Stolen Heiress Becomes Puppetry Prodigy!

The shadow puppetry master takes Pearl in when she is about five, because he is old and wants someone to pass the craft to. He was told he was buying a boy. A prostitute had shaved the child's head and put her in boy's clothes before the sale, and once the master finds out she is a girl he puts her out of the house. The two of them have nobody but each other after that, and in time he sets the old rule about male heirs aside and teaches her the whole of the shadow puppetry. Pearl was born late in General Swift's life and doted on by both parents. She was taken not long after her birth, and five years passed between the kidnapping and the sale. Master and pupil are invited to perform at a birthday banquet, where the host's wife, Yvonne Lynn, sets out to make it difficult for them, and Pearl's parentage comes out in the middle of it.