张材家的

Her Story

She exists for one transaction. In Chapter 14, while Wang Xifeng is running Qin Keqing’s funeral at Ningguo House, Zhang Cai’s wife comes in to draw the money for carriages and chairs. Xifeng has the register checked, finds the entry, and issues the tally. The scene is there to show how Xifeng works — the ledger, the tally, nobody paid without a record — and Zhang Cai’s wife is the person the system is demonstrated on.

In Xiang Li's Hands

Standing in a thicket of pale chrysanthemums, olive-green dotted jacket over purple, a red hem showing beneath. Between two fingers she holds a thin pale slat; the other hand is open and empty. She is smiling, half turned. The slat is the size and shape of a tally.

The Calligraphy

张材家的 — the plain ledger formula, which suits a woman the novel only ever meets across a ledger.

Connections

• Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 — issues her the tally in Chapter 14.
• Zhang Cai 张材 — her husband; the name exists chiefly to give her one.
• Qin Keqing 秦可卿 — the funeral whose expenses she comes to draw on.

Others of the same kind · servant's wife / senior serving-woman Zhou Rui jia de 周瑞家的 · Lin Zhixiao jia de 林之孝家的 · Lai Da jia de 赖大家的 · Wang Shanbao jia de 王善保家的 · Wu Xindeng xifu 吴新登媳妇 · Wang'er xifu 旺儿媳妇 · Zheng Hua jia de 郑华家的 · Wu Xing jia de 吴兴家的 · Laixi jia de 来喜家的 · Qin Xian jia de 秦显家的 · Bao Er jia de 鲍二家的 · Liu jia de 柳家的 · Shan Daniang 单大娘 · Jin Wenxiang xifu 金文翔媳妇 and 10 more

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