Orphaned by a tidal wave which claims her parents and her home, Ming Pei Sha is at the mercy of a world of human squalor and degradation. Destitute, she sells her body in a loveless match with an old businessman desperate for a son. Pei Sha witnesses first-hand the savage contrasts of the teeming city of Hong Kong, where the affluence and extravagance of the financiers' palaces cannot hide the appalling poverty of the slums. A city where and ancient and proud civilisation struggles against the corruption and greed of the modern age.