Aunt Lin of Dream of the Red Chamber

In Lin Daiyu's eyes, her aunt Lin Yan was an inscrutable person. Her aunt treated her differently from everyone else: never warm or polite, but possessed of a cool, natural grace. Her aunt was literate, yet liked to use a pencil to write characters with missing strokes. Her aunt had a wonderfully inventive mind and was especially good at cooking delicious dishes from Dream of the Red Chamber. "Aunt, in your dream you said you were looking for a divine eagle. What kind of bird is it?" "A lunatic," Lin Yan sighed, stroking little Daiyu's cheek. "But one who holds the happiness of both you and me in their hands." This story is also known as The Search for Family. "Aunt, I miss my parents," Lin Daiyu, blessed with peerless beauty, sobbed in her arms. "Don't be afraid. Your aunt is here." Lin Yan remembered Jia Min's request: to raise Daiyu to "press straight ahead and be blessed with both wisdom and good fortune." This story is also known as The Orphan Girl's Struggle. "Aunt, I drew the hibiscus flower lot. Yun'er got the begonia, and Third Sister got the apricot blossom." "What does that remind you of?" Remembering the cave of a thousand reds and the cup of ten thousand beauties, she smiled among the flowers. This story is also known as Among the Flowers. "Aunt, are we really going to live in the Grand View Garden?" "Don't you like it?" "I don't mind the rest," Daiyu said shyly, "but Sister Bao is quite something." Sister Bao, or Brother Bao? This story is also called Metamorphosis. The rock gardens of Ge Garden, the beginning of it all. Fate willed it so. Since this is a Record of the Stone, even the fairy's elaborate calculations are in vain. "You insist on opposing me. Aren't you afraid I'll strike your name from the register?" Lin Yan smiled. With a wok in her left hand and a ladle in her right, she was the very picture of "Buddha blocks the way, so kill Buddha." When all is said and done, this is a story about cooking.