How did Ah Chu and Ah Chi get separated from their parents?

[Ken Cheng]

Under what circumstances did Ah Chu and Ah Chi get separated from their parents, and how did they end up in the care of different parties (the Mo Yung Family for Ah Chu, and Ding Chun Chou for Ah Chi)? They were sisters, but not twins, so did they lose contact with their parents on the same occassion or separately? When Ah Chi found her parents again, had she been looking for them, or did she just coincidentally turn up at their place at the same time that her sister did?

[junzi]

I believe Ruan Xingzhu gave them away, soon after they were born. Maybe she gave them to the first person who passed by each time. Hmmm.

And I'm always curious to know how come Azi managed to reach RXZ's lake house the same time as DCZ and his men? I doubt she was looking for her parents, I presume she was simply on the run from DCQ and it is just a big coincidence.

[0-0-0]

And I'm always curious to know how come Azi managed to reach RXZ's lake house the same time as DCZ and his men? I doubt she was looking for her parents, I presume she was simply on the run from DCQ and it is just a big coincidence.

what would wuxia be without coincidence?

[Huang Rong]

And I'm always curious to know how come Azi managed to reach RXZ's lake house the same time as DCZ and his men? I doubt she was looking for her parents, I presume she was simply on the run from DCQ and it is just a big coincidence.

yeah, throughout the novel DGSD, there're a lot of big coincidences, much more than in any other novel of Jin Yong.
This perhaps because DGSD is inclined to Chan Buddhism and in this religious system, everyone has his/her own destiny called Karma which is determined by the total of his/her actions in the previous incarnation.

[Ken Cheng]

I'm under the impression that Yeun Sing Chu loved both of her daughters and gave them away only very reluctantly...but why? She clearly wasn't ashamed of having those daughters, nor was she poor and incapable of caring for them.

Also, it's unexplained how the two girls ended up with such completely different caretakers (Mo Yung F'uk and Ding Chun Chou).

[wkeej]

More importantly, when the mother gave them away, does she know the foster-parents? If so, she should unlikely be giving Ah Chi to DCZ

[PJ]

It was said that Ruan Xingzhu's father was extremely strict, such that she did not dare keep the children.

Laviathan made fun of this by saying "yeah right, so strict that he never noticed she had an affair and produced children with a married man!"

[SkyWalker]

Are they supposed to be twins??