Read Online The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen - Free Book Online

simply pocket the two taels as their own, but she would scorn to stoop to such dishonesty. She shuts the ledger and hurries to the bedroom.
    Lian is sitting on the edge of the kang untying his sash and shrugging off his robe. She kneels to take off his shoes and his socks. “Aren’t you feeling all right?”
    “I’m fine. What was happening out there?”
    “This is the second time that maid has been caught stealing. I was just teaching her a lesson.”
    “You don’t have to be so harsh with the servants.”
    His tone is mild enough, but still his criticism irritates her. “You have no idea how hard it is to maintain order and respect in this household,” she tells him. “I’m only a xifu , a daughter-in-law.” She does not mention that her failure to bear the family a child makes her status even lower. “If I showed the least weakness, everyone would be upon me like a school of sharks. It’s a good thing everyone knows that Lady Jia likes me. Otherwise, I’d never have survived this long.”
    He shrugs, not deigning to reply. When she helps him strip downto his tunic she sees a few patches of rough red skin on his arms. “Your eczema is flaring up again. Do you want me to put some rose-orris on it?”
    “All right.”
    She takes off his tunic, and sprinkles some rose-orris powder onto her palms. She kneels behind him on the kang and rubs the powder into his smooth, hairless back and broad shoulders. When Lian was in his early teens, he had loved all sports: archery, horseback riding, swordsmanship. He had been forced to give them up in order to study for the Exams. She remembers how good-looking she thought him the first time she saw him, when she had lifted a corner of her wedding veil and peeked out at him from under the blind of her wedding sedan. Now he has become too lazy for exercise, preferring to spend his spare time gambling and drinking. Even though he has kept his athletic build, a spreading slackness has developed around his belly, which jiggles a little as she rubs his shoulders.
    Usually, when she rubs the rose-orris into his chest and belly, she can feel his body relaxing beneath her fingers. Today his muscles remain tensed.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Really?” Now she bends down to smooth the powder on his thighs and calves.
    After a moment, he says grudgingly, “Well, if you must know, now that Uncle Zheng is back he’ll want to go through the accounts with me.”
    She nods, understanding why he is tense. When Lian could not pass the Exams, he was given the job of managing the family’s farming properties in the south. He is supposed to keep track of the rents, harvests, operating expenses, taxes, and salaries. But he has neither a head for numbers nor the patience to sort through receipts and records every month. Every time Uncle Zheng thinks to ask for the accounts, Lian’s neglect and confusion are exposed. Uncle Zheng shouts at him and calls him lazy. But in the end nothing changes, because, Xifeng suspects, Uncle Zheng himself has as little idea how to run the estates.
    “I could help you,” she says timidly. She has always been quick at figures, and has perfected a system of recording income and expenditures. Even though running a household is women’s work, she suspects managing a farm involves similar principles.
    “No, thank you,” he says sharply.
    She should not have offered, of course. He has never been able to accept that she is cleverer than he is. When Lady Jia praises her for runningthe household, she always notices him chafing, jealous that he himself cannot merit such praise.
    He seems to regret his sharpness, and changes the subject. “What do you think of Lin Daiyu?”
    “If she is going to survive here, she had better learn to stay on Granny’s good side.”
    “Baoyu seemed quite taken with her. I’ve always heard that girls from the south had a special sort of languorous grace—”
    She feels a prick of jealousy. “Don’t be