I'm blind. Today, from the perspective of a modern, goofy loser like me, let me chatter about the timeless masterpiece Dream of the Red Chamber. My words have to carry a little cumin scent from a street barbecue stand. The goofier, the tastier.
Just picture it: a blind loser squatting at a night-market stall, holding a grilled kidney in his left hand and feeling for a bottle of booze with his right, while trying to savor the words of Dream of the Red Chamber. Doesn't that scene feel wonderfully down-to-earth?
People ask me, after all these years, why I still can't forget your Dream of the Red Chamber. Well, no matter how beautiful the spring breeze is, can it compare with the "fussy yet spirited" beauty of your words? Maybe I've been bewitched, but I just want to catch the passing wind and turn falling peach blossoms into fluttering moths... no, butterflies, so they can land in "Song of the Burial of Flowers" and pay their respects to Lin Daiyu.
When I turn around suddenly, that little longing hidden in "Elegy for the Hibiscus Maiden" is still crouching in the fading glow, like the embers left after a barbecue stand closes, quietly waiting for someone to add another log.
The world's sea of books stretches on and on, but you're the one I love most. The camel bells beneath a desert sunset? That's the "distant land" you wrote about. The tune of a pipa played in an old castle? That's the "sorrow" you tucked away. In my heart, you're the one who weighs the most. Today I cry over you with a long face, like I've lost my last skewer of grilled tendon. Tomorrow I'll laugh foolishly over you, as if I'm drinking free beer. All my life's stubborn pride is yours.
With this book in hand, I slap the table and ask: who in this world is the ultimate masterpiece? It can only be you! Even the sesame seeds that fall while I'm eating barbecue can mingle with the warmth in your words and become fragrant!
