Xieluan

Her Story

Jia Zhen’s other young concubine. The novel almost never gives her a sentence of her own — she is “Peifeng and Xieluan”, a pair, in the Ningguo household lists and at the mid-autumn feast of Chapter 75. Her one scene is the swing in the garden in Chapter 63, during the mourning for Jia Jing, when Baoyu offers to push the two of them and is waved off. Her name means companion to the luan-bird, mate to Peifeng’s phoenix.

In Xiang Li's Hands

Here is the swing. She holds the rope in her raised right hand, body swung sideways, a red sash streaming off the sheet, a plum robe dotted with small red blossoms. Thin dry hair-lines rake the background like wind. Of the pair, she is the one given the motion.

The Calligraphy

偕鸾, upper right, two characters — “paired with the luan” — a name that only finishes itself when Peifeng’s is beside it.

Connections

• Jia Zhen 贾珍 — master of the Ningguo house, whose concubine she is.
• Peifeng 佩凤 — the other concubine; the two are never named apart.
• You Shi 尤氏 — Jia Zhen’s wife, in whose household she lives.

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 Peifeng 佩凤 · 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