Introduction to the work "Molin Tribulation": During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, Liu Molin, a scholar from the south of the Yangtze River, shocked the world with his "Duan Feng Style". He wrote a poem "Mocking the Sages" on the remaining wall of the Shen Garden, revealing the spiritual dilemma of the poor scholars under the imperial examination system. This chapter-style novel takes "ink as the blood of the literati, and Lin as the official boat" as its soul, integrating historical machinations and classical tragedy to construct a bloody group portrait of literati poetry.
The whole book is written with four poetic eyes: ink writing about character (frozen hair flutters in the clouds/blood-soaked pine smoke), forest metaphors for scholars (crazy life discussing Taoism/people's hearts are heaven), and disasters reflecting disasters (Confucius asked about fakes/surnames carved on stone). Liu Molin went from questioning the "crazy life" of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism to burning the mainstay of pseudo-history, and finally became a martyr in the blood-written "Accepting Tianshu". His fate was intertwined with Su Shunqing's Peach Blossom Pa and Jiaowei Qin, composing a poignant swan song for intellectuals in the political strangulation.
The novel uses the gray line technique of "A Dream of Red Mansions" to refine the "broken edge pen" from a frozen trauma tool into a "people's heart pen"; using the image reincarnation of "The Peach Blossom Fan", the token of love is transformed into a banner of uprising for all people. Interspersed with literati gatherings such as Lanting Debate and Bingxi Poetry Competition, it incorporates fictional historical facts such as "Yi" passed down by Lu Liuliang's orphan and the journals written by Pu Songling's ghost friends, and explores the continuation code of cultural bloodline in the historical folds.
When Liu Molin's remains were buried next to Shi Kefa's tomb, and when "The Tribulation of Ten Thousand Surnames" sank into the lake and turned into a folk fisherman's song, the work completed its transformation from an individual tragedy to a cultural epic. This is not a simple confrontation between good and evil, but a civilized elegy composed with poetry, wine, harp and chess - where the ink tribulation burned out, the glimmer of the immortal soul of the Han Dynasty can be seen.
