Tseng P’u’s novel A Flower in the Sea of Sins was begun by Chin Sung-ts’en, who wrote the first custom college essay six chapters, two of which were published in the magazine Chiang-su (Kiangsu; 1903–1904). Tseng P’u took over the project in 1904, and the first two volumes of the novel, ten chapters each, were published in Shanghai in 1905 custom college essays by the Grove of Fiction publishing company. Four more chapters of the projected third volume were published serially in 1907 in The Grove of Fiction, college essay but a complete third volume never appeared. In 1928 Tseng P’u substantially revised his work and published it in a thirty-chapter version. As in the case of Liu O’s novel discussed above, the prolog foretells the theme of the whole novel by a synecdoche: the Island of Happy Slaves attached to Shanghai is sinking into the sea, but its reveling, savage, and ignorant inhabitants perish without realizing that the cause of their death is lack of fresh air. The novel vividly describes the life of China’s high society in Peking and Shanghai during the last quarter of the nineteenth century,college essays while its destiny is symbolically linked to the fate of Chin Wen-ch’ing, a high official who falls into a fateful liaison with the sing-song girl Fu Ts’ai-yün, later his concubine. The novel is skillfully organized along the pattern of retribution for misdeeds (nieh), which permeates several levels of the novel. This repetitive pattern is first introduced by an episode in which Chin breaks a custom writing promise of marriage, leading the rejected young woman to commit suicide. When Chin becomes infatuated with Fu Ts’ai-yün twenty years later, she, the image of the dead woman, will inevitably be responsible for his downfall. Chin’s life as a successful and enlightened official at the court is one of splendor and riches, but during his diplomatic mission to Europe, he turns into a bungling minister out of step with the college essay help world outside China, is cheated by his mistress, makes disastrous diplomatic mistakes, and, shortly after his return to China, falls into disgrace and dies abandoned by all. The title compresses several custom college essay semantic levels of the novel by the polysemy of the word hua (flower), which can be also used for “woman” as well as for “China” (by means of a semantically closely related homophone).