A Sequel to Dream of the Red Chamber

This is a 108-chapter version of The Story of the Stone. The first eighty chapters are Cao Xueqin's original. The final twenty-eight take a different path from the Cheng-Gao version, using lost drafts referenced in the Zhipi commentaries as their guiding text and the poems and songs as their framework. Through close reading of the earlier chapters and careful matching chapter by chapter, the story is brought to its conclusion. When tigers and rhinos clash, Yuanchun is hanged in the imperial residence. On the night her tears run dry, the marriage between the Jia and Xue families is solemnized. Feng Jie sweeps up a jade ornament in the snow at the Prison Temple, while Qianxue and Hongyu repay their former master's kindness. Wei Ruolan wears the qilin at the archery ground, and Shi Xiangyun finds a husband who suits her, though in the end, “the clouds disperse from Gaotang, and the Xiang River runs dry”... A poem at the beginning of the book bears witness: “Every page is filled with nonsense, yet every line is steeped in bitter tears.” Cao Xueqin had already written what happened after chapter eighty. He simply wrote it on the back of the book. This time, we turn it over.