue was severed, for the murder of Daniel M. Foster, a rival store owner.

At the hearing, fabricated testimony seals their fate. Caroline Foster, the victim's daughter and Nelson's former lover, testifies that Nelson spoke of "retribution," implying he killed her father. The judge orders a trial. En route, masked vigilantes led by a man named Teddy ambush the transport and march the prisoners into the mountains. Daiyu briefly frees the others, but the vigilantes recapture them. Teddy demands a confession; both Nam and Lum falsely confess, each trying to protect the other. Teddy hangs Nam, Lum, and Zhou in succession. Nelson is hanged last; Daiyu sends Lin Daiyu to stand beside him so he is not alone. His final words tell the vigilantes that when their families ask who killed whom, they should remember it was them.

As the noose is placed around her own neck, Daiyu considers revealing her gender but rejects this, knowing it would not save her friends and would likely lead to sexual violence. In a final vision, Master Wang tells her she is the inkstone, the treasure that requires destruction before creation. Daiyu speaks her last words, telling the masked men her real name and declaring they will never forget her. The rope tightens and her feet leave the ground.

The epilogue is set in spring 1896 in Zhifu. A ship arrives carrying crates of bones from Chinese who died abroad. An old woman wanders the streets calling out a name no one recognizes, passing a dilapidated red building with a peanut-colored roof. Along the shoreline, a figure, once a girl, then a woman, now something else, watches the old woman and joins her cries until nothing remains but storm clouds. In the morning, spring rain comes.