The Rong and Ning Mansions on North Street in Jinling—the ones celebrated in the saying, "The Jia family is no sham; white jade for halls, gold for steeds"—had been surrounded for nearly ten days by two hundred imperial guards and three hundred Embroidered Uniform Guards. They had neither searched the mansions nor gone inside to cause trouble or arrest anyone. They simply forbade outsiders from coming and going as they pleased.
For those ten days, however, everyone in the two mansions had lived in constant terror, afraid that at any moment those ferocious soldiers would receive the order to storm inside, confiscate the Jia family's property, and throw the entire household—old and young, men and women—into prison to suffer humiliation and die.
As on the previous days, almost all the important direct-line members of the Jia family had gathered in the main hall of Grandmother Jia's residence.
For example:
Xichun, Yingchun, and Tanchun, the three unmarried sisters; the brash young troublemaker Jia Baoyu, who still spent every day eating and drinking; Aunt Xue's family, dragged into this through no fault of their own, including Xue Baochai and her brother Xue Pan; Jia Zhen and Jia Rong of Ningguo Mansion; Jia He, Lady Xing, Lady Wang, Concubine Zhao, Concubine Zhou, Jia Cong, Jia Lan, Jia Huan, and a whole bevy of maids from Rongguo Mansion. Even Jia Jing had come, though he had been cultivating at the Xuan Truth Temple outside the city, refining elixirs and mercury and ignoring everything else while letting his family run wild. In short, nearly all the important members of the two mansions had gathered beneath Grandmother Jia's protection, hoping that the prestige of the family's eldest daughter, the venerable Lady Shi, would shield the whole household in its hour of danger.
What they did not