Chapter 2 Gossip About the Rich and Poweful

Let's kick off with this poem from the source material that kind of sets the stage. A game whose win-loss is hard to predict. When scent and tea are gone, yet still we pause. To know the present omen of rise and fall, one must ask the Kool-Aid bystander. That phrase, the Kool-Aid bystander, that's basically us today, right? We're trying to take that step back, look closely, and figure out, you know, why some people crash and burn so spectacularly, while others just seem to, well, look into success. Exactly. How success can just vanish overnight, and how pure luck, maybe unearned luck, can shoot someone from, well, nowhere into the nobility. You know, the Viggear right at the center of all this chaos, this really ambitious, but deeply flawed official, Jia Yuqin. Right. Which brings us right to the very strange destiny of Zhao Jing. Ah, the servant girl buying thread. The same one he saw. The very same. And apparently she was the one who glanced back at him years before, when he was just a poor scholar. A tiny moment. But the sources call it a strange destiny. Qi Yun. Q-N. So, like, faded, extraordinary luck. Exactly. It implies something unusual, maybe unexplainable. Some kind of destined connection or fortune. So Yuqin, you know, needs a wife, a base. He remembers her, leverages that fleeting glance, sends a secret letter asking for Zhao Jing as his secondary wife, his concubine. A secret letter. Sounds very transactional. Oh, completely. The sources make it clear. Feng Tzu. He's apparently delighted. Quickly packs her off in a small sedan chair. It's less about romance and more about, you know, an opportunity for her family to connect with an official. It's social climbing, basically. You could say that. But the outcome for Zhao Jing herself is just, wow. Her rise is unbelievably fast. It really drives home how arbitrary fortune can be. Within just one year of becoming his concubine, she gives him a son. A son. Which, for a concubine, is like hitting the jackpot, right? Security-wise. Absolutely. That secures her place more than anything else. But then fate, or maybe just random chance, steps in again. Only six months after the son is born, Yuqin's first wife, his official wife, suddenly gets sick and dies. No way. Just like that. Just like that. And Yuqin immediately promotes Zhao Xing. She becomes the first wife, the official late- Yeah, that timeline is crazy. But let me get this straight. She goes from being a servant girl he barely noticed, to being requested as a concubine, having a son, and then becoming the actual lady of the house. Yeah. All in about 18 months. Yep. Just through a combination of, well, being available, a quick pregnancy, and the incredibly timely death of the woman ahead of her. You couldn't make it up. It's wild. And the sources really flag this, don't they? There's that couplet. Right, the couplet sums it up perfectly. A mistake in one move, yet one rises above others. A mistake in one move. What was the mistake? Her glancing back at him years ago. Maybe. Or maybe just being in the wrong place at the right time. Or perhaps it implies the whole transaction was somehow off. But whatever that mistake was, it led her to rise above others. It's the core tension, isn't it? Zhaoxing's tiny, maybe accidental mistake leads to this huge elevation. Okay, let's stick into Jia Yukun first. Because he really is, like, the poster child for potential, just-wasted-by-personality flaws. So years ago, he gets help from this scholar, Zhen Xin. Our sources say he heads straight to the capital, aces the exams. Oh yeah, he was a genuine success story initially. He gets the Junshi degree, that's the top academic rank, right? Shows he's incredibly bright. Then he gets picked for an official post outside the capital, rises fast, becomes prefect, known as Jiahua then. So he's got the credentials. Definitely. The sources are clear. Superior capability. This wasn't someone who got ahead through connections alone. The guy was genuinely smart. And it's around this peak, isn't it, that he kind of accidentally circles back. You're the people who helped him way back when. Exactly. He's just passing through, sees this servant girl, Zhaoxing, buying thread. And he mistakenly thinks his old benefactor, Zhen Xin, lives there. It's almost like accidental spying, in a way. Huh. Maybe. But that accidental sighting seems less important than the train wreck he makes of his own career. Well, yeah, that's the predictable part. Capability superior. But the sources spell out his big flaws. One, greedy and cruel. And two, this is the real killer, politically arrogant towards his superiors. Okay, hold on. If he's so clearly talented, why is it arrogance specifically that sinks him? Wouldn't simple greed or cruelty be enough? Or was the arrogance just like the final straw for his bosses? I think it's both, really. In that kind of hierarchical system, talent's fine. But it needs to come with, you know, a dose of humility, or at least the appearance of it. The sources say he didn't even last a year. Not up a year is the phrase used before a superior jumped on an opportunity. Seize the moment, huh? Right. This official writes a formal complaint accusing Yuka not just of, like, general bad behavior, but specifically of being cunning. And this is key altering ritual. Yuka? Wow, that sounds serious. Like he thought he was above the rules. Precisely. It suggests he saw himself as smarter than the system, smarter than tradition. It makes his downfall feel less like, oh, bad luck, and more like, well, like cause and effect. Inevitable, almost. Yeah, it tracks all that brainpower canceled out by sheer hubris. Exactly. But here's the really fascinating part. Psychologically speaking, his reaction when he gets the boot. What does he do? Nothing. Or rather, he shows absolutely zero resentment. No anger, no bitterness. Instead, the sources say he was totally cheerful, just carried on as normal. Decides to just travel around and look at scenic spots. Seriously. He treats getting fired from a high-level job like an unexpected vacation. Pretty much. It tells you so much about his mindset. Doesn't have setbacks or just, like, logistical problems for him. Not moments for self-reflection or, you know, guilt. No learning curve there. Just pivot. Yukon's mistakes were deliberate, driven by arrogance, and led to his downfall. Fortune seems totally random here. Rewarding the accidental servant, punishing the ambitious scholar. Okay, so Yukon. He's got his new elevated wife. He's got some stability, but still no job. Still no job. Low on cash, apparently recovering from some illness he picked up during his, uh, scenic tour. Needs to settle down. Ends up in Yangzhou. And through friends, he finds a new gig. Which is? Tutoring. He gets a position as a private tutor, a sibin, for the family of the current circuit salt inspector. A man named Lin Ruohai. And Lin Ruohai, well, he's immediately important. He kind of represents the pinnacle of status in this society. Okay, tell us about Lin Ruohai. Salt inspector? That sounds like a pretty big deal. It is. He holds the rank of Lantai temple minister. And academically. He was top tier. Came in third place, Tanwa, in the big imperial exam. So, you know, intellectual heavyweight. But it's more than just his current job, isn't it? His family background matters. Hugely. His family goes back five generations holding hereditary titles. So they're proper nobility, Su. But, and this is crucial, Ruohai himself came up through the exam system, say, Xu. Which means they're also a respected scholar family. So they got the noble blood and the academic credentials. The whole package. Exactly. Both pedigree and proven intellect. Should be smooth sailing, right? Needs not. Not at all. Despite all that status, the family is actually in a really fragile position. The sources point to this deep sadness, this tragedy, which is why Ruohai needs a tutor in the first place. What happened? Well, they lack heirs. They had one son, just three years old, but he died the year before. A huge blow. The sources are quite fatalistic, saying Ruohai seemed destined to be without a son, even though he had concubines. Wow. So all that lineage potentially ending, that leaves just the daughter. Just the daughter. Linda Yu. She's five years old, born to the official wife, Lady Jia. Described as clever, beautiful. The parents apparently cherished her immensely. Like a replacement heir, almost. In a way, yes. The pressure on her was immense. They were educating her intensely, partly to lessen the barrenness under the knee. IG is the phrase. Basically, hoping her brilliance and presence could somehow compensate for the lack of sons. So Yukun, our disgraced but brilliant official, gets hired to teach this very bright, very precious, but maybe also very pressured little girl. Exactly. And almost as soon as he starts, disaster strikes again. What now? Within a year of Yukun being there, Dayu's mother, Lady Jia, gets sick and dies. Suddenly. Oh no, that poor child. It's devastating. And for young Dayu, the grief on top of what the sources call her existing physical weakness, her chronic weakness and illness, it just overwhelms her. She becomes too sick, too grief-stricken to continue her lessons. She has to stop school altogether. So the great Lin family loses the son, loses the mother, and now the brilliant daughter, their last hope, is consumed by grief and illness. It's like a perfect storm of bad fortune hitting even this incredibly high status family. It really illustrates how fragile everything is, doesn't it? Even for the most established houses. And the story gives us one final, really profound clue just before Yukun makes his next move. What's that? Since Dayu is sick, Yukun's got nothing to do. He goes for a walk one day, wanders off the beaten path, and finds this run-down, isolated temple. Jitan Temple Fah. Okay. Anything special about it? Not the temple itself, really. There's just this old monk inside who's deaf and seems confused. But on the temple gate, there's this couplet. And it immediately grabs Yukun's attention. What does it say? It says, After having surplus, forgetting to pull back, seeing no road ahead, then wishing to turn around. Wow, okay. Forgetting to pull back when you have extra. That sounds familiar. Doesn't it just? It perfectly captures what we've been talking about. That first line nails the hubris, right? Getting ahead, having surplus, whether it's power, talent, whatever, and forgetting the need for caution, for restraint. That's Jia Yukun to a T. And the second line, seeing no road ahead, then wishing to turn around. That's the regret, isn't it? Only realizing you went too far when you've already hit the wall. Exactly. It's the whole cycle in two lines. Ambition, overreach, consequence, regret. It's a perfect philosophical summary of so many stories, including Yukun's own. So what does Yukun make of it? Does it hit him? Does he see himself in it? Intellectually, yes. That's the crucial part. He recognizes the depth of the couplet immediately. He thinks, wow, this is profound, must have been written by someone who's really been through it, someone who's taken a big fall, Jin. He gets the meaning completely, but he applies it entirely to some hypothetical other person. There's no flicker of recognition that it describes him. He literally just walked away cheerful from his own massive downfall caused by exactly this lack of pulling back. He sees this perfect mirror of his own behavior. And just admires the reflection without realizing it's him. Precisely. His intellectual understanding is sharp, but his self-awareness is, well, basically zero. He can diagnose the problem in others, just not in himself. Now, scene changes. We're looking at a really fascinating early conversation. It happens in a tavern. Seems quite casual. Yeah, just two guys, acquaintances really, catching up. A scholar, Jia Yukun, and an antiques dealer, Ling Zixing. Exactly. But don't let this setting fool you. This chat, it's basically the author laying out the whole crisis up front. It's like a devastating report card on the aristocracy. Right. It gives us the whole backstory, the context for everything that follows. The foundation is already shaky. Precisely. It sets the stage perfectly. Okay, so let's unpack this. We're diving into the Jia family, the two main houses, Ningguo and Rongguo. Our mission here is to get a handle on the real state of these houses, the signs of their decline. The structural problem. And that really specific, strange incident around the main character, Jia Baoyu, it sort of foreshadows how unique he is. It's the perfect way for you, the listener, to get quickly up to speed on the central crisis of the novel, all wrapped up in this one bit of gossip. So the first thing that really hits you is this contrast. Jia Yukun remembers passing the family mansions in Jinling. The capital, yeah. And he saw these amazing buildings, gardens. He even mentions this verdant and moist quality about the grounds. Sounds incredible. That's incredible. That's the point. But then Leng Zixing says the houses are desolate. How can they be desolate if they look like that? That's the key question, isn't it? What does desolate actually mean here? Leng Zixing basically waves away the appearance. And he gives that analogy. Mugman killer analogy, yeah. The hundred-footed worm, though dead, never falls over. I love that image. It's so vivid. Too big to just collapse, but dead inside. The structure holds. The facade is there. Tradition, momentum, you know, you know. But Leng Zixing stresses the nei nang. The inner lining. Right. That's completely exhausted, finished. It's all just an aristocratic shell game at this point. Wow. OK, so what are the specific symptoms then? What's actually causing this internal rot? Well, Leng Zixing points to two main things. And they're kind of linked by this, this lack of planning, really. OK, what's the first? First is financial. Simple numbers. The family keeps growing. Shangri-Fan. More mouths to feed. More relatives hanging around. But the expenses riang pai, ching fei yang. The daily pomp. The sheer cost of keeping up appearances. They can't cut back. It's expected. So they're bleeding money they don't really have anymore? Pretty much. Like a, like a legacy company with massive overheads. They're trapped by their own glorious past. That makes sense. Trapped by extravagance. And the second symptom, you said it was maybe even more dangerous. Yeah, I think so. It's about the people. The human capital, you could say. Right. It's not just about spending too much. It's about who's in charge. Too many family members are just enjoying the ride. Em fuzhen rong zi ang dush. Consumers, not producers. Exactly. But there's literally no one doing any real planning or strategy. Zero foresight. So the family just keeps burning through its inheritance, basically. And they can't generate anything new, wealth, influence, even just good management. They're stuck in consumption mode. So summing it up, they're financially unstable and the leadership is failing. And Leng Zixing adds that final kicker. Yeah, this family, once famous for its scholars and officials, the bell ringing and tripod wielding types is just getting worse generation by generation. They've lost the ability to govern themselves. It's a bleak picture. And you see it play out when you look at the two houses individually. Let's start with the older branch. Ningou Mansion, founded by Ning Gong. This house really shows the decline through. Yeah, total abdication. Total abdication, yeah. Dereliction of duty, you could call it. The current heir, Zixing, he got the title. But then he got completely obsessed with Taoism, only cares about Shaodong, Leng, and alchemy, basically, trying to make elixirs. So he just checks out, leaves the city. Yep. Won't come back from the suburbs. Ignores all his duties, family, everything. He wants to be an immortal, not run the estate. Is that seen as noble, his spiritual quest? Or just dodging responsibility? Well, in terms of managing a huge household like this, it's pure abandonment. He dumps everything onto his son with no guidance. And the son is? Jia Zhen. He gets the title early because dad's busy trying to live forever. But Jia Zhen, he has zero interest in studying or responsibility. What's his focus, then? Just pleasure. Gaolabooling. Non-stop partying, basically. Leng Zixing says he's effectively Jingfanligualai, overturning the whole Ningguo mansion with his recklessness. And nobody stops him. Who could? His father's off meditating, and the structure's too decayed for anyone else to step in. Wow. So the Ning house, collapsing because the old generation abandoned it for spirituality, and the current one embraces pure hedonism. Negligence plus extravagance. That's a perfect summary. Now let's shift to the younger branch, Ronguo mansion. This is where the really strange incident happens. It shows a different kind of decay. Maybe more subtle. It's kind of masked by a lingering imperial favor. Right. This house was founded by Rongong, the younger brother. His son, Jia Daishan, married into the powerful Shi family. Which definitely helped maintain their status. Now Daishan had two sons, and they sort of represent the family's options back then. Who were they? Jia Shi, the older one. He inherited the title of the main office. Standard procedure. And the younger? Jia Zheng. He was actually the grandfather's favorite. Seen as studious. The plan was for him to enter officialdom the proper way, Keqing Shixin. Meaning, pass the civil service exams, earn his post on merit. Exactly. That was the ideal. But that's not what happened, right? The sources highlight this. No, it's not. When their father, Jia Daishan, died, the emperor stepped in. Gave Jia Zheng a pretty significant favor. What was it? An official post, Zhaixiushan, later promoted to Yuan Weilong, a director level, without him needing to pass any exams. Oh, whoa. So a direct shortcut. Bypassing the merit system entirely. Completely. It shows the family still had pull. Political capital from the past. They could get these unearned perks. But it also shows they weren't producing officials based on actual talent anymore. Precisely. That historical favor is still there. But the ability might not be. It highlights that inertia Leng Xixing mentioned. And that ability to just get things without earning them. That seems just as damaging, in a way, as Jia Zheng's wild spending. It reinforces complacency. It absolutely does. Why strive if you don't have to? And this really sets the scene for the next generation, especially in Jia Zheng's line. Okay, now we get to the main event. These strange incidents around Jia Zheng's second son, Jia Baoyu. He and his wife, Lady Wang, had three kids we hear about. That's right. The first son, Jia Zhu, was kind of the hope, the promising one. But he died very young, under 20, though he did marry and have a son. A tragedy for the lineage right there. Definitely. Then they had a daughter, born on New Year's Day. That was considered a bit odd, Gili, but auspicious. And then came Baoyu. The strangest of all. Oh, yeah. The story is he was born literally holding a piece of jade in his mouth. Multicolored, crystalline, with writing on it. I mean, that's not a normal birth announcement. That's straight out of mythology or something. It immediately marked him as special. Hugely special. The family, particularly his grandmother, the Dowager Matriarch, doted on him. Treated him like a precious jewel. So naturally, they wanted to know who his future held. The grasping test. Right. The Zhu Jia Zhu ceremony when he turned one. Jia Zheng, his father, sets out all sorts of objects. Symbols of wealth, power, scholarship. The usual stuff. Things a good aristocratic son should be interested in. Exactly. Books, seals, money. You name it. And Baoyu. Ignores it all. Every single thing. Reaches out and grabs rouge, powder, hairpins, and bracelets. Zifan Chaihuan. Makeup and jewelry. Oh, boy. You can just imagine Jia Zheng's face. Yeah. I mean, talk about unconventional. The father's worrying about the family's future. And the miracle baby just wants cosmetics. Jia Zheng was apparently furious. Absolutely livid. Called him a future Jingzhou Si Duyer, basically. A good-for-nothing interested only in wine and women. A degenerate. But the weirdness didn't stop there, did it? Leng Zixing has more recent gossip. Right. This is about Baoyu around age seven or eight. He's clever, mischievous. But he has this very strange saying. The water versus mud thing. That's the one. He says, girls are made of water. Men are made of mud. Okay. When I see girls, I feel pure and refreshed. When I see men, I feel a suffocating foul stench. Wow. That's quite a statement for a kid in that society. Especially a boy. It's incredibly radical. And Leng Zixing is telling this story. What's his take? He just thinks it confirms Jia Zheng's fears. He calls Baoyu a seigum, a lustful ghost destined for debauchery. It's a simple moralistic judgment. This is the critical turning point in our conversation. Jia Yukun, the scholar, immediately cuts him off. Baoyu. Nonsense. He completely rejects that interpretation. Totally. He basically tells Leng Zixing and implies even the boy's own father, Jia Zheng, that they just don't get it. They don't understand Baoyu's lady, his origins, his true nature. And this is where Jia Yukun raises the bar considerably. He says understanding Baoyu isn't simple. Not at all. He argues it requires real intellectual and maybe spiritual depth. Not just book learning, but zizigawizigund, the investigation of things. Serious philosophical inquiry. And even more. Yeah, and wudaokanswanzili, the power of profound insight. Almost like Taoist or Buddhist enlightenment. You need wisdom, not just judgment, to figure this kid out. So in a moment, Jia Yukun reframes Baoyu. He's not just a potential failure or a spoiled brat. No, he's potentially something much more significant. Something that operates outside the normal rules. Requiring a totally different lens to understand. A philosophical puzzle, maybe even a spiritual one. Cosmology first. Yukun kicks things off by saying, essentially, humanity splits into two extreme types. Everyone else. Kind of unremarkable, just there. Yeah, the two poles. Great Benevolence, Da Ren, and Great Evil, Da Ye. And it all comes down to the qi, the vital energy they carry. And crucially, when they're born. The Great Benevolent types, they are ying yun er shang, born of cosmic alignment. Right. They show up when the world is generally okay and in order. Shi zi. They carry the good stuff, the righteous qi of heaven and earth. Qi ming ling ju zi ji. So their role is what? To keep things tidy. Pretty much. To cultivate and govern the world. Think of the legendary sage rulers, Yao and Shun. Or the big philosophers, Confucius, Mencius. The stabilizers. Okay, makes sense. Then the opposite force. The Great Evil. They're ying ji er shang, born of cosmic catastrophe. They emerge when the world's in danger and chaos. Shi wei. And they carry the bad energy. The really unstable stuff. The perverse qi of heaven and earth. Kan ren gui pi zi shi qi. Their job, if you can call it that, is disruption. To disrupt and disorder the world. He lists tyrants like Ji and Zhu, Qin Shi Huang, warlords like Cao Cao. It feels incredibly fatalistic. Like if you get dealt the evil qi, you don't have a choice. That's precisely it. It's a kind of sophisticated fatalism. Your nature, your path, your moral compass. It's all predetermined by the cosmic vibes at your birth. But Yukon isn't just talking about history books. He says this framework explains their current time too. So what's the verdict on the present day in the story? He argues it's an era of prosperity, a stable dynasty. The righteous qi is abundant. It's dominant. Which means... So perverse qi, the evil stuff, doesn't have an outlet. It can't create a huge tyrant. Exactly. It's suppressed. The text says it's condensed and packed into the deep valleys and ravines. I'd say it can leak out. But yeah, sometimes maybe wafted by wind or urged by cloud. A little bit escapes accidentally. Okay. And this is where we get to the main event for the novel, right? The mixed temperament. What happens when a stray bit of that tracked perverse qi bumps into the dominant, leftover righteous qi? They can't mix peacefully. They're opposite. They have to clash, battle. The text uses this great analogy like wind, water, thunder, and earth smashing together. And the result of that collision is a person. A person, but one who's fundamentally contradictory. They can't be truly good, can't achieve that serene benevolence. But they also can't be purely evil, lack that single-minded destructive focus. So they're stuck, both superior and inferior at the same time. That's the description. Superior in intelligence, spiritual refinement above 10,000 people. They're brilliant, maybe artistic, insightful, but simultaneously they're inferior in their weirdness. Perverse, eccentric, unreasonable behavior beneath 10,000 people. This sounds like the recipe for almost every major character we're about to meet. It really is. It's the blueprint for the brilliant but self-destructive figures. And what's really striking is how this same cosmic mix plays out differently depending on your social standing. Yes, the environment shapes how the genius or the instability expresses itself. So if this mixed chi person is born into a rich, noble family, passionate fools or lovers, their brilliance gets channeled inwards into intense emotional drama, often romantic obsession. Okay. And if they're born into, say, a poorer family, but one with some literary background. Then their refinement pushes them away from the world. The text lists examples here, right? People like Tao Kean, Ruan Ji, Cheng Bohu, the painter. Exactly. Talented guys who couldn't quite cope with ordinary life or politics. So their genius went into their art or, well, into drinking and avoiding things. And it goes even further down the social ladder. It does. If this mixed chi appears in a humble family, they can't just be a regular servant. The cosmic forces demand more. They become famous entertainers, singers like Li Guinian, the famous Tang Dynasty musician. So underneath the cosmology, there's a kind of social critique here too. I think so. If you're high status like the genius, your eccentric brilliance manifests as being a passionate fool, potentially wasting your talent on love affairs. But if you're from a lower class, that same innate genius has to be channeled into something marketable, like performance, just to survive. The core instability is the same, but the outlet is dictated by class. That difference how genius manifests based on whether you can afford to waste it or need to sell it, that feels huge for understanding the whole story. And Yukun doesn't waste time connecting this theory to the Jiyas when Leng Zicxing mentions Jiya Bayou. Yukun basically says, ah, yes, I figured he'd be one of those. He immediately flashes back to his time tutoring at the Zen family mansion. Remember, the Zens and Jiyas are connected. Right. And he uses the Zen family's son as a perfect example, a direct parallel to Bayou. An absolutely spectacular example. The stories Yukun tells about the Zen kid are, well, they're pretty wild, but they perfectly capture that contradiction Yukun was talking about. What was the deal with his studying habits? It was something really strange. Get this. He required two girls, two daughters, to be with him while he studied. He claimed he couldn't even recognize the characters properly. His mind wasn't clear unless they were there. Seriously. Not just company, but essential for basic literacy. Apparently so. It wasn't about slacking off. It was presented as a genuine cognitive requirement linked to this female presence. And this obsession went further, didn't it? With the word daughter itself. Oh, absolutely. He declared the word never to be the purest, most noble phrase possible. More venerable, he said, than the names of Buddhas or Taoist deities. Which is intense. And it led to this bizarre ritual. This is where you see the perverse, unreasonable side kick in. Anyone who uttered the word daughter and his presence false had to rinse their mouth out. With what? Clean water and fragrant tea. And if you forgot or refused, he threatened really nasty punishments. Drilling teeth, piercing cheeks. Truly unhinged stuff. So you see both sides perfectly. The tyrannical, volatile impulse right alongside this almost spiritual devotion to feminine purity. Exactly. Outside of this specific context with the girls, he was described as totally unreasonable. A tyrant. But with them, he instantly became gentle, warm, cultivated. The superior side needed the perverse demand to be met before it could even show up. And what about that story when he got beaten? The pain remedy. Ah, yeah. Apparently his father disciplined him quite often, probably trying to beat some sense into this impossible kid. And when he was being beaten, he wouldn't just cry out in pain. He'd specifically yell sister or younger sister. And he claimed this actually helped. He insisted it did. He said it was a secret method that saying those words literally lessened the physical pain. The girls apparently made fun of him for it, but he stuck to his story. Wow. So he's the ultimate passionate fool. His entire reality, even his physical sensations, are filtered through this intense focus on the feminine. It's like the pain and violence of the world, perhaps, representing that perverse key could only be soothed by invoking the purity he associated with women, the stand-ins for the righteous key in his own chaotic internal universe. It confirms the theory for you, Ken. Okay, so the theory's laid out. The Zen kid provides the proof of concept. Now, Ling Zixing pivots back to the Jia family specifically, starting with the daughters. Right. Zixing runs down the list. There's Yan Chun, the eldest daughter of Jia Jiang. She's already kind of proven the family's potential, having been chosen for palace service because of her virtue. A high achievement. Definitely. Then the younger ones, Ying Chun, who's Jia. She's daughter from previous wife. Tan Chun, Jia Zheng's daughter with a concubine. And Xi Chun, who's technically from the Ning Mansion side, but lives with the Jia grandmother. And Zixing clarifies something about their names. The Chun character meaning spring. Yeah, he points out it wasn't some long-standing family tradition. They were named that way because Yuan Chun was born on New Year's Day, the start of spring. He says the older generation, like their sister Jia Min, followed different naming patterns, often linked to the brothers' names. Which brings us perfectly to Lin Dayu. Exactly. Because Yu Kun then reveals, oh, funny you mentioned Jia Min. I'm currently tutoring her daughter, Lin Dayu. Her deceased mother was Jia Min, the sister of Jia Zheng and Jia Xi. And Yu Kun had already suspected Dayu's high breeding, even before knowing her mother's name, because of a tiny detail he noticed. Yes, this is such a brilliant little touch. He observed that Dayu consistently misread the character, and crucially, she'd drop a stroke when writing it. Which isn't just a random mistake. No, it's hugely significant culturally. She was subconsciously observing the naming taboo for her dead mother, Jia Min. It was a sign of deep respect, of filial piety, to slightly alter the ancestor's name in speech and writing. That tiny error was actually proof of her refinement, her innate cultivation. So Yu Kun sees this and thinks, ah, this girl is special. He praises her unique way of speaking, her conduct, and concludes her mother must have been extraordinary too. It all fits his theory about inherited qualities. Now, shifting gears to the Jia sons. Zixing lays them out. Jia Zheng has Dayu, the famous one born with the jade. The prime example of the passionate fool. Right. And Jia Zheng also has a younger son with a concubine, and a grandson from his deceased eldest son, who seems quite frail. Then there's Jia Xi's side. He has two sons, the elder one being Jia Lian, who's maybe around 20. And Jia Lian. His position is the practical one, right? Hold some minor official post, bought for him, manages family affairs. Yeah, Zixing notes he's not bookish, avoids reading, but he's cunning, good at navigating social situations. Yeah. He actually lives over in Jia Zheng's compound, managing the day-to-day business for that side of the family. Yeah. He should be the responsible administrator. Should be. But the conversation takes a sharp turn, doesn't it? It really does. As soon as Jia Lian is mentioned, the focus immediately jumps to his wife, Wang Xifeng. She's a niece of Lady Wang, Jia Zheng's wife. And suddenly, all the praise, all the focus on capability, lands squarely on her. She completely overshadows her husband in the description. Totally. She's described as stunningly beautiful, incredibly articulate, talks briskly, and possessing this profound cleverness, a really deep, intricate mind. Linjijishunxi. And the text flat out says she's superior to any man. It does. No ambiguity there. She's presented as this almost superhuman figure, running the massive household, managing finances, with an ability that none of the Jia men seem to match. So Yuchen hears all this. And he laughs. He basically says, see? My theory holds. This hyper-competent woman, Wang Xifeng, alongside the eccentric Baoyu and that Zen family kid, they're all products of the same cosmic mix. That collision of righteous and perverse ki. Exactly. It doesn't just create artistic weirdos. It can also create figures of incredible, almost frightening capability. Their existence, Yuchen suggests, guarantees that the future of these families will be anything but ordinary. It's going to be eventful, driven by these extraordinary, unstable personalities. So this whole conversation, this philosophical framework, it's not just abstract theorizing. It's setting the stage, telling us exactly who is going to drive the plot.