The Heavens Begin with Dream of the Red Chamber

Chapter 3: Ruthless Xue Baochai

Zhan Ershisi rode his horse to the vicinity of the carriage and eavesdropped, only to hear the faint sound of sobbing coming from inside.

"Baochai, what do you think we should do?"

"The leader of the thieves is probably acquainted with the young master Feng who was beaten to death. He wants to avenge him!"

"Are we all going to die here this time?"

Then another calm voice comforted:
"Mom, don't be too anxious. The Feng family is just a small gentry. There is no way they can support such a group of bandits in Hebei."

"Besides, after my brother killed someone, we immediately left Yingtian Prefecture. Logically, the Feng family should still be filing a complaint with the government. They probably don't know that we have left Yingtian Prefecture. How could they send someone to kill us so quickly?"

"Just now I saw the bandit leader's expression. He didn't seem to really want to kill my brother. Otherwise, why would he kidnap us? Wouldn't it be better to just kill him on the spot?"

"And look at the people outside. They are marching in an orderly and silent manner, and no one is coming to harass us. They seem to be much more elite than the army of Yingtian Prefecture."

"No matter how you look at it, I don't think these people are ordinary bandits."

"I'm afraid these people are private soldiers of some generals in the army, doing some private work outside. Now we ran into them, and my brother didn't know the seriousness of the matter and yelled at them. It's not going to end well."

"I was thinking, if we can give the leader enough room to step down, our family will be fine."

Zhan Ershisi, who was outside the car, couldn't help but nod repeatedly after hearing this.

This general has a good excuse for his private army!
It's just the right time to help the master clear his name and enter Beijing.

After hearing her daughter's analysis, Aunt Xue in the car was overjoyed and asked hurriedly:

"Then how can we give that person a way out?"

Baochai sighed and said:

"I'm afraid this matter will have to fall on Sister Xiangling."

"Eh?"

Xiangling was listening blankly at the side, at a loss as to what to do. Suddenly she heard her own name and was startled. She waved her hands repeatedly and said:

"Madam, please understand that I have never colluded with that thief!"

Baochai held her hand and said apologetically:
"Of course I know you have nothing to do with the thieves, but the thief leader blurted out your name before, so I thought, using this as an excuse to give the thief leader a way out, so that he would have enough reason to let us go."

"what?"

Xiangling still didn't understand, so Baochai explained:
"Mother, what I mean is that you adopted Sister Xiangling as your adopted daughter, and then you said that Sister Xiangling was originally the daughter of our Xue family, but was abducted by kidnappers when she was young. It was only a few days ago that my brother recognized her, so in order to save her, he had a conflict with Master Feng Yuan."

"Just say that your brother's intention was to save people, not to kill people. None of us want to think about what happened later. Pay more silver to compensate the Feng family and do enough to save face."

"Then marry Sister Xiangling to him as a concubine, which will bring everyone closer together. They will become in-laws. It would be hard for him to harm his in-laws, right?"

"I guess the bandit leader and Feng Yuan didn't have much of a relationship, so how could he really avenge him?"

"Now that I have this step, I should be able to use it to get off the mountain!"

Aunt Xue was overjoyed after hearing this and said:

"This method works!" "Let's do it this way!"

At that moment, Xiangling bowed three times to Aunt Xue in the carriage, and hastily completed the recognition procedure in the presence of other maids and servants.

Aunt Xue patted Xiangling's hand and said earnestly:
"My child, I know I have wronged you. After you are out of danger, I will definitely complete the formalities and invite all your relatives and friends to come over, and officially give you the status of a young lady."

Xiangling had suffered many setbacks, but now she finally had her happy ending. She burst into tears and threw herself into Aunt Xue's arms, sobbing:
"What did you say, mother?"

"I am just a helpless maid. Now I have received your mother's love. Why should I be dissatisfied? Even if I were to be torn to pieces immediately, I would be willing to do so."

Xiangling is the only representative in the secondary volume of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling. The names of the other women in the secondary volume are not given and their identities cannot be fully confirmed.

Some people believe that the "Twelve Beauties in the Second Volume" were all born "master girls", but they had bad luck, lower status, and not as prominent as the women in the main volume.

Some people also believe that the "Twelve Beauties in the Second Volume" should be relatives or concubines of the Jia family.

Based on different research directions, scholars of the Dream of the Red Chamber have pieced together a large number of different versions of the candidates for the supplementary volume, each with their own reasons, and the total number of people is far more than twelve.

The fate of most women in "Dream of Red Mansions" is tragic, and Xiangling's fate is the most unfortunate among all women.

Xiangling, whose real name is Zhen Yinglian, means "truly worthy of pity".

She is the first woman to appear among the golden hairpins. She was only three years old when she appeared. She was the only daughter of Zhen Shiyin, a city official in Suzhou. However, she had an unfortunate fate and was abducted by human traffickers.

The rich lady became a slave!

After raising Xiangling, the human traffickers first sold her to Feng Yuan. Unexpectedly, she was favored by Xue Pan, so the human traffickers sold Xiangling to the Xue family. The Feng and Xue families quarreled, and Xue Pan's men beat Feng Yuan severely and took Xiangling away. Feng Yuan died a few days after he returned.

The official trying the case was Jia Yucun, who had received great kindness from Zhen Shiyin. After learning that Xiangling was the long-lost daughter of his benefactor, Jia Yucun decided to pretend ignorance for the sake of his own career.

So, the gourd monk judged the gourd case and faked Xue Pan's death, thus fooling people out of the case.

And Xiangling became Xue Pan's concubine.

But Aunt Xue valued Xiangling very much and never let Xue Pan take her as his wife. In the original book, it was more than a year later that a formal wedding was held and Xiangling was given to Xue Pan.

According to Cao Gong's verdict, Xiangling should have been tortured to death by Xue Pan's wife Xia Jingui. However, the last forty chapters were not written by Cao Gong. Instead, it became that Xia Jingui poisoned herself to death, and Xiangling was made Xue Pan's wife, but eventually died of dystocia.

But this is the plot in the book. Now that she has met Zhan Ershisi, her fate has shifted. Before Master Zhan can do anything, she has become an official Miss Xue.

Even if she enters Rongguo Mansion again in the future, she will never make the same mistake again.

The three of them discussed carefully inside, but Zhan Ershisi outside heard it clearly.

He had no intention of killing the characters in the original book, but he planned to use their identities to enter the capital and plot against the Ning and Rong mansions.

This Miss Xue is very calculating!
It is just as what is said in the original book, he is indifferent in dealing with things and ruthless in doing things.

Even his own sister's life-long event was used as a bargaining chip!
Oh, it’s not a kiss… no wonder!
Zhan Ershisi originally liked Daiyu more in Dream of the Red Chamber, and was not very interested in women like Baochai who were too rational. Now that he had personally witnessed her scheming, he disliked her even more.

However, Xiangling was really pitiful in the original book. Since they took the initiative to send Xiangling away, there was no reason for him to refuse her.

After making up his mind, Zhan Ershisi remained calm and carefully left the vicinity of the carriage, carefully thinking about his plan to take the opportunity to go to Beijing to cleanse himself.

(End of this chapter)