Ever since Adeline was born, she had been rejected coldly because her family believed her to bring bad luck. Her father's first wife died two weeks after giving birth to her, the fifth child. Soon, her father remarries Jeanne Prosperi (referred to as "Niang" in most of the story, an old fashioned way for "mother" in Mandarin Chinese), a beautiful half-French woman. She regards his first five children, especially Adeline, with distaste and cruelty while favouring her younger son, Franklin, and daughter, Susan, both born soon after the marriage.
