Black Jade aka Lin Tai-yu

One of the most sentimental fictional characters I have come across is Black Jade (Lin Tai-yu) from the Chinese literature “Hung Lou Meng”, also known as the Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone.

She was first mentioned to me about a decade ago when my “Soi Chek” (youngest uncle) came home for a break from Melbourne. What he told me roused enough curiosity for me to search for and read an English translation of the book immediately thereafter.

Lin Tai-yu was so sentimental that one of her pre-occupations was to gather the fallen flowers, put them into muslin bags and then buried them in her flowers’ burial mound, sometimes weeping in part from the occasions of the farewell feast of the flowers.

In essence, The Story of the Stone deals with the theme of love and sentiment. How it begins is absolutely magical.

A piece of stone was endowed with supernatural powers after having been given a spark of life by the divine hands of a Goddess. It has since then been given to wandering about the universe. One day, it came upon a Crimson Flower growing by the side of a rock. The Stone was struck with the great beauty of the fairy flower and assumed the task of caring for it and feeding it daily with sweet dew. Under this tender care, the Crimson Flower thrived and continued to absorb year after year the cosmic essences of Heaven and Earth until it too acquired supernatural qualities and transformed itself into a beautiful fairy goddess. She was grateful for the care lavished upon her by the Stone and was unhappy because she did not know how to repay it. She used to say to herself, “I can’t pay him back in kind since he has no need for sweet dew. Perhaps I can repay him with my tears, should both of us be sent down to the mortal world”

Sure enough, the Stone and the Crimson Flower were soon incarnated together into the mortal world. Hence, begins the Story of the Stone………….

Click HERE to read the novel online.