Liu Xianglian
柳湘莲
“The Cold Second Gentleman”
His Story
Liu Xianglian belongs to no household in the book. He is 世家子弟, the son of an old family, orphaned and unattached, handsome, and given equally to sword-play, gambling, wine and the amateur stage, where he takes the romantic young-man and young-woman roles. That last accomplishment nearly kills Xue Pan. In Chapter 47 Xue Pan mistakes an amateur for a professional and a professional for a purchasable boy, and Liu Xianglian lures him out beyond the north gate to a reed marsh, whips him thirty or forty strokes and drags him face down through the mud. Then he leaves the capital rather than face the Xue family.
They are reconciled on the road. Chapter 66 opens with Xue Pan’s account of being set upon by bandits near Pingan and rescued by Liu Xianglian; the two have bowed as sworn brothers. Xue Pan proposes a match — You Sanjie, sister to Jia Lian’s second wife, who has refused every other man and sworn she will have Liu Xianglian or take the tonsure. Liu sends his family heirloom as the betrothal token: the 鸳 鸯剑, one sheath holding two joined blades, one graven 鸳 and one 鸯, drake and duck.
Then he asks Baoyu what sort of house he is marrying into, and hears enough. 你们 东府里除了那两个石头狮子干净，只怕连猫儿狗儿都不干净 — in your eastern mansion nothing is clean but the two stone lions at the gate. He goes back for the sword. You Sanjie hears him ask for it, draws the female blade in front of him and cuts her own throat: 揉碎桃花红满地，玉山倾倒再难扶.
He weeps over her, sees her once more, and wakes in a ruined temple where a lame Taoist sits picking lice. He draws the male blade, 将万根烦恼丝一挥而尽 — cuts off at a stroke the ten thousand threads of care — and goes with the Taoist. Nobody in the novel sees him again.
In Xiang Li's Hands
The most violent sheet here. He is seated, stripped to the waist, the black robe fallen round his hips in wet slabs of ink lined red and blue. The straight sword is out of its scabbard, laid diagonally across his body, the blade left as bare paper, a long red tassel spilling at the lower left. Behind him is a temple wall: a seated Buddha in pale gold line, a lotus throne, combed cloud scrolls. She puts the sword and the monastery in one frame — the whole of Chapter 66 — and gives him the only hostile face in the group.
The Calligraphy
柳湘莲 runs down the top left in three characters, in the clear space beside the Buddha’s head, with the seal directly beneath it — the only sheet here to set the name on the left. It is the full name, surname and both characters of the personal name; the chapter title calls him 冷二郎, the cold second gentleman, and the inscription declines the nickname. The brush is broader and blunter than the young women’s sheets receive.
Connections
- You Sanjie 尤三姐 — betrothed to him on the strength of the sword, and dead by it when he takes it back.
- Xue Pan 薛蟠 — the man he beats in Chapter 47 and swears brotherhood with in Chapter 66.
- Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — his friend, and the one who tells him what the Ning household is like.
- Jia Lian 贾琏 — brother-in-law to You Sanjie and the go-between for the betrothal.
- The lame Taoist 跛足道人 — the beggar-priest in the ruined temple whom he follows out of the book.
Others of the same kind · outsider – townsfolk, tenants, tradespeople Jiang Yuhan 蒋玉菡 · Liu Laolao 刘姥姥 · Wang Gou'er 王狗儿 · Liu Shi 刘氏 · Ban'er 板儿 · Qing'er 青儿 · Feng Yuan 冯渊 · Ni Er 倪二 · Bu Shiren 卜世仁 · Yinjie 银姐 · Fang Chun 方椿 · Shi Daizi 石呆子 · Yun'er 云儿 · Wu Liang 吴良 and 4 more
Named on these pages You Sanjie 尤三姐 · Xue Pan 薛蟠 · Zhang Dehui 张德辉 · Bozu Daoren 跛足道人
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
