Meanwhile, one of Seng Nio's guardians, Tjin Hoe, is unintentionally swept up in the Taiping Rebellion when he mistakenly believes that he is bankrupt.

When Tjin Hoe realises that he is not bankrupt after all, he attempts to prevent his death, tracking Lauw Seng down to the Great Wall of China.

With the help of one of her guardians, Na Giam, she manages to leave, avoiding the forceful advances of the self-entitled womaniser Lauw Khok.

Tjhit Liap Seng was written by Lie Kim Hok (1853–1912), a Buitenzorg (today Bogor, Indonesia)-born ethnic Chinese writer.

[4] In his 1958 biography of Lie, Tio Ie Soei revealed that the novel was an amalgamation of two European works: Jacob van Lennep's Klaasje Zevenster (1865) and Jules Verne's Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine (1879).

[6] Lie was not the only contemporary ethnic Chinese writer who adapted European stories for audiences in the Indies; Thio Tjin Boen had drawn inspiration from La Dame aux camélias, by Alexandre Dumas, fils, in writing his Sie Tjaij Kim, whilst Chen Wen Zwan had drawn on Leo Tolstoy's Kreitzerova Sonata in writing his story Setan dan Amor.

She finds numerous changes, including character names (Tjhin Hoe for Kin Fo, for instance) and the combination of two narratives.

[11] In the foreword to the second printing of his 1927 novel Boenga Roos dari Tjikembang, the author Kwee Tek Hoay described Tjhit Liap Seng as an example of a high-quality work of Chinese Malay literature, one which was also commercially successful in its time.