This article was first published in "Appreciation of the Dream of the Red Chamber", author: You Bean Paste
When Jia Baoyu and Xue Pan still relied on the family's position of power to eat and drink, Liu Xianglian, who was also a child of the family, had already come out early to earn money to support her family.
Reading the text carefully, you will find that every time Liu Xianglian appears, she is accompanied by a job introduction, others are invited to drink, and he plays the role of accompanying the scene. Liu Xianglian, who obviously has a good family, why does she frequently come out to work?
The jobs I worked in those years
In "Dream of the Red Chamber", Liu Xianglian's appearances are not many, but she can make a deep impression when she returns, such as the wonderful fight with Xue Pan and the tragic emotional drama with You Sanjie. In these scenes, our focus may be more on the story itself, and ignore a very interesting thing, that is, Liu Xianglian's motivation for appearing - working to earn money.
Strictly speaking, Liu Xianglian's first appearance should be the "five years ago" mentioned by The 66th You Erjie: "Five years ago, our old lady's family made a birthday, and my mother and we went there to visit the old woman, and his family invited a guest, and there was a young student in it, called Liu Xianglian." ”
Liu Xianglian debuted as a "guest" at the beginning, and several years have passed, and this identity has not changed.
On the 47th time, Lai Shangrong threw a feast because he donated an official, and the people in Jia Fu were invited as guests, and the book emphasized that Liu Xianglian was because of his friendship with Lai Shangrong, "so please come to accompany you today."
Here, the meaning of accompanying is the same as the "guest" in the previous article, mainly through the string of plays to adjust the atmosphere, and it is obvious that Liu Xianglian has done a good job in the string of plays, not only Jia Zhen "admired his name", Xue Pan let him string two plays also to "ask" him.
Looking closely at Liu Xianglian's two appearances, each time without exception doing the work of stringing dramas at the banquets of rich and noble families, the reason why I think this is not only because he loves this line, but more likely is that he makes a living from it.
When the other children of the family lived a life of worry-free food and clothing, drunken dreams and death, why did Liu Xianglian fall to the point where she needed to come out to work on her own? The book says that he said, "If you can't study, your parents will die early", you have neither fame nor old capital, plus "gambling and eating wine, so that you can sleep in flowers and willows, play the flute and play the kite, and do everything", the probability is often very poor, so you have to support yourself.
In fact, there are several places in the book about Liu Xianglian's poverty, but unlike the real poor, he is a poor man with backbone.
People are not poor
In the book, Liu Xianglian often said that she was destitute. On the way to Ping'an Prefecture on the 66th time, Jia Lian met Liu Xianglian by chance, and the two of them agreed on his marriage with You Sanjie, and when talking about the ceremony, Liu Xianglian said: "The little brother is poor and poor, and among the guests, how can there be a fixed ceremony?" ”
Saying that she is poor may be humble, how poor Liu Xianglian really is, we really can't understand it for a while, so Cao Xueqin provided a hidden detail that can explain his poverty in the 47th time.
The 47th time, Liu Xianglian was asked by Xue Pan to string two plays, and after feeling the other party's non-division, the book said that he was "already unhappy in his heart, and he was determined to walk away to finish the matter", but Lai Shangrong refused to take him to see Jia Baoyu. In a chat with Baoyu, Liu Xianglian mentioned that she had repaired Qin Zhong's grave.
"I think it rained heavily this summer, and I'm afraid his grave won't stand." I carried everyone on my back, went to see, and sure enough, I moved a little, and when I came home, I got a few hundred dollars, and on the third day I went out early in the morning and hired two people to clean up. ”
According to the description here, Liu Xianglian did not take ready-made money when she returned home, but "got money", not immediately went out to ask someone to repair the grave, but delayed until the "third day".
Liu Xianglian behaved procrastinatingly, not because he was a human being, but because he really didn't have any money. A few hundred dollars in Yihong Courtyard is also to pay the mother-in-law to run errands, but Liu Xianglian can't even get this out.
We can reasonably guess that Liu Xianglian went out to get money the next day, otherwise as a friend of Qin Zhong, Jia Baoyu should have helped to pay the money, but after listening to Liu Xianglian's words, he said: "I only hate that I am at home every day, and I can't do it at all... Although I have money, I am not allowed to do it. ”
Bao Yu mentioned for no reason that he could not use the family's money freely, because he knew that Liu Xianglian was poor, thus explaining why his family had money and could not help. However, It is such a well-known poor Liu Xianglian, but she is a hero who is not poor in her personal ambitions.
In the face of Xue Pan's temptation, "Good brother, you are not happy to go, if you sit down, you will hurt me." With what you have to do, hand it over to your brother, you just don't have to be busy, with your brother, it is easy for you to be an official and get rich", Liu Xianglian's performance after listening to it was "seeing him so unbearable, hated and ashamed in his heart", and then tricked Xue Pan into beating him fiercely in the suburbs, which was in stark contrast to Jin Rong, who had been raised before.
Liu Xianglian, who was born from the children of the family, obviously can rely on his appearance but he has to rely on his talent to support himself, this backbone is undoubtedly admirable, no wonder Jia Zhen, Jia Lian, these wine-colored people not only did not look down on him because of poverty, but also privately praised him: "I said what kind of person he is, it turned out to be him!" Good eyesight. ”
——End——