Lai Sheng
赖升
“The Warning Before Xifeng”
His Story
Head steward of the Ning mansion. When Wang Xifeng is borrowed from the other house to run Qin Keqing’s funeral in Chapter 14, it is he who calls the staff together and tells them exactly what has arrived: 那是个有名的烈货，脸酸心硬 — a famous piece of fire, sour-faced and hard-hearted. Come early, leave late, bear one hard month, and do not lose your old faces. That speech is the whole of him: a manager who measures the trouble coming and says so to his own men first.
In Xiang Li's Hands
She paints him sitting on the floor, blue robe pooling, one hand over his mouth and his eyes shut, in front of a spread of brass vessels, a rosary, an open ledger and an abacus tipped toward the viewer. The goods are painted in full colour; the man is thinking with his eyes closed.
The Calligraphy
The sheet is inscribed 来升 — the full name in the graph the early Zhi manuscripts print, not the 赖升 of later editions.
Connections
- Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 — the manager he warns his men about.
- Qin Keqing 秦可卿 — whose funeral he staffs.
- Jia Zhen 贾珍 — master of the Ning mansion, his employer.
Others of the same kind · steward / manager Lai Da 赖大 · Lai Er 赖二 · Lai Shangrong 赖尚荣 · Lai Mama 赖嬷嬷 · Lin Zhixiao 林之孝 · Zhou Rui 周瑞 · Dai Liang 戴良 · Yu Lu 俞禄 · Wang Xin 王信 · Laiwang 来旺 · Jin Cai 金彩 · Jin Wenxiang 金文翔 · Jiao Da 焦大 · Li Shi'er 李十儿 and 8 more
Named on these pages Lai Sheng Xi Fu 来升媳妇
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
