After making a small fortune, the family left San Francisco in 1896 and eventually relocated to Xinhui, Guangdong Province and then to Hong Kong.
[1] At age seventeen, after arriving in Hong Kong, Lee Hysan continued his studies at Queen's College.
Having amassed a great fortune from his successful opium business, Lee later participated in the fast-growing Hong Kong real estate market.
He initially wanted to build opium refinery facilities there, but owing to the global anti-opium movement, he changed his plan and developed the property as Lee Garden.
The assassination was possibly due to a growing public resentment of his opium business, which people believed had caused great harm to Chinese society.