Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume 1

Crimson wakes, realizing her fall was just part of a dream, and that Jia Yun had not come for her after all. She gets up to go sweep, and Bao-yu tails her, wondering if he might ask her to be his attendant. Crimson is obscured from view, and Bao-yu is called inside. At the same time, Crimson catches sight of Jia Yun watching over the gardeners nearby. She wants to go over but can’t bring herself to break the rules. Instead, she mopes in her bed, and the other maids pay her no attention.

Bao-yu and the others return drunk from a party, and Bao-yu curls up beside his mother to get some rest. Jia Huan is also in the room, as Lady Wang has asked him to do some transcriptions. Bao-yu begins to flirt with Sunset, Jia Huan’s most prized maid, and Jia Huan becomes deeply resentful. In an act of violence, he knocks his candle over onto Bao-yu’s face, causing a horrible, blistering burn. Xi-feng and Lady Wang both shout at Jia Huan’s mother Auntie Zhao for raising such a horrible child. Bao-yu is slow to recuperate and spends most of his time indoors afterward.

Meanwhile, Mother Ma, Bao-yu’s godmother, visits and learns about the horrible burn. She recommends Grandmother Jia create an honorary vat of sesame oil and candles to burn day and night in Bao-yu’s honor, to appease the Bodhisattva. Grandmother Jia agrees. Later, Mother Ma visits Auntie Zhao, who complains that she and Jia Huan can never get ahead with Xi-feng and Bao-yu calling all the shots. Mother Ma recommends some black magic and agrees to help Auntie Zhao with the ritual for a steep price.

Later, during a party with Xi-feng, Bao-chai, Dai-yu, and others, Bao-yu has a sudden fit of madness, crying, “My head!” (500). He “tried to several times to kill himself and was raving like a madman” (500). At the same time, Xi-feng, who had departed to attend a visitor, wields a knife in her own fit of madness, “attacking whatever came in her path” (500). Bao-yu and Xi-feng are put in a separate room together and strapped into bed. Monks and doctors visit, but no one is able to fix them. Lady Wang and Grandmother Jia spend their days by their bedside, weeping.

Finally, a Buddhist and Taoist monk appear outside the house, chanting. They are both “disreputable looking,” with “uneven legs” and “shaggy brows” (504). The monks, Impervioso and Mysterioso, take Bao-yu’s jade and bless it again, reminding it of its path: “Thirteen years, old friend, since we first met under Greensickness Peak. Time certainly flies. But you have not finished with this world yet” (505). The jade is hung above the door, and nobody is allowed to go in except Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang for 33 days. Almost immediately, Bao-yu and Xi-feng’s conditions improve.