Jia Chen is the eldest legitimate grandson of the Rongguo Mansion, the son of Wang Xifeng, and Qiaojie's younger brother.
From the moment he was born, he could smile. His great-grandmother, Jia Mu, studied his face for a long while before suddenly bursting into tears. The child's features looked so much like those of her late husband, Jia Yuan, the first Duke of Rongguo. From then on, she kept him on her lap and would never let him go. His grandmother, Lady Xing, and his great-aunt, Lady Wang, rarely agreed on anything, but they competed to make him clothes and shoes. His cousin-uncle Baoyu loved carrying him to the Green Delights Lodge, dangling the Spiritual Jade to make him grab for it. He joked that among all the little monkeys in the household, only this one deserved to taste the rouge he made himself. His cousin-aunt Lin Daiyu was usually aloof, but she smiled more when she saw him. She peeled lotus seeds for him with her own hands and taught him to recite, “Leave the withered lotus to listen to the rain.”
When Wang Xifeng took her son along as she handled the household affairs, the maids and matrons no longer dared to slack off. In private, they all said, “Now the Second Mistress can finally hold her head high.”
The Rongguo Mansion remained grand and prosperous, flourishing like flowers brocaded upon brocade. And the child whom everyone held in the palm of their hand was quietly mending, one by one, the cracks that foretold the family’s downfall.
