Dream of the Red Chamber: A Corrupt Heir of the Ning Mansion Defies Heaven with the Way of the Written Word

Jia Rong, the eldest legitimate grandson of the Ningguo Mansion, finds himself in a deadly mess from the start. His father, Jia Zhen, is publicly beaten to the point of a broken leg by the old lord, who personally orders, “Drag him out and beat him to death.” Standing to one side, Jia Rong looks respectful, but silently makes a note to himself: next time, he should buy his father a few batches of potent tonics. Others who enter the world of Dream of the Red Chamber try to curry favor with the four great families and stay out of trouble. Jia Rong is different. From the start, he sends his father off to the afterlife, or rather, feeds him pills and tonics until he’s so furious he coughs up blood. What filial piety! When Lord Zhen is bedridden, Jia Rong serves him medicine day after day, while also winning the old lord’s favor. Everyone in the mansion gives a thumbs-up whenever they mention Master Rong: “The Jia family’s most filial son, a model for all scholars, the future hope of the Ningguo Mansion!” But nobody knows. Beneath the Four Books and Five Classics in his hands lies the Heavenly Chapter of the Literary Way, from beyond the heavens. As the sages said: “Writing can carry the Way, and it can also kill.” While Jia Baoyu is still carousing among the ladies, Jia Rong has already used an eight-legged essay to seize the literary fortunes of every academy in Great Xia. While Jia Zhen is still coughing blood in bed and cursing his unfilial son, Jia Rong already holds half the court’s upright officials in his grasp. Even Jia Jing, Minister of War, tells him outright, “The rise and fall of the Ningguo Mansion rests entirely on you.” The Ningguo Mansion is the dirtiest, most corrupt branch of the Jia family. Pills, wine, lust, and anger: it has all five vices in abundance. Yet someone has resolved to use the brush of the Literary Way to cleanse this household of its filth. And to wield the books of the sages as a sword, cutting through this heaven-defying predicament “What good are noble titles or hereditary privilege?” “What I want is a world where, from now on, the written word reigns supreme.”