周瑞之女

Her Story

Chapter 7. She is the daughter of Zhou Rui and Zhou Rui’s wife, and she is married to Leng Zixing, the antique dealer — Jia Yucun’s friend, the man who explains the Rong house to the reader in Chapter 2.

She comes back to her parents’ place of service dressed for calling, waits half a day, pays her respects to the old lady on her own account, and finally catches her mother in the covered passage. Her husband, she says, drank too much, quarrelled, and someone has laid a complaint that his origins are doubtful; the yamen wants him deported to his native place. Which of the family should be approached? Go home and wait, her mother says — this is nothing. That evening it goes to Xifeng, and it is nothing.

In Xiang Li's Hands

Bare paper, no room, no garden. She stands three-quarters on with the ghost of a smile, hair in a high knot, blue drops at the ears: olive-grey jacket over rust orange, a mauve skirt figured with lotus, a long blue sash trailing well past her feet. Nothing anxious in her. She is painted as the well-dressed married daughter who knows the favour will be granted.

The Calligraphy

周瑞之女 — “Zhou Rui’s daughter”, four characters at the top right: her father’s name in the possessive, though it is her mother’s influence the whole scene turns on.

Connections

• Zhou Rui 周瑞 — her father, steward to Wang Furen.
• Zhou Rui Jia De 周瑞家的 — her mother, whom she comes to ask for help.
• Leng Zixing 冷子兴 — her husband, the antique dealer facing deportation.
• Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 — settles the matter that evening without effort.
• Jia Yucun 贾雨村 — her husband’s friend, from the novel’s opening chapters.

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