Liu Wu'er

Her Story

Daughter of Mrs Liu 柳家的, cook to the Garden kitchen. Delicate from childhood and set on a place in Baoyu’s rooms. In Chapter 61 she is caught at night carrying home a packet of powdered poria 茯苓霜 given her by a relative at the gate, is accused of theft, and is held until Ping’er unpicks the case and lets her go. The first eighty chapters then report her dead of illness; the last forty return her to Baoyu’s service, one of the novel’s plainest seams.

In Xiang Li's Hands

A purple half-jacket over a yellow-flowered robe and a jade-green skirt, one hand cupped at her cheek, her hair blown sideways in wet grey ink. Nothing behind her but paper. The girl the household called sickly is painted upright, well, and expensively dressed.

The Calligraphy

The sheet gives 柳五儿 — surname plus a birth-order name, the whole of what the household ever called her.

Connections

• Mrs Liu 柳家的 — her mother, cook to the Garden kitchen.
• Ping’er 平儿 — takes the theft accusation apart and clears her.
• Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — the post she wanted at Green Delights, and served in at last.

Others of the same kind · maid – Baoyu (Green Delights / 怡紅院) Qingwen 晴雯 · Xiren 袭人 · Sheyue 麝月 · Xiaohong 小红 · Qiuwen 秋纹 · Bihen 碧痕 · Tanyun 檀云 · Qixian 绮霰 · Qianxue 茜雪 · Huixiang 蕙香 · Jiahui 佳蕙 · Zhui'er 坠儿 · Liang'er 良儿 · Chunyan 春燕 and 1 more

Named on these pages Liu jia de 柳家的

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