Xiangling had barely finished speaking when Xia Jingui twisted her neck aside, curled her lip, and let out a contemptuous laugh.
“Who ever heard of water caltrop blossoms being fragrant? If even those are supposed to smell sweet, then what place is left for real flowers? What nonsense.”
Xiangling answered gently that it was not only the caltrop flower: lotus leaves and seedpods had a clean scent too. It was not the same as ordinary floral perfume, she said, but on quiet days and nights, or toward dawn and midnight, if one attended closely, that freshness could be even more pleasing. Even caltrop, gorgon fruit, reed leaves, and rush roots, after taking on wind and dew, carried a scent that cleared the mind.
Jingui shot back, “Then by your reasoning, orchids and osmanthus must not smell good after all?”
Xiangling, carried away by the discussion, forgot herself and replied at once, “The fragrance of orchids and osmanthus is unlike any other flower.”
She had scarcely finished before Baochan, Jingui’s maid, hurriedly pointed at her and cried out that she had dared to speak the young lady’s personal name aloud. Xiangling started, realized her mistake, and immediately smiled in embarrassment and apologized. Jingui only laughed and said it was nothing—but since the word xiang, “fragrance,” now seemed improper, she thought the name should be altered. Would Xiangling submit to that?
Xiangling answered with extreme humility. Everything about her belonged to Jingui now, she said; how could merely changing a name require her consent? Whatever character Jingui thought best, she would accept.
Jingui said she only feared Baochai might take offense and think her own naming had been contradicted. Xiangling hastened to explain that when she had first been bought, she had served the old mistress, and so the name had originally been given on that side. Later, after she became attached to the master, that connection had already changed; now that there was a new wife in the household, the name mattered even less. Besides, Baochai was sensible and would never be angered over something so trivial.
Jingui then declared that qiu, “autumn,” was more suitable than xiang. Water caltrops and their blossoms flourished in autumn; that at least gave the name some logic. Xiangling agreed at once, and from that day on the character in her name was changed to Qiu. Baochai paid it little mind.
Jingui lays a trap
Xue Pan had always been the sort of man who wanted more as soon as he had gotten something. Now that he had married Jingui, he also began eyeing her maid Baochan, who had a bit of beauty and a flirtatious, lively manner. He found excuses to call for tea and water just to tease her.
Baochan was no fool, but she feared Jingui and dared not go too far; she watched her mistress’s expression carefully. Jingui, for her part, saw perfectly well what was happening. She had already been looking for a way to deal with Xiangling and now found one.
Her thought was simple: if Xue Pan became infatuated with Baochan, he would drift farther from Xiangling. Once Xiangling had lost even that little protection, Jingui could handle her as she pleased. Baochan, after all, was Jingui’s own maid and could still be controlled.
One evening, Xue Pan had drunk a little and called Baochan to pour tea. When he took the bowl, he deliberately squeezed her hand. She made a show of shrinking away. Between his grasp and her feigned resistance, the bowl slipped and fell with a crash, splashing tea over the floor and over them.
Xue Pan, embarrassed, pretended it was her fault for not holding it properly. Baochan retorted that he had not taken it properly. Jingui gave a cold laugh: both their tones were revealing enough, she said, and they should not imagine anyone around them was a fool.
Xue Pan lowered his head and smiled without speaking. Baochan reddened and went out.
Later, when it was time to sleep, Jingui deliberately drove Xue Pan away to another place to spend the night, mocking him for his greedy, famished eyes. He only laughed. Then she told him plainly that if he wanted something, he should say so openly instead of creeping around in secret.
With the wine emboldening him, Xue Pan dropped to his knees on the bed and begged her with a grin: if she would give Baochan to him, he would do anything she wished—even fetch a living man’s brains for her, if that was what she wanted.
Jingui laughed at the absurdity. If he loved someone, she said, he should simply say so and take the girl into his room. Why behave in such an ugly way before others? As for her, what was there for her to ask?
Xue Pan was overjoyed. That night he fawned on Jingui with particular eagerness, and the next day he stayed home instead of going out, growing bolder still.
In the afternoon, Jingui deliberately left the room and made an opening for the two of them. Xue Pan at once began pulling at Baochan. Baochan understood most of what was intended and half resisted, half yielded. Just when matters were about to pass beyond recall, Jingui put the next part of her plan in motion.
She sent for a little maid named Xiaoshe’er, one she had brought from her own family. The girl had been orphaned young and was kept for rough chores. Jingui instructed her to go tell Xiangling that a handkerchief had been left in Jingui’s room and should be fetched—but not to say that Jingui had sent for it.
The girl found Xiangling and said simply that the mistress’s handkerchief had been forgotten in the room and that Xiangling might as well bring it over.
Xiangling had already been suffering from Jingui’s constant needling and humiliation, yet she still could not understand why she had fallen into such disfavor, and was always trying to mend things. Hearing this, she hurried to the room.
She pushed open the door just as Xue Pan and Baochan were in the middle of their struggle and embrace.
At once she blushed scarlet to the ears and face, turned around, and tried to retreat. Xue Pan, who believed things had effectively already been approved except in name, had not even bothered to shut the door. Seeing Xiangling stumble in, he felt a moment’s shame, but not much.
Baochan, however, was proud and sharp-tongued by nature. To be caught like that by Xiangling was unbearable. She shoved Xue Pan away and ran off at once, all the while angrily accusing him of forcing her.
Xue Pan had been on the verge of getting what he wanted, only to have the whole thing broken up by Xiangling’s entrance. His excitement instantly turned to rage, and all of it fell upon Xiangling. He ran after her, spat, and cursed her viciously. Xiangling sensed at once that trouble was coming and fled before he could catch her.
Later, after supper, when he had drunk more wine, the bathwater happened to be a bit too hot and scalded his foot. He immediately declared that Xiangling had done it on purpose and, naked, chased after her and kicked and beat her. Xiangling had never before endured such humiliation, but by now there was no room for complaint. She could only grieve in silence and withdraw.
Xiangling is driven from her own room
Jingui had already arranged things with Baochan. That night, Xue Pan and Baochan were to be together in Xiangling’s room, while Xiangling herself was ordered to come sleep in Jingui’s quarters.
At first Xiangling refused. Jingui accused her of thinking the room defiled, then of seeking comfort for herself and trying to avoid getting up in the night to wait on others. She went on scolding, saying that Xiangling’s shallow master had fallen in love with one woman after another and had now taken Jingui’s own maid, and yet Xiangling still would not come. What was she plotting? Was she trying to force Jingui to her death?
Hearing this, Xue Pan too became alarmed that the arrangement with Baochan might be spoiled, so he joined in and cursed Xiangling for being ungrateful. If she still refused, he threatened, he would beat her.
With no choice, Xiangling gathered her bedding and went over. Jingui made her spread it on the floor. Once Xiangling had lain down, Jingui kept her up through the night—first ordering tea, then calling for leg massage, summoning her again and again, seven or eight times, never allowing her to rest in peace even for a moment.
Xue Pan, meanwhile, had Baochan at last and treated the whole matter as a treasure newly won, paying no attention to anything else. Jingui bore it outwardly, but inwardly she seethed and thought only that he might enjoy himself for a few days now; later she would slowly make her move, and then he should not blame her.
The charm hidden in the pillow
After about half a month, Jingui suddenly took to her bed, claiming sharp pains in the heart and an inability to move her limbs. Doctors were called, but the remedies did no good. The family began saying Xiangling must have angered her into illness.
Two days later, a paper figure was discovered shaken out from Jingui’s pillow. On it were written Jingui’s birth details, and five needles had been stuck into the heart area and the joints of the limbs. The whole household erupted. It was immediately reported to Aunt Xue.
Aunt Xue was thrown into confusion. Xue Pan was even more agitated and at once wanted to have everyone interrogated and beaten.
Jingui said there was no need to wrong the whole household; perhaps it was one of Baochan’s sorcery tricks. Xue Pan objected that Baochan had scarcely been in Jingui’s room lately, so why frame an innocent person?
Jingui answered with a sneer: if not Baochan, then who? Surely not Jingui herself. And if it were some other person, who would dare enter her room?
Xue Pan then turned to Xiangling. She followed Jingui every day, he said; naturally she would know something, so she should be questioned first.
Jingui only laughed more coldly. If one questioned people, who would ever confess? Better to pretend ignorance and let the matter drop. If she died, what did it matter? He could simply marry someone better. In conscience, she said, it was nothing more than three people disliking one.
And with that, she burst into tears.
Her words inflamed Xue Pan at once. He snatched up a door bar, rushed to Xiangling, and, without listening to a single defense, beat her over head and body, insisting she was the one who had used the charm.
Xiangling cried out her innocence. Aunt Xue came running and stopped him sharply. Without finding out what was true, why was he already beating someone? Xiangling had served him for years with care and devotion; how could she willingly do such a heartless thing? He should first determine what had happened before turning violent.
Jingui, hearing her mother-in-law speak that way, grew afraid Xue Pan might soften. She therefore wailed louder than before and accused them all the more forcefully. For over half a month, she cried, Baochan had been taken away and kept from even entering her room, while only Xiangling had slept beside her. If she wanted to question Baochan, Xue Pan protected the girl at once; and now he was beating Xiangling merely out of temper. Better just kill Jingui and then go choose some richer and prettier wife.
At that, Xue Pan grew still more frantic.
Aunt Xue tries to send Xiangling away
Aunt Xue could hear perfectly well that Jingui spoke in a way designed to control and bully her son. It was hateful. Yet Xue Pan had already become weak before her and let himself be bent to her will. Now, after getting involved with Jingui’s maid, he even fancied himself showing some tender, yielding husbandly grace by indulging her accusations.
As for the curse figure, no one could truly tell who had made it. It was exactly the kind of household tangle people mean when they say that even an upright magistrate cannot settle family disputes. A matter of beds and curtains was all the harder for elders to judge.
At last Aunt Xue, half in anger and half in helplessness, turned on her son instead. Useless creature, she said—less decent than a stray dog. He had even laid hands on the maid who came with his wife, and now his own wife could accuse him of taking her servant into his room. What face had he left to show outside? He had not even asked what was black or white, right or wrong, before beating someone. She had always known he was a man who cast off the old for the new. If Xiangling was so unbearable, then he was not to beat her; she would immediately call a broker and have the girl sold, and then his mind would be at peace.
She ordered Xiangling to gather her things and come with her, and told the servants to fetch a human broker and sell her off for whatever silver they could get—pulling out a thorn from flesh and an irritant from the eye so the whole family could have peace.
At this, Xue Pan dropped his head.
But Jingui was not about to let the matter close so simply. Through the window she cried that if the old mistress wanted to sell people, then she should do so without talking in ways that clearly pointed at others. Were they really such jealous, sour-tempered women who could not bear the presence of another? What did “thorn in the flesh” and “irritant in the eye” mean, and whose thorn was Xiangling supposed to be? If they disliked Xiangling so much, why had they let Jingui’s own maid be taken into the room as well?
Aunt Xue was so angry she trembled and nearly choked. What kind of rule was this, she demanded, for a daughter-in-law to quarrel through the window while her mother-in-law was speaking? Was Jingui not raised in an old established family? How could she shout and brawl in such a manner?
Xue Pan stamped his foot in distress and begged them to stop before others heard and laughed.
But Jingui had decided to carry things through to the end. She shouted that she was not afraid of laughter. Xiangling, the concubine, tried to harm her, and yet she should be the one ashamed? If not, then let Xiangling stay and sell Jingui instead. Everyone knew the Xues had money and used it to crush people, and had powerful relations to back them. If they meant to act, why not do it at once? If they thought her no good, then why had they come begging to her family for the marriage in the first place? Now that she had arrived, with silver and gold paid out and even any servant with eyes and nose worth having already taken from her, they were ready to squeeze her out.
She cried, rolled, beat herself, and made a tremendous scene.
Xue Pan could neither scold nor persuade, neither strike nor placate. He could only rush in and out, sighing and lamenting his bad luck.
By then Aunt Xue had already been persuaded back inside by Baochai. She still ordered that Xiangling be sold, but Baochai smiled and said that in their household they knew only how to buy servants, not how to sell them. If outsiders heard such talk, it would be absurd. If her brother and sister-in-law disliked Xiangling, Baochai herself would keep her, since she was in need of attendants. Aunt Xue said leaving Xiangling there would only stir up more trouble, and it would be cleaner to get rid of her. Baochai replied that if Xiangling followed her, the effect would be the same: Xiangling need not go to the front apartments again, and contact with that side could be entirely cut off.
Xiangling had already thrown herself before Aunt Xue, weeping and begging not to be sent away. She was willing to serve Baochai. Aunt Xue had no choice but to let the matter rest.
Xiangling’s decline
From then on Xiangling went to Baochai’s side and broke cleanly, as far as circumstances allowed, with the path that had led her before. Yet sorrow did not leave her. She still grieved before the moon and sighed alone over the lamp.
She had always been delicate. Though she had spent several years in Xue Pan’s room, she had never borne a child, for her health had long been weak at the blood level. Now humiliation, anger, and grief were added on top of that. The blows she had suffered, both outward and inward, became too much. In time she developed a wasting illness described as dried blood: she grew thinner by the day, feverish, with little appetite. Physicians were consulted and medicines taken, but nothing proved effective.
Meanwhile Jingui went on creating disturbances. More than once she drove Aunt Xue and Baochai to private tears, with nothing left but resentment against fate. Xue Pan, made bold by wine on two or three occasions, had tried to confront her with a stick; but when he raised it, Jingui thrust her body toward him and told him to hit if he wished. When he brandished a knife, she stretched out her neck. He could not bring himself actually to strike or kill her, and after a round of chaotic noise things always ended there.
As this pattern repeated, habit became nature. Jingui’s authority only grew; Xue Pan’s spirit weakened more and more. Xiangling was still in the household, yet almost as if she were not. Since she no longer stood before them, Jingui could leave that matter temporarily aside.
Baochan turns against Jingui
Xue Pan soon began drifting back toward Baochan. But Baochan was nothing like Xiangling. She was all dry wood and open flame. Since she and Xue Pan suited each other well enough, she gradually stopped placing Jingui above everything else. Lately, as Jingui continued to mistreat her, Baochan refused to bow and yield in the least.
At first they only clashed in argument. Later Jingui, pushed into fury, escalated from cursing to striking. Baochan did not quite dare answer blow for blow or word for word, but she made up for it by scenes of wild obstinacy—throwing herself down, rolling on the ground, threatening death, seizing knives and scissors by day and ropes by night. There was no kind of uproar she would not make.
Xue Pan could no longer manage both women at once. He hovered uselessly between them until things became impossible, then fled the house and hid outside.
When Jingui was in one of her better moods, she gathered people to play cards and throw dice for amusement. She also had a peculiar taste for gnawing bones. Chickens and ducks had to be killed daily; the meat was given to others, while she kept the fried, brittle bones for herself to nibble with wine. If she grew tired of this, or if her temper was stirred, she would burst into coarse abuse and complain that if other women could find their pleasures, why should she not find hers as well.
Aunt Xue and Baochai gave up responding to her. Xue Pan had no remedy either, beyond regretting day and night that he had ever married this calamity into the family. He knew it had all come from his own moment of poor judgment. Before long, everyone in both the Rong and Ning branches had heard of the chaos and sighed over it.
Baoyu visits and is bewildered
By this time Baoyu had already passed the hundred-day period of restraint and was going out again. He once visited and saw Jingui. In appearance and deportment, she was not ugly or alarming at all; she looked like any fresh flower or tender willow among the young women, no different from the others in outward form. How such a person could possess such a temperament struck him as deeply strange, and he could not make sense of it.
One day, when he went to greet Lady Wang, he happened to encounter Yingchun’s old nurse, who had come from the Sun household to pay respects. The woman spoke of Sun Shaozu’s gross misconduct and said that Yingchun did nothing but weep in secret, only wishing she might be brought home for a few carefree days.
Lady Wang said she had already intended to bring Yingchun back for a short stay, but because one matter after another had gone badly, the thought had slipped her mind. Baoyu too had mentioned the situation after a previous visit. Since the following day was an auspicious one, she said, Yingchun should be fetched home then.
Just then a message came from Grandmother Jia summoning Baoyu: the next morning, early, he was to go to the Tianqi Temple to fulfill a vow of thanksgiving.
Baoyu, who was eager for any chance to go out wandering, was delighted and spent the whole night unable to sleep, waiting impatiently for dawn.
At Tianqi Temple: “a cure for jealousy”
Early next morning, after washing and dressing, Baoyu set out with a few old nurses in a carriage through the west gate toward Tianqi Temple to burn incense and redeem the family vow. The temple had already been prepared the day before.
Baoyu was timid by nature and disliked coming too near fierce-looking divine or demonic images. Tianqi Temple had been built in a former dynasty and was grand in scale, but age had left it desolate. The clay statues inside were all especially grim and fearsome. So after the paper offerings and ritual money had been presented in haste, he withdrew to the Taoist quarters to rest.
After the meal, the nurses, Li Gui, and the others accompanied him about for a walk. When Baoyu grew drowsy, he returned to a quiet room to lie down. The attendants were afraid he would fall asleep and so invited the resident old Taoist Wang to come keep him talking.
This old Taoist made his living by hawking medicines, peddling various prescriptions from his travels and turning a profit from cures. A signboard hung outside the temple advertising pills, powders, salves, and elixirs of every kind. Because he often came and went between the two Jia mansions, everyone knew him. They had even given him a nickname: “One-Paste Wang,” implying that one of his plasters could cure a hundred illnesses.
When he entered, Baoyu was lounging on the kang, half ready to doze, while Li Gui and the others were telling him not to fall asleep. Seeing Wang come in, they laughed and said he had arrived at the perfect moment, since he was so good at telling old stories and ought to entertain their young master.
Wang laughed and said Baoyu should indeed not sleep, in case the sinews inside his belly started causing mischief. That set the whole room laughing.
Baoyu sat up smiling and straightened his clothes. Wang ordered his apprentices to brew strong tea. Mingyan objected at once that his master would not drink their tea and already disliked sitting in the room because of the smell of medicinal plasters.
Wang said no plasters had been brought into that room at all, and that knowing Baoyu would surely come, he had spent several days smoking the place with incense to clear the odor.
Baoyu then asked him directly: people were always praising his plasters, but what illnesses did they really treat?
Wang launched into a grand explanation. The plaster, he said, contained one hundred and twenty ingredients, balanced like ruler, minister, assistant, and envoy, adjusting heat and cold, suited differently to high and low conditions. Internally it regulated the body’s origin and replenished qi, stimulated appetite, nourished the protective and nutritive forces, calmed the spirit, dispelled cold and summer heat, transformed food stagnation and phlegm. Externally it harmonized blood vessels, relaxed sinews and channels, removed dead flesh, generated new flesh, drove off wind, and dispersed toxins. Its effects were miraculous, and anyone who had used it knew as much.
Baoyu said he did not believe one single plaster could do all that, but asked whether there was one particular ailment Wang could cure with it.
Wang answered boldly that among all illnesses and disasters there was none on which it would not act immediately. If it failed, Baoyu could pull his beard, slap his old face, and even tear down the temple—only let the illness be named.
Baoyu laughed and told him to guess; if he guessed right, then perhaps the plaster really was effective.
Wang thought for a moment and admitted the matter was difficult—perhaps this time the plaster had lost some of its magic.
Baoyu then told Li Gui and the others to go out and stroll, saying the room was crowded and had become stuffy. They all withdrew except Mingyan, who sat beside him holding a stick of fragrant incense while Baoyu leaned against him.
Something occurred to Wang. He stepped closer with a grin and lowered his voice. He thought he had guessed it now: perhaps the young master had lately begun sexual relations and wanted a medicine to strengthen himself—was that not it?
Before he could finish, Mingyan barked at him to shut his filthy mouth. Baoyu, not having understood, asked what he had said, and Mingyan brushed it off as nonsense. Wang, thoroughly frightened, did not dare continue and only asked Baoyu to speak plainly instead.
Baoyu then revealed the true question: was there any prescription for curing jealousy in women?
Wang clapped his hands and laughed. That, he said, was beyond him. Not only did he have no formula for it, he had never even heard of such a thing.
Baoyu answered that this only showed the limits of his powers.
Wang hurried to recover himself. If there were no plaster, there was perhaps a decoction that might help, though it would act slowly and not with immediate visible effect.
Baoyu asked what sort of medicine it was and how it should be taken.
Wang replied that it was called the “Jealousy-Curing Soup”: take one fine autumn pear, two mace of rock sugar, and one mace of dried tangerine peel, boil them in three bowls of water until the pear is done, and eat one pear every morning.
Baoyu said that sounded too trivial to be of any real use.
Wang answered that if one dose did not work, one should take ten; if it did not work today, then tomorrow; if not this year, then next year. In any case, those three ingredients all moistened the lungs and opened the appetite, did no harm, tasted sweet, eased coughs, and were pleasant to eat. If someone went on taking them until a hundred years old, eventually she would die—and once dead, what jealousy could remain? At that point, the cure would certainly have taken effect.
Baoyu and Mingyan burst out laughing and cursed him as a slick-tongued fraud. Wang laughed too and said it was all just a bit of midday joking to keep people awake. To make them laugh was worth something in itself. As for the plaster, he confessed cheerfully enough that even that was false. If he truly possessed genuine elixirs, would he not have taken them himself and become an immortal instead of muddling along there?
Just then the appointed hour arrived, and Baoyu was summoned out again for the ritual burning of paper money and distribution of blessings. Once the ceremonies were finished, he returned to the city.
Yingchun comes home in tears
By that time Yingchun had already been back at the Jia residence for some time. The women from the Sun household had been entertained to supper and sent away. Only then did Yingchun, in Lady Wang’s room, begin tearfully pouring out her grievances.
Sun Shaozu, she said, was utterly depraved—lustful, addicted to gambling, and given to drink. Among the wives, serving women, and maids in his house, there was scarcely one he had not tried to violate. If she offered even two or three mild words of remonstrance, he cursed her as a jealous wife squeezed out of vinegar.
He also said that her father had once accepted five thousand taels from him and should not have spent the money. Now, after coming two or three times to demand it without success, he would point in her face and say: do not put on airs before him as a proper lady and wife. Her father had taken his five thousand taels and treated her as if she were sold to him at a valuation against the debt. If she pleased him or not, he could beat her and drive her off to sleep in the lower rooms. Back when her grandfather had still been alive, the Jia family had courted the connection because they coveted the Suns’ wealth and position. Properly speaking, he and her father belonged to the same generation, but now he had been forced down a generation through marriage, making the whole match inappropriate and making people think the Jias were only chasing advantage.
As she spoke, she wept so bitterly that Lady Wang and all the sisters present shed tears with her.
Lady Wang could only try to console her. Now that she had encountered such an ignorant and shameless man, what could be done? In the beginning, she said, Yingchun’s uncle had tried to dissuade the elder master from arranging the marriage, but he had obstinately refused to listen and insisted on it. Now things had turned out badly after all. Child, she said, this too is part of your fate.
Yingchun cried that she could not believe her fate was meant to be so bitter. She had lost her mother in childhood and had only found a few years of peace after being brought over under her aunt’s care—yet now it had ended like this.
Lady Wang went on soothing her and asked where she wished to stay while at home. Yingchun answered that after suddenly leaving her sisters she had done nothing but think of them in waking and in dreams. Besides, she still longed for her old rooms. If she could spend even three to five days again in her former quarters in the garden, she would be content—even if she died after that. She did not know whether she would ever again have the chance to stay there.
Lady Wang quickly told her not to speak such ominous words. Young couples quarreling, she said, was the most ordinary thing in the world; why talk of death over it? She nonetheless had the rooms at Ziling Islet prepared in haste and ordered the sisters to stay with Yingchun and comfort her. She also warned Baoyu not to let a word of these matters reach Grandmother Jia’s ears; if the old lady found out, she would assume Baoyu had been the one to tell her.
Baoyu obediently agreed.
That night Yingchun slept again in her old lodging, and all the sisters showed her extraordinary warmth.
She stayed there three days before going over to see Lady Xing. After taking leave of Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang, she parted from the sisters in renewed sorrow and reluctance. Only after much consolation from Lady Wang, Aunt Xue, and the others did she finally go.
She remained with Lady Xing for another two days before people from the Sun household arrived to fetch her back. Though Yingchun did not want to return, she was too frightened of Sun Shaozu’s temper and could only force herself to endure it.
Lady Xing showed little real concern. She did not ask whether husband and wife were at peace, nor about the difficulties within the household. She merely observed outward formalities, enough to satisfy appearances, and let the matter pass.