Work introduction: Cao Yong continues the forty chapters of "Dream of Red Mansions"
Cao Yongqiang, a Chinese painter of the Cao family in Xiangxiang, used his ancestral connection and half-life practice in painting and calligraphy to write the next forty chapters of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in order to make up for the remaining dream of the Red Mansion.
This work adheres to Cao Gong's original intention of "talking about love" and the tone of "great sadness", abandons Cheng Gao's traditional version of reunion, rejects Guiyou's violent interpretation, and strictly conforms to the foreshadowing and Zhi Yanzhai's comments in the first eighty chapters. With the artist's unique visual aesthetics, the author integrates the ink artistic conception of the Grand View Garden and the demeanor of the characters into the narrative, restores the bamboo shadows of the Xiaoxiang Pavilion and the fragrance of the Hengwu Garden, and more accurately captures the sense of fate dispersed by the fragrances.
The sequel closely adheres to the core of "the white land is so clean", does not create bizarre plots, does not violate the true nature of the characters, and delicately unfolds Baoyu's obsession and enlightenment, Chaixiang's loneliness and return, and the end of the Jia family's prosperity and decline. The poems and couplets in the book are all original. Although they do not seek to be comparable to the sages, they strive to fit the character's temperament and the artistic conception of the scene.
There are no gimmicks or magical changes in the book. It only follows Cao Gong's brushstrokes with a sincere heart. It is not only a picture of the Red Mansions in the eyes of a Chinese painter, but also a cultural watch that spans hundreds of years. It adds a desolate ending that is true to the authenticity of this ancient book.
