Love in a Fallen City

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses drug abuse, domestic violence, commercial sexual exploitation of children, and suicide.

Ge Weilong is the protagonist of the novella “Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier.” She is described as blandly pretty with somewhat old-fashioned features and pale skin. Weilong is the niece of the story’s antagonist, Madame Liang, who is the former concubine of a wealthy businessman. At the beginning of the story, Weilong is a shy and innocent girl who is focused on her studies. After three months in her aunt’s house, Weilong has seemingly abandoned her studies and instead taken up sex work as a consort; her aunt encourages this as a method of satisfying her material desires for wealth and her desires for love. This transformation is illustrated in her acceptance of gifts from wealthy men. One night after a party, businessman Situ Xie gifts both Weilong and her aunt large, cuff-like diamond bracelets, symbolic of both the wealth and the control and restrictions that life as an escort entails. Weilong tries to refuse the gift, but her aunt forces her to accept. Later, as an engagement gift, Weilong’s future father-in-law, Sir Cheng Qiao, gives Weilong “a wristwatch of white gold inlaid with diamonds” (72).