As Yangzhou Salt Commissioner, Lin Ruhai had left nothing behind for Lin Daiyu, forcing her to live under another's roof at Jia Mansion.
Perhaps leaving her nothing was what truly helped her. Otherwise, when the court began its reckoning, Lin Daiyu might have faced an even more tragic end.
Chapter 102 of Dream of the Red Chamber told of Jia Rong's stepmother, You Shi, visiting the courtyard where the Imperial Consort Yuan had once stayed during her homecoming visit. After the Imperial Consort's death, it had been abandoned and left unrepaired, with only several families of caretakers living within. That day, since it was late and You Shi could not be bothered to have a carriage harnessed, she entered Ningguo Mansion directly through a side gate leading from that desolate courtyard.
Though the pavilions and terraces remained, the whole place was bleak and desolate. A sudden gust of eerie wind rose, frightening her into fleeing in panic. Once home, she developed a fever, struggled on for a day or two, and then collapsed from illness.
When You Shi's illness lingered despite several doses of medicine, Jia Zhen sent for Mao Half-Immortal, a fortune-teller. Jia Zhen had originally thought she had merely run into an evil spirit, but Mao Half-Immortal's divination revealed the White Tiger "Soul Transformation Hexagram." Anyone who received this hexagram supposedly had a hidden corpse and a white tiger haunting an old residence—a most dangerous omen.
Not long after Jia Baoyu married, Lin Daiyu died. It was said that music sounded in the air when she died, so people believed that, like Qingwen, she had become a flower goddess.
Yet while Lin Daiyu was alive, she had said, "Born, I was not like other people; dead, I shall not be like other ghosts. Without soul or spirit, where