Dream of the Red Chamber

Biodata

Publication

• Luofan chooses the romance-focused story for the Heaven Dou Daily because he considers it safer to publish than works centered on rebellion or warfare 9.
• Its serialization boosts newspaper sales and helps the paper spread throughout the Heaven Dou Empire 9 15.
• Luofan refuses to change its tragic ending, arguing that doing so would diminish its value as a lasting masterpiece 17.

Story

• An installment depicts Lin Daiyu burying fallen flowers and expressing sorrow about beauty, death, and fate 16.
• Near the ending, Jia Baoyu marries someone else and Lin Daiyu dies 17.

Reception

• Xue Qinghe cries over the flower-burial installment. Luofan believes Daiyu’s constrained life resonates with Xue Qinghe’s experience of living under a concealed identity 16.
• Daiyu’s death upsets Xue Qinghe enough that she demands Luofan rewrite it and worries the ending will hurt newspaper sales 17.
• Porcupinefish Douluo is also moved by the ending 17.

Notable Quotes

“When spring is gone, beauty fades; flowers fall and people die, neither knowing the other's fate!” — a line Xue Qinghe recites from Lin Daiyu’s flower-burial poem 16