Peifeng

Her Story

One of Jia Zhen’s two young concubines at the Ningguo house, always named in the same breath as Xieluan. In Chapter 63, during the mourning for Jia Jing, Baoyu comes upon the two of them playing on a garden swing and offers to push them; Peifeng tells him not to make trouble. At the Ningguo mid-autumn feast in Chapter 75 she is the one told to play the flute while Wenhua sings. The novel gives her nothing else.

In Xiang Li's Hands

Red-sleeved, both arms raised behind her head in a stretch, tall irises in blue and yellow crowding the paper behind her. A green scarf and a long apricot sash run the full height of the sheet. She is given the swing’s motion and none of its ropes — and no flute.

The Calligraphy

佩凤, upper right, two characters of a bestowed name — “wearing the phoenix” — with no surname, which is how the household names a woman it has bought rather than married.

Connections

• Jia Zhen 贾珍 — master of the Ningguo house, whose concubine she is.
• Xieluan 偕鸾 — the other concubine, with whom she is named as a pair every time she appears.
• Wenhua 文花 — the singing-girl of the same household, who sang at the moon feast while she played.

Others of the same kind · Jia household – wives, concubines, in-laws Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 · Li Wan 李纨 · Qin Keqing 秦可卿 · Wang Furen 王夫人 · You Erjie 尤二姐 · You Sanjie 尤三姐 · Xue Baoqin 薛宝琴 · Xing Xiuyan 邢岫烟 · Li Wen 李纹 · Li Qi 李绮 · Xing Furen 邢夫人 · You Shi 尤氏 · Xue Yima 薛姨妈 · Zhao Yiniang 赵姨娘 and 11 more

Named on these pages Xieluan 偕鸾 · Wenhua 文花

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