Wang Yitie
王一贴
“The Cure for Jealousy”
His Story
A Taoist of the Temple of the Heavenly Emperor, called One-plaster Wang because his plasters are said to cure anything at a single application. Baoyu visits in Chapter 80 and asks, half in jest, whether he has a plaster for jealousy. Wang invents one on the spot: autumn pear, rock sugar and dried tangerine peel, boiled and taken every morning; if a year does not do it, drink on — everyone dies in the end, and the dead are not jealous. Then he admits the whole trade is talk.
In Xiang Li's Hands
A laughing old Taoist, white beard flying, a small gold coronet pinned into the topknot, black outer robe over pale yellow, blue-grey rock and cloud roughed in behind. In his raised left hand: a pear. She has painted the joke rather than the man.
The Calligraphy
王一贴 — surname plus the nickname his plasters earned him, brushed in three characters down the left edge, with whatever given name he had left off entirely.
Connections
- Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — the visitor who asks him for a cure for jealousy in Chapter 80.
- Xia Jingui 夏金桂 — the jealous wife whose cruelties fill the chapter his mock remedy sits in.
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 · Hexian 鹤仙 · Ma Daopo 马道婆 · Zhang Daoshi 张道士
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
