Chapter 19 The Two Young Women in Baoyu's Heart

Dream of the Red Chamber chapter 19. Okay, let's dive in. We're in the immediate aftermath of, I mean, one of the biggest spectacles in Chinese literature, right? The visit of GFA to the wrong in Ning mansions. Exactly. And you'd think the family would be, you know, celebrating, basking in the glory. Did it not? Not at all. We find them in a state of what I'd call collective collapse. It's the morning after the biggest show they'll ever put on and the source really emphasizes this crushing fatigue. It's everyone too, not just the servants. Oh, everyone from the lowest person sweeping the floors to the highest ranking managers. They are just running on fumes from cleaning up, organizing all the gifts and settling the accounts. And the perfect example of this is Feng Ji, the managerial powerhouse of the family. Yes, she's completely depleted, but she absolutely refuses to show it. The text uses this great phrase, Zazang, which sort of means she's struggling, she's faking it, fighting her own body to keep up this facade of being in total control. That performance of strength is so critical, isn't it? But it also perfectly sets up our mission for today. It does because that performance highlights a huge contradiction and that's our focus. We're gonna track the movements of the one character who is completely exempt from all this work, the most idle and unbusy person in the whole house. Jia Bao Yu. Jia Bao Yu. And his day starts with a really important absence. His main maid, his caretaker, Shiren, is gone. She is. His grandmother, Jia Mu, gave her this rare day off to go home and eat New Year's tea. She won't be back until the evening. So the one person who really keeps him grounded is just not there. The stabilizing pillar is gone. He's left to play these simple kind of aimless games like dice and go with the other maids. It's the perfect vacuum for something to happen. And almost immediately his true priorities come out, even when he's just sitting around. GFA sends gifts back from the talus. Right, and among them is this very high status royal food, sugar steamed creamy curds. And Bao Yu's reaction is so telling. It's instant. Without anyone prompting him, he remembers that Shiren loves this specific thing and he tells them, set that aside, save it for her. So even when she's not there, a gift meant for the absolute top of the household, his first thought is to share it with his maid. Exactly. He prioritizes that emotional connection over the status of the gift. It's pure intimacy over official protocol. But, you know, idleness leads to boredom and he gets an invitation. A necessary distraction. He's invited over to the Eastern Mansion, the Ning Fu, for a big event hosted by Jiazhen, opera and fire lanterns. Another huge spectacle. The family's just trying to keep the party going. But the kind of opera is really specific. Oh, yeah. These are not quiet contemplative dramas. The sources tell us they're loud, they're extravagant and they are super martial. What are some of the titles? We're talking about things like Ding Lang recognizes his father, which is heavy drama. And then you get the really wild stuff like Wang Boyang's Great Ghost Array. And then these massive fantasy epics. Sun Wukong causes havoc in heaven and Jiang Ziya slaying generals and conferring dods. I mean, these are tales of cosmic battles and magical chaos. The book describes the atmosphere as unbearably extravagant and noisy, right? You could hear the gongs and shouting from outside in the alley. Total sensory overload. And for Bao Yu, this is torture. It's the exact opposite of what he values. He hates all that ambition, that noise, that hierarchy. So he doesn't stay long. Barely at all. He sits for a minute, finds it all just irritating, and he wanders off. He chats with a few people and then just slips out the second gate completely unnoticed. Which brings us to this incredible failure of the entire Jia family system. I mean, the most precious heir in the family just walks away and nobody has a clue. It's a total systemic breakdown. The main guys, Jia Zhen, Jia Lian, Xu Pan, they're all too busy drinking and playing guessing games. They just assume he's in the crowd somewhere. Someone else's problem. Exactly. And that neglect just trickles right down the chain of command to his own staff. The Wu Pages. Yeah, the older ones figure he'll be at the opera all night. So they sneak off to have their own fun. And the book is very specific about their fun. It is gambling, visiting relatives, whoring and drinking. The whole official structure has just dissolved into vice. The only ones left are the little guys, the younger boys, who are just mesmerized by the opera. The whole house is basically hollow. So Bao Yu is wandering alone and he gets this very, very Bao Yu idea. He decides to find a quiet little study where he knows a beautiful lifelike portrait is hanging. He personifies it. He actually believes the painting must be lonely with all the noise outside. And he feels this need to go and comfort it. It's just so him. He finds empathy in objects. But his search for quiet is interrupted. He hears groaning. At first, he thinks the painting has come to life. Right. But he peeks through a hole in the window paper and he sees something much more earthly. It's his page, Min Yan, with a maid. They're engaged in the deeds taught by Jane Wan. A perfect storm of systemic failure right in the one spot Bao Yu is looking for solace. And when he kicks the door open, his reaction is what's so fascinating. He doesn't be moralistic. Not at all. He's not mad about the act itself. He's mad about the danger. He basically yells, if Jiazhen finds out about this, you're both dead. It's a purely pragmatic fear of the house's brutal hierarchy. He's more worried about the punishment than, you know, the sin. Absolutely. So he immediately shows mercy. He tells the terrified, blushing maid to just run. And he promises he won't tell anyone. And then the philosopher in him comes out. Yeah. He asks her age, which is 16 or 17. And then he asks her name. And this is one of those fantastic little details in the novel. Her name is Waner. And the origin of it is described as new and strange. What's the story? Her mother had a dream that she was given this piece of brocade with a five colored endless wand pattern on it. You know, the swastika symbol, which represents eternity. And that's where her name came from. And Bao Yu is just completely captivated by this. Totally. He forgets all about what they were doing. He finds the story of her name so compelling that he immediately says, she's going to have some good fortune because of it. It just shows you what he values. The intimate story of a person over their momentary action. All right. And now Minyan, his page, knows Bao Yu is a secret keeper. So he gets bold. He suggests a real adventure. He does. He suggests sneaking Bao Yu outside the city limits for fun. But Bao Yu, who just broke a bunch of rules, is suddenly very cautious, which seems a little out of character, doesn't it? You'd think so. But it's not about social rules for him. It's about physical safety. He refuses. He says he's afraid of beggars or, you know, kidnappers. He's afraid of the dangers the system is supposed to be protecting him from. So he wants somewhere closer and more familiar. And the only place he can think of that feels truly safe is Zhiren's home. Which is only half along away, but it's another world entirely. It is. And the second they get there, Zhiren rushes out and she is just horrified. This isn't just annoyance. It's terror. It's pure visceral panic. She immediately starts scolding them, listing all the dangers. What if you ran into your father? What about the crowds, the carriages and accidents? She's furious at Ming Yan mainly. But Bao Yu defends him. Of course. But her reaction just shows you the insane weight of responsibility she feels for him. Her care isn't just a job. It's a whole protective institution she's built around him. And the scene inside her house is really the emotional heart of this chapter, isn't it? The contrast between the Jia mansion and this humble little place. It's everything. She immediately takes total control. She stops her own mother and brother from giving him anything to eat, saying they shouldn't randomly give things to eat. Like she's his personal security detail. Exactly. She knows his delicate system. And then this series of incredibly personal, intimate acts begins. She gives him her own sitting mat to sit on. She brings out her own footstove for his feet because he must be tired. And the hand warmer. That detail is just amazing. It's so poignant. She opens her own hand warmer, takes out these two little plum blossom incense cakes, burns them to make it fragrant, and then places this warm scented object right in his lap. It's comfort, it's fragrance, it's warmth, all delivered personally. And she serves him tea in her own cup. When he wants a snack, she takes pine nut kernels and she blows the fine skin off of them herself before giving them to him on her handkerchief. The level of devotion in that one small action is just immense. It's a powerful statement. Real stability for him doesn't come from wealth. It comes from this kind of meticulous, loving care. He notices how worried she is too. He sees her eyes are red. He asks if she's been crying and she just deflects, saying she was rubbing them. She's trying to hide the emotional toll his little trip has taken on her. And this care extends to managing his status, even with her own family. She takes out his famous spiritual jade. Because tumbling you. She lets them look at it, this legendary object. But then she immediately downplays it. She says something like, people think it's rare, but it's just this thing. Why does she do that? She's protecting the atmosphere. If she built it up, her family would treat him like a God. And that intimate, comfortable feeling she just created would be shattered. By downplaying it, she keeps him human. She keeps the situation normal. It's a form of security. That security is her top priority. Right up until he leaves. Her brother offers him a horse to ride home. A convenient offer, but she will not have it. She insists they hire a small, enclosed sedan chair. And her reason is key. It's critical. She says it's not for convenience, but for avoiding people. Secrecy and safety come before anything else. She's managing his risk profile. And the final piece of this whole secret trip is the cover up. The alibi. Once the sedan chair gets back to the Ning mansion, Mingyan tells Yeren's brother what to do. They have to put Bayou back on the horse and sneak him back into the party just for a minute. So he can mingle. Right. So it looks like he was there the whole time. It's a quick and dirty cover story. And Yeren seals the deal with a bribe, essentially. She does. She gives Mingyan money for fireworks and food, paying for the cover up, and warns him one last time to keep his mouth shut. The secret is safe. And then. And our sources are taking us right inside Bayou's quarters. A space that should be a sanctuary, right? Exactly. But it's actually this nexus of jealousy, loyalty, and a very carefully calibrated influence. And the brilliance of the text is how it gives us these two parallel narratives. You have the dialogue, which is the performance. And then you have the hidden truth of what the characters actually want. What happens when the boss, Bayou, steps out and how one maid, in particular Yeren, orchestrates what you can only call a masterpiece of emotional maneuvering. A soft coup, almost. A soft coup. I like that. So the initial scene, it really sets the stage perfectly for this instability that Yeren is going to exploit later on. It does. The moment Bayou is gone, discipline doesn't just relax, it completely vanishes. The text describes this atmosphere of, well, deep, casual chaos. It's almost startling. I mean, you've got these maids who are supposed to be waiting diligently for the master. And what are they doing? They're gambling. Right. Instantly. Go. Dice. Cards. And the room itself reflects it. The floor is just covered in discarded melonseed shells. It tells you immediately that the entire structure of order depends solely on his physical presence. And that kind of chaotic environment is the perfect vacuum for old power structures to try and reassert themselves. The chaos is an invitation for the old guard to step back in. Which brings us right to that first major confrontation. Lie Mama, Bayou's old wet nurse, she enters the scene. Exactly. And she comes in leaning on a cane or a crutch. It's such a visual marker of her age, her fading relevance, but she still carries this immense weight of history and you could say maternal entitlement. Oh, absolutely. In this system, wet nurses have this enormous residual power. They literally fed the master. They did. Her physical proximity to him in infancy is her claim to power. So she comes in, she's absolutely furious about the mess and she delivers this incredible line. She scolds the maids by talking about Bayou. She says he's a 10 foot high lamp stand shining on others, but not on himself. It's such a beautifully concise critique of weak leadership, isn't it? It is. He sees the faults in everyone around him, but he's completely blind to the disorder and frankly, the disobedience happening right under his own nose. And this is the moment where the maids show her the new political reality. They don't really engage with her authority at all. They give her these casual answers. They see her as a nasty old thing. Because they know her authority is entirely in the past. She has history, but Shirin, she has current leverage. Let's talk about that leverage because it all centers on a bowl of food. This is where the tension just skyrockets. Siwama spots the sula. That rich curled milk or yogurt. It's a high status delicacy sitting in a lidded bowl. And the junior maids, who you'd think have no power, they immediately see the danger here. They don't just say, don't touch it. No, they're very explicit. The warning is don't touch it. That was set aside for Shirin. And then they say that eating it will attract anger and that the blame will fall on them. That sentence is like a lightning bolt. It is. It shows you that in the hierarchy of fear and respect, Shirin's displeasure now, today, outweighs Li Mama's decades of seniority. The authority has shifted. It's gone from the biological past to the political present. Which of course, absolutely enrages the wet nurse. I mean, this is the ultimate humiliation for her. She's being told by children, basically, that her access to her adopted son's treats is now restricted by a servant he bought. So she reaches for the highest possible emotional claim she has. The ultimate dramatic justification. She just throws down the emotional gauntlet. Does he value Shirin more than me? My blood turned to milk, which he ate to grow up. I mean, she's saying her literal maternal sacrifice, her breast milk, trumps all of Shirin's service. And she doesn't just take a spoonful. No, she eats the entire thing out of pure spiteful power. It's not about the yogurt at all. It's about demanding respect through a direct confrontation. And then to really raise the stakes, she reminds them of that precedent. The time Shirin had the maid kingsuit driven away over a simple tea incident. She's daring Shirin to respond. I mean, think about it. She's broken the house rules. She's eaten something reserved for the person with the real power. And she's testing Bayou's loyalty. It's a lose-lose. If Shirin gets furious, she looks petty. If Bayou punishes Li Mama, he looks ungrateful. Unfilial. Right. It's a toxic situation that could easily spiral into a major incident. Something that Lady Wang or the old matriarch would have to step in and fix. And that is precisely why Shirin's intervention is so masterful. OK, here's where it gets really interesting. Bayou comes back. The maids, they're terrified. And they immediately report the whole drama. The full story. The gambling, the mess, Li Mama eating the sulao, and even that little side detail about King Wen being so mad she went to bed in a huff. And Bayou is, you know, volatile. He's demanding the sulao. He finds out his witners hate it. And he is just about to unleash something. Disappointment, passive aggression, which in that world is a devastating punishment. It is. But wait, if the text is setting up Bayou's anger, wouldn't the logical move for Shirin, the person who was wronged, be to maybe gently encourage that? To say, yes, master, she was very disrespectful. Why did she stop the conflict? Because Shirin is playing a much longer game. Her goal isn't revenge. It's dependency. She has to establish herself as the antidote to chaos. The one person who can restore harmony. So she joins the drama. She's just another problem. Exactly. But if she neutralizes it, she becomes the essential stabilizer. That makes so much sense. So she steps in instantly with this profound emotional intelligence. And she laughs. The perfect, light, disarming response. And then she provides this completely credible face-saving out for everyone involved. She claims, whether it's true or not, that the sula was actually bad. She says, I ate it last time and it gave me a terrible stomach ache. I had to vomit to feel better. That specific lie is just genius. It completely reframes the whole incident. Suddenly, Lee Mama didn't commit a defiant, greedy act of theft. No, Lee Mama actually saved them from getting sick. She converts a toxic political act into a benign, even slightly helpful one. She says it would have been wasted otherwise. I mean, look at who she protects with that one move. She protects the junior maids from Bayou's anger. Because the food was bad anyway. She protects Lee Mama from Bayou's displeasure. And she protects Bayou from having to discipline his old wet nurse, saving him all that emotional effort. She just takes all that potential volatility and washes it away. And then the pivot. She immediately redirects his attention away from this petty anger to a task. It's a very intimate, domestic task. She asks him to peel dried chestnuts for her while she makes the bed. That's key, isn't it? It is. She shifts him from being the disciplinary master to being her gentle, helpful companion. She's asking for a small gesture of service from him, and he just immediately accepts. The Sulao issue is completely dropped. It cements her role, not just as a competent maid, but as the one person who can reliably and peacefully manage his entire emotional landscape. Absolutely. She demonstrated to everyone, the maids, the old guard, and most importantly, Bayou, that when drama happens, Zhirin is the one who quietly, efficiently and selflessly cleans it up. And that is the true currency of power in that household. The ability to maintain peace without burdening the master. So she's achieved this internal peace, but then she immediately starts testing the external boundaries. While they're peeling chestnuts, Bayou asks her about a beautiful girl in red he saw earlier. Zhirin says is her cousin. And Bayou, in his very typical romantic way, praises the cousin and says he wishes she could come to our house. It's an innocent comment, but Zhirin, who was always the tactician, she interprets it strategically. She does. She responds with what sounds like sarcasm, or maybe she's baiting him. She says, am I the only one destined to be a slave? Must my relatives also be slave destined? But Bayou clarifies pretty quickly. He wasn't trying to, you know, acquire a new servant. He meant she was worthy of a better life. He praises her. And then he uses this term we should probably pause on. He calls himself and the people in the inner court, muddy creatures or Zuowu. And the cultural weight of Zuowu is significant. It shows that Bayou, for all his privilege, sees their lives as fundamentally flawed or tainted. Right. It's him saying he thinks Huarou is actually above the toxicity of the system they're both in. Yes. And then Zhirin just shuts down the fantasy instantly. She gives him the facts. The cousin is pampered. She's 17, has a full dowry. She's getting married next year. End of conversation. But that little conversation is the perfect psychological windup for her big pitch. It is. She transitions right from that with a sigh, mentions her family, her mother and brother, and then she drops the bomb. They plan to redeem me out next year. A calculated shock announcement. She's not asking for a raise. She's not asking for better treatment. She is presenting him with the catastrophic possibility of her being gone forever. And Bayou is completely stunned. He physically drops the chestnuts. That's his panic showing. And Zhirin, meanwhile, is just utterly calm. She explains she's not a home-born servant at Jia Shengzhe. She was bought. So eventually she has to leave. She even cites the precedent that service in the palace isn't indefinite. And he scrambles. He starts throwing out arguments. The old matriarch won't agree. He'll pay more money. He's offering financial security and family power. The two things he thinks can solve any problem. And this is where Zhirin just masterfully dismantles his pleas. Using arguments that are designed to hit his moral core, not his wallet. First, she minimizes her own value. She says she's just an ordinary person. Insisting her good service is only what is proper, not some miraculous achievement. She's making herself sound replaceable. It's total reverse psychology. The more she minimizes herself, the more essential he insists she is. But the checkmate move really is the moral argument. She says the wealthy, generous Jia family would never use power and wealth to behave tyrannically. That phrase is she's on Gui Badao by unjustly forcing her to stay. She's holding his own reputation and his family's honor hostage. She's telling him, if you insist on keeping me, you are morally failing. You are turning the revered Jia family into tyrants. And that's the one thing that hits him hard because his whole identity is tied to his family's reputation for being benevolent, right? So he's defeated, defeated by this flawless moral logic. He concludes she has the reason to go. No reason to stay. He's not angry about her logic. He just feels personally betrayed. He calls her fickle and heartless and goes to bed feeling abandoned like a lonely ghost. She has successfully forced him into a state of complete emotional crisis, which leads us right to the revelation, the internal monologue the author gives us that exposes the sheer calculation behind this whole performance. And the twist is profound. She never intended to leave. Not only did she not intend to leave, but when her mother and brother told her their plan to redeem her, she cried and made a scene. She actively fought them on it. She said she'd rather die than go back to her family home. She was violently opposed to it. And she points out, you know, they sold her when they were poor. Now that they're doing better, she has a far better life in the Jia house. She says she's treated like a master's daughter, not cursed or beaten. Her situation is the absolute definition of ideal security for someone in her position. And then we learn her family's motivation was just as calculated. They knew her contract was a dead contract, a full and final sale. Their real goal was never her return. They were leveraging the Jia family's famous generosity, hoping that the family would reward Ziran with both her freedom and a hefty severance package, the Shunji Yin. So they wanted a kindness payout without her actually having to leave her high status job. Precisely. Wait, so the family was trying to leverage the Jia prestige for cash. And Ziran simultaneously leveraged her family's request to secure her emotional prestige with Baoyu. That's that's next level political chess. It is entirely transactional, but it's all cloaked in this language of morality and familial duty. Ziran's entire conversation with Baoyu was a flawless, controlled performance. Designed for one single outcome. To see just how essential she was to him and to see how desperately he would fight to keep her. And she succeeded completely. She provoked him into this intense emotional declaration of reliance, which secures her status, her salary, her future all while maintaining the appearance of being dutiful, moral and reluctantly selfless. She achieved absolute dependency without ever looking ambitious. And then we get two completely different relationships shown back to back. Right. You have Ziran where the bond is all about correction and duty. And then, boom, you immediately cut to Dayu. And with her, it's just pure, untamed, emotional and intellectual intimacy. It's a brilliant setup for you, the listener, because you get to see Baoyu's internal conflict in just such high definition. He's being pulled towards social expectation by one woman and then toward this radical personal freedom by the other. So let's start with Ziran, because her approach is it's so strategic. It's really intense. It is. So let's unpack that strategy. Our sources make it clear that she sees Baoyu as a serious problem, a genuine problem. She calls his character abnormal. The Chinese is Zongjie Yicheng. Exactly. And this isn't just an idea. It translates into how he acts every day. He's unrestrained and willful. But the real issue, the thing that's going to get him in trouble with the outside world, is that he most dislikes proper work. Right. And she gets that this isn't just a quirk. It's a direct threat to his future and, you know, by extension, to hers. Baoyu is spoiled. He's indulged by the matriarch move. But if he keeps this up, he's headed for ruin. Absolute ruin. And Ziran knows that just nagging him isn't going to cut it. So she pulls out the biggest leverage she has. She brings up this idea of redeeming herself, which is basically her threatening to leave. Exactly. So wait a minute. If she brings up leaving, knowing he completely depends on her, isn't that just manipulation? Can we call it tactical brilliance when it's really emotional blackmail? That is the critical question. And yes, you're right. It is manipulation. But in the context of their world, of their roles, it's an incredibly effective, high stakes strategy. And the text itself says so. It does. It calls her words piancy or deceptive words. Her whole purpose is to test how deep his feelings are. And this is the key part, to suppress his spirit, to break his defiance, to literally break it. So it's an intervention staged as a breakup threat. And once he's terrified of losing her, once his spirit is suppressed, then she can lay down the law. That's when she delivers her admonishment. And this is so important because the three conditions he promises, they reveal exactly what his family and his whole society finds so offensive about him. OK, so he's devastated. He's begging her to stay. And he makes these three huge promises. The first one deals with his his philosophical rebellion, his despair almost. It's fascinatingly existential, isn't it? It is. She demands he stop wishing to turn into light smoke or flying ash. He's got this recurring, almost suicidal way of talking, saying he just wants to vanish. Why is that specific phrasing such a big deal for her? Because for Gisran, who is all about practical survival and, you know, getting ahead, this kind of fatalism is a sickness. It's unproductive. It's self-sabotage. Total self-sabotage. It suggests he can't find any value in his life, in his duties. It's a poetic defiance, sure. But to her, it's a sign he might just abandon everything. OK, then we get to condition number two. This one feels fundamentally political. Huge stakes for the whole Jisak clan. Oh, massive stake. He has to pretend to be enthusiastic about studying in front of his father. Yeah, but the specific language is what's important. He has to stop calling scholars. What's the term? Ludu. Ludu, right. And we need to pause here because this isn't just a rude nickname. Ludu. It translates roughly to wealth parasites or office grubs. Wow. OK, so in a society where the entire government, the whole bureaucracy is based on scholarly achievement, calling the people who run it parasites is an act of like political anarchy. It's a direct threat to the family's honor. There's safety even. If Bayou keeps saying this in public, it implies the Gia family disrespects the very system that props them up. And that's why his father, Jia Zheng, beats him so often. It's not just disobedience. It's practically sedition. He's using this as a kind of intellectual excuse to avoid the real work. Exactly. Zhirin understands that if he doesn't conform on this one point, he could bring disaster down on the whole house. He's being asked to save face for everyone. And then the third condition, this is the one that's always so, so bizarrely belittling, the love of red. Yes. He has to stop bad mouthing monks and Taoists, stop playing with cosmetics and specifically stop tasting the rouge or lipstick wiped on people's mouths. The level of detail there is just astonishing. That detail is the smoking gun. It points to his true rebellion. It's his devotion to the feminine aesthetic. He's rejecting the whole masculine Confucian political world. And this weird habit of tasting rouge. I mean, when you think about it, it's so intimate, so invasive. It's the most extreme version of his love of red. His all hung to mobbing. But doesn't the text risk trivializing the really serious political stuff by putting it right next to a demand to stop eating lipstick? I don't think so. I actually think it's making a point about how interconnected his rebellion is, his fatalism, his political defiance and his gender fluid aesthetic obsession that they're all coming from the same place. The same refusal to grow up and take his place in society. Exactly. The love of red is just the most vivid, most disturbing personal habit that she needs to crush. So she sets the price for her loyalty, complete moral and political conversion. If he does all this, she won't leave. Not even for an eight man sedan chair. The ultimate symbol of status and wealth. That's the grand promise. But remember the little detail right after. She immediately says she doesn't actually desire that luck. So her loyalty is conditional on his reform, not on his status. It's a transaction based on his virtue. He has to become worthy of her. That sets an incredibly intense stage. He's under so much pressure to conform. But our notes, they take us somewhere completely different next. A dramatic shift. Bayou leaves Shirin. She's exhausted. She's actually gotten sick with a cold after this whole thing. And he walks straight into a different universe. He goes to visit Dayu. And the air just instantly changes. Goes from moral duty to emotional comfort. It's jarring how fast the temperature changes. She tries to wake Dayu up, but she sort of tells him to go away. And his reply just captures their whole bond. He says that seeing anyone else feels tiring or greasy. Carny day. Everyone else is a chore. Only Dayu is a respite. Their bond is built on this kind of ease, mutual honesty. And the closeness is so immediate and physical, he wants to lie down. But he rejects the pillow that's there, calling it some dirty old woman's. He's actively rejecting the common world. He's seeking purity in her. And her response is just perfect. She calls him her heavenly demonic star. An insult wrapped in adoration. She sees his chaos, but she accepts him. And then she pushes her own pillow over to him. The sharing of space, of personal items. It's a huge sign of their intimacy. It goes way beyond social rules. So as they're resting, Dayu notices something on his face. A spot on his cheek. She thinks it's a scratch. And what does Bayou say it is? The same old baffling habit. He says it's from seething rouge paste. He has literally just failed the third condition. He was just playing with cosmetics. And the evidence is on his face, probably minutes after he made that promise to Jiren. It's the perfect symbol of his inability to conform. But look at Dayu's reaction. It's totally different from what Jiren's would have been. Right. She doesn't lecture him. No moral lesson. She just wipes the stain away with her own handkerchief. She's worried about gossip, about his reputation. Her first instinct is to protect him from the world, not change him for it. He's completely oblivious to her warning, though. He's distracted by a scent coming from her sleeve. He calls it a subtle fragrance. And the language he uses is incredibly erotic. Soul intoxicating and bone melting. It's pure sensory overload. It's her unique essence. The scent becomes a metaphor to who she is. He's desperate to figure out what it is. And this is what leads to Dayu's very clever, very sharp countertease. She says she only has common sense because she doesn't have a brother to prepare special fragrances for her from flowers or dew. Ooh, that is a subtle jab. It's a huge jab. She's shifting the power dynamic. She's reminding him that for all their emotional closeness, he has a formal status she lacks. He's a protected heir. She's a dependent cousin. She's forcing him to see his own privilege. So how does he react to being called out like that? With playfulness. That's how they resolve conflict. He threatens to get tough. And then he just starts tickling her until she begs for mercy. This juvenile physical flirting. It just resets everything. It does. But as soon as he lets her go, she's back at it. She launches a new, more philosophical attack, calling him stupid. Stupid. She is relentless. And this is where she hits him with that warm fragrance riddle. Right. She connects his famous jade to the idea of a golden match and says, well, since she has a cold fragrance, shouldn't he have a matching warm fragrance? It's such a beautiful way of questioning their destiny. She's asking, are we a matched set? Do we complete each other? It's a deep existential question, but it's framed as a silly tease. And to distract her, to soothe her, Bayou just abandons reality completely. He starts making up this long, elaborate story about the Lin Hu cave rat spirits. He just drags it out, building this whole narrative about little rat trying to steal some tarot. He's just making it all up on the spot. Yeah. But the punchline is the whole point. It's the ultimate declaration of his love. The little rat transforms, not into the food it was stealing, but into Lan's daughter, the true fragrant jade. Which is Dayu, Lin Dayu. It's this masterful roundabout way of telling her that she is the most precious, divine treasure in the world. A perfect lie just to please her. And she totally gets it. She knows he's tricking her. And they start wrestling again. It's the cycle of teasing and loving and play fighting that just defines them. Pure, unstructured engagement. But this perfect little bubble they're in gets burst. The door opens and Baochai comes in and the whole dynamic changes. Completely. She walks in asking about the classical illusion they were just talking about. She's the voice of pragmatic, social reality. Her interruption is a total reality check. And she immediately makes this witty comment saying, Bayou only remembers these illusions for teasing Dayu. But he forgets them when they actually matter. Like for the banana leaf poem the night before, when he was sweating over his studies, she's pointing out the massive gap between his private intellectual life with Dayu and his public duty. Baochai represents the seriousness that Xiran demands and Dayu rejects. And Dayu loves it. She's satisfied. She says, it's my good sister. You've met your match. She's thrilled someone else can hold him intellectually accountable. So we have this perfect moment, internal harmony between Bayou and Dayu, followed by this external confrontation from Baochai. And then the chapter just ends in total chaos. Total chaos. Right after this, you hear a sudden uproar and fighting coming from Dayu's own room. It's so jarring. He leaves the intimacy of Dayu's room and walks right into a crisis in his own.