Hexian
鹤仙
“The Crane Immortal”
Her Story
A young Taoist girl of the same establishment as Qinxiang, bought as a child and kept under Jia Qin’s management. She belongs to the group named when the Chapter 93 scandal breaks — an anonymous placard at the gate, an investigation, Jia Qin stripped of the post. She has no scene of her own. She exists in the novel as a name inside a complaint about a man.
In Xiang Li's Hands
This sheet refuses the story entirely. She is painted as a court beauty: red jewelled coronet, coiled black hair, a soft yellow-green robe, a scarlet sash blown out behind her, a small white cup held at the breast. Nothing about the order, nothing austere, nothing religious anywhere on the paper.
The Calligraphy
鹤仙 — “crane immortal,” a Taoist name rather than a personal one, brushed at the top right in two light characters that match the figure below.
Connections
- Jia Qin 贾芹 — the family man put in charge of the house she was kept in.
- Qinxiang 沁香 — named beside her when the scandal breaks.
- Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 — arranged Jia Qin’s appointment.
Others of the same kind · nun / monk / Taoist Miaoyu 妙玉 · Jingxu 净虚 · Zhishan 智善 · Zhineng 智能 · Zhitong 智通 · Yuanxin 圆信 · Da Liao 大了 · Sekong 色空 · Qinxiang 沁香 · Ma Daopo 马道婆 · Zhang Daoshi 张道士 · Wang Yitie 王一贴
Named on these pages Qinxiang 沁香
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
