Chuyao
锄药
“Hoeing the Herbs”
His Story
One of the boys who attend Baoyu. He has a single moment: in the schoolroom brawl of Chapter 9 he comes in behind Tealeaf with a horsewhip in his hand, and the fight goes from a shouting match to a riot. After that the novel keeps him only as a name on the list of Baoyu’s pages. The name means to hoe medicinal herbs.
In Xiang Li's Hands
Bent almost double, eyes shut, mouth open on a shout or a laugh, in a bright blue jacket and grey trousers. One fist grips a long speckled shaft whose line runs off both edges of the paper. Everything else is bare. If that is the Chapter 9 whip, she has painted him mid-swing.
The Calligraphy
Inscribed 锄药 down the left edge, low and close to the figure — the two-character work-name, no surname, the same form given to all of Baoyu’s boys.
Connections
- Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — his master.
- Mingyan 茗烟 — the chief page he follows into the Chapter 9 fight.
- Saohong 扫红, Moyu 墨雨 — the boys who arrive with him, armed the same way.
Others of the same kind · page / boy servant Mingyan 茗烟 · Saohong 扫红 · Saohua 扫花 · Moyu 墨雨 · Yinquan 引泉 · Tiaoyun 挑云 · Banhe 伴鹤 · Shuangrui 双瑞 · Shuangshou 双寿 · Li Gui 李贵 · Wang Rong 王荣 · Zhang Ruojin 张若锦 · Zhao Yihua 赵亦华 · Qian Qi 钱启 and 5 more
Named on these pages Moyu 墨雨
Dream of the Red Chamber
Xiang Li painted all 413 characters of the novel between 1975 and 1985, the first person to complete the entire cast. See the whole collection · Chinese Empresses
