When Cui Xiangguo died of illness, his wife Zheng took her daughter Cui Yingying, maid Matchmaker and others to carry the coffin back to Boling for burial. Because the road was blocked, she temporarily stayed in the west wing of Pujiu Temple in Hezhong Prefecture. Yingying was nineteen years old, both talented and beautiful. She had been betrothed to Zheng Heng, the eldest son of Zheng Shangshu, during her father's lifetime. However, due to her father's death and her observance of filial piety, the marriage was delayed.
One day, Zhang Sheng, a scholar who went to Beijing to take the exam, passed by Pujiu Temple and accidentally fell in love with Cui Yingying at first sight. At this time, the rebel general Sun Feihu heard about Yingying's beauty and led a large number of troops to surround Pujiu Temple and wanted to take Yingying as his wife. Mrs. Cui was in a panic and promised that Yingying would be betrothed to him who could defeat the traitors. Zhang Sheng stepped forward and led his troops through his friend Du Que, the white horse general, to relieve the siege of the temple.
However, Mrs. Cui broke her promise and refused to marry, making Zhang Sheng and Yingying treat each other as brother and sister. Zhang Sheng fell in love, and the matchmaker gave him advice and helped the two exchange letters. Under the matchmaker's help, Yingying listened to the piano on a moonlit night, gradually fell in love with Zhang Sheng, and finally married in private. Mrs. Cui was furious when she learned about it, but she had no choice but to agree to the marriage. However, she forced Zhang Sheng to go to Beijing to take the exam on the grounds that the third generation of the Cui family did not recruit a son-in-law in white.
Zhang Sheng lived up to expectations and won the first prize, but Zheng Heng came to fabricate a lie, saying that Zhang Sheng had married another man in the capital. Mrs. Cui believed it and planned to marry Yingying to Zheng Heng. At the critical moment, Zhang Sheng returned in time, and Du Que also came forward to testify for him. Zheng Heng's conspiracy was exposed and he committed suicide in shame. Zhang Sheng and Yingying finally got married and stayed together hand in hand.
Purpose: "The Romance of the West Chamber" breaks the shackles of traditional feudal ethics and shows the brave pursuit of free love by young men and women. The core purpose is to praise true love and criticize feudal ethics and the clan system.
- Praise for free love: Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying overcome the barriers of family status and ethics, from falling in love at first sight to making a private decision for life. With the help of the matchmaker, they stick to their relationship, embodying the purity and power of love, and affirming the legitimacy and courage to pursue love.
- Criticism of feudal ethics: Mrs. Cui breaks her promise to marry, hinders the union of the two on the grounds of feudal ethics and family interests, reveals the suppression and distortion of human nature by feudal ethics, and the destruction of beautiful love.
- Challenging the family system: Zhang Sheng was born in an ordinary family, and his status was very different from that of Miss Xiangguo Yingying. He successfully broke through the boundaries of the family through the pursuit of love, expressing his dissatisfaction and challenge to the traditional concept of family hierarchy.
- Demonstrates the awakening of female consciousness: As a key figure, the matchmaker not only facilitated the love between Zhang Sheng and Yingying, but also showed women's wisdom, bravery and pursuit of freedom, reflecting that women at that time began to awaken and dared to resist traditional constraints.