Kitty Luk
'But it was Cixi's cape that made her stare: it was "made of about three thousand five hundred pearls the size of a canary bird's egg, all exactly alike in colour and perfectly round..." - The Imperial Masquerade - The Legend of Princess Der Ling Caged in a magnificent Chinese palace, imperial ladies compete with one another just to gain favour of the one, the one who can destine their life and death. The imperial ladies were like magnificent jewels in a jewellery box, waiting for their owner to one day pick them up and hold them close to his heart. Each of them were merely collections in the emperor's life, kept in the palace like a piece of fine decoration and scattered in different corners of the Forbidden City.
