The Story of Fangguan

When the twelve girls were sold into the Jia family, they did not yet know that the words "Pear Blossom Court" were an omen of parting.

They were actresses, playthings, a group of girls whose very names all bore the grass radical. Fangguan, Ouguan, Ruiguan, Diguan… Onstage, they acted out every kind of life and death; offstage, they lived their own lives like short plays that no one applauded.

The rain in Gusu sent Fangguan aboard a boat, and the snow in the Grand View Garden buried her in the dust. She sang "The Dream Interrupted," dressed as a man, endured beatings, and knelt in the Buddha hall. She fought Aunt Zhao, protected Liu Wuer, failed to save Qingwen, and couldn't keep Ouguan by her side. She thought that once the play was over, she could live as a real person. But when the play ended, she had only truly stepped into an even bigger "pit of imprisonment."

Ouguan and Diguan made their pretend romance real, with the living burning paper money for the dead for years. Ruiguan willingly became a replacement, turning "the next life" into a final aria sung in a thunderstorm. When two theatrical costumes hung side by side beneath the intertwined branches, and the well water at Water Moon Nunnery could no longer reflect a face, Fangguan finally understood: they had not lost to Wang Furen. They had lost to a world that assigned everyone a role.

This is a novel that grew from the cracks in Dream of the Red Chamber. The passages Cao Xueqin left unfinished are filled in here, one by one.

The players in the drama became people in the snow.