I Entered a Writing Contest and Wrote Dream of the Red Chamber on the Spot

This book can also be read as a vernacular version of Dream of the Red Chamber.

After reading Dream of the Red Chamber from beginning to end, the author could clearly feel that both the story and the writing after Chapter 80 diverge from the first eighty chapters.

Whether Dream of the Red Chamber was ever completed is a matter of debate.

Zhi Yanzhai wrote in his commentary on Dream of the Red Chamber that Cao Xueqin died on New Year’s Eve before finishing the book, and was deeply heartbroken over it.

But nowadays, plenty of arguments have been made that Dream of the Red Chamber was completed.

I believe it was finished, but the last thirty chapters were never finalized.

Why do I say this? The text itself contains passages that Cao Xueqin revised and edited multiple times. If he hadn’t finished writing it, how could he have revised it, let alone more than once?

Weighing the evidence from different sides, the only conclusion that convinces everyone is that the book was completed, but its final draft was not.

As for how many chapters Dream of the Red Chamber had, I believe the theory put forward by the esteemed Mr. Zhou Ruchang: either 108 or 110 chapters.

There is evidence for this. In his commentary on Chapter 38, Zhi Yanzhai says that the book is already more than one-third complete.

I’ve recently read some books claiming to explain Dream of the Red Chamber, and many of their interpretations are far-fetched. That gave me the idea to write a continuation myself.

In fact, writing the last thirty or twenty-eight chapters wouldn’t be difficult.

Zhi Yanzhai left many clues, so coming up with thirty chapters would be no problem.

Since I live in a different era, I’ll continue the story in vernacular Chinese.

I’m currently planning out the final twenty-eight chapters.

To write the whole thing, I’ll first need to get the timeline straight.

I plan to work backward.

I expect no one will find fault with the final chapter.

Chapter 108: The Enchantress of Disillusionment completes the Illusion and Passion List, and the magic jade returns to Great Desolate Mountain.