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CHAPTER 5 Jia Bao-yu visits the Land of IllusionAnd the fairy Disenchantment performs the"Dream of Golden Days"From the moment Lin Dai-yu entered the Rong mansion, Grandmother Jia's solicitude for her had manifested itself in a hundred different ways. The arrangements made for her meals and accommodation were exactly the same as for Bao-yu. The other three granddaughters, Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun, were relegated to a secondary place in the old lady's affections, and the objects of her partiality themselves began to feel an affection for each other which far exceeded what they felt ...

CHAPTER 4The Bottle-gourd girl meets anunfortunate young manAnd the Bottle-gourd monk settles aprotracted lawsuitWhen Dai-yu and the girls went to call on Lady Wang, they found her in the midst of discussing family affairs with the messengers from her elder brother and his wife and heard talk of their aunt's family in Nanking being involved in a case of manslaughter. Since Lady Wang was obviously preoccupied with this matter, the girls went off to call on Li Wan.Li Wan's husband Jia Zhu had died young, but fortunately not without issue. He left her a son called Jia Lan who was now just five ye...

CHAPTER 3Lin Ru-hai recommends a private tutorto his brother-in-lawAnd old Lady Jia extends a compassionate welcometo the motherless childWhen Yu-cun turned to look, he was surprised to see that it was Zhang Ru-gui, a former colleague who had been cashiered at the same time and for the same reason as himself. Zhang Ru-gui was a native of these parts, and had been living at home since his dismissal. Having just wormed out the information that a motion put forward in the capital for the reinstatement of ex-officials had been approved, he had been dashing about ever since, pulling strings and sol...

CHAPTER 2A daughter of the Jias ends her daysin Yangchow cityAnd Leng Zi-xing discourses on the Jias ofRong-guo HouseHearing the clamour of yamen runners outside, Feng Su hurried to the door, his face wreathed in smiles, to ask what they wanted. "Tell Mr Zhen to step outside," they were shouting. "Hurry!"  Feng Su's smile became even more ingratiating. "My name is Feng, not Zhen. My son-in-law's name is Zhen, but he left home to become a Taoist more than a year ago. Could he be the one you want?""'Feng' or 'Zhen', it's all the same to us," said the runners; "but if you're his father-in-la...

CHAPTER  1Zhen Shi-yin makes the Stone's acquaintance in a dreamAnd Jia Yu-cun finds that poverty is not incompatible with romantic feelingGENTLE READER,What, you may ask, was the origin of this book?Though the answer to this question may at first seem to border on the absurd, reflection will show that there is a good deal more in it than meets the eye.  Long ago, when the goddess Nǚ-wa was repairing the sky, she melted down a great quantity of rock and, on the Incredible Crags of the Great Fable Mountains, moulded the amalgam into thirty-six thousand, five hundred and one large buil...