(Unabridged 15 CD set. the story starts out with little orchid accompanying her family to peking with her dead father. they hope to bring him to the capitol and bury him there but they are poor and helpless and eventually have to abandon him so that they can continue on to an uncle's house to live. in peking, orchid finds a job working for a shoe cobbler, a large woman who used to sit court in the forbidden city and is now married to a eunuch. she fills orchid's head with tales of court life and when the grand empress calls for young manchu women to come to auditions to be the next wife of the emperor, orchid steals the show.

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