postscript
The article "Do You Know?" was started on November 29, 2010, and completed on December 3, 2012, which took two years and five days. During this period, I experienced many ups and downs, joy and frustration. I was praised to the sky, and I felt that my writing was so talented that I could easily compete with J.K. Rowling single-handedly. I was also criticized so much that even my family and character were warmly greeted.
It’s hard to describe the feeling in a few words.
I still remember the dispute over the male lead. The readers argued so fiercely under the article that I didn't even dare to reveal the real male lead. Because I was mentally prepared, the scolding and wailing I received after Gu Tingye officially revealed his card was not as severe as I expected. Thank you all for your tolerance here, and thank you to those readers who stood on the wrong side but still supported this article.
Some readers have even angrily criticized the author for being unscrupulous, keeping the audience on suspense, and calling the method clumsy and disgusting. To which I can only say, sister, keeping the audience on suspense and keeping them on suspense are normal ways of delivering jokes in novels.
The two cannon fodders, He Hongwen and Qi Heng, each have their own helplessness.
The tragedy of He Hongwen is that he has a mother who was widowed at a young age and is weak and helpless by nature. As a considerate and precocious son, his feelings for his mother are more than just filial piety. They even contain a bit of guilt and compensation. So when he knows that his widowed mother's handling of the Cao family is not correct and that her behavior will cause harm to himself and the He family, he adopts an attitude of tolerance and compromise.
In fact, regardless of whether he would marry Minglan or not, he should not let the shadow of the Cao family interfere with his originally bright life; since the principle was wrong, he would have to pay for this mistake in his future life.
Unlike He Hongwen, who had a mother with flawed ideals that hindered him, Qi Heng's tragedy was that he had a mother whose fundamental principles were absolutely sound. Princess Pingning recognized her son's shortcomings early on and took targeted measures to remedy them. Objectively speaking, her plans for her son's future were flawlessly accurate.
Qi Heng's three wives, even the first one, Princess Jiacheng, who died early, would have been a great help if it were not for the sudden change in the political situation; the second wife, Shen, successfully helped the Qi father and son to establish a ladder of promotion in the new dynasty, enabling the Qi family to quickly transform from an old noble family into loyal and capable ministers of the new emperor; the third wife helped Qi Heng to establish a relationship with the extremely powerful Princess Qingning in the royal clan, thus defeating the equally powerful eldest wife of the Qi family and successfully inheriting the title.
Qi Heng’s helplessness lies in the fact that even he himself cannot deny that his mother is right.
As a son of a noble who received orthodox education since childhood and was a good son who was taught and taught by his parents since childhood, it was almost Qi Heng's instinctive idea to bring honor to the family and become famous.
Compared with the two, Qi Heng's tragedy is more heartbreaking.
He Hongwen's mistake was personal. If he had half the fortitude and decisiveness of Sheng Changbai, and resisted his reluctance to his mother and cousin, then even if he failed to marry Minglan, he might have had a harmonious future, instead of being tormented day after day by the Cao family and his widowed mother, and prematurely exhausting his passion and joy for life.
This tragedy is avoidable.
But Qi Heng's tragedy is eternal. It is about the dilemma of a young man facing the choice between future and love. If he chooses love, he may regret it many years later, and the couple may become enemies in the end; if he chooses the future, he will be disappointed and regretful for the rest of his life.
[This question is almost unanswerable. The Sixth Young Master and Jing Wan, who tortured me to the point of fainting and made me cry like a river, are ultimately just asking the same question.]
Minglan refused this choice. She refused to let He Hongwen choose between her and his mother and cousin, and she also refused to let Qi Heng choose between her and his future. It cannot be said absolutely whether this refusal is right or wrong. It depends on one's opinion.
In the end, half of Qi Heng's lifelong sadness was due to his longing for the only girl who had touched his heart in his life, and the other half was due to his longing for the most beautiful love in his youth, that pure feeling, a regret that could never be made up for.
No one is perfect, the moon has phases, that's all.
Many readers have complaints about the male protagonist, and the reasons can be listed one, two, three, four, A, B, C, and D. In fact, if you analyze it carefully, Gu Tingye and Minglan have a high degree of consistency in their life experiences.
Minglan has lived two lives, so naturally she has a certain pessimism and vicissitudes of life in her attitude towards people and things, so much so that she gave up her fantasy about Qi Heng early on and chose He Hongwen, whose path was smoother; and Gu Tingye has actually also lived two lives.
His life can be divided into two distinct stages, before leaving the Marquis' Mansion and after leaving the Marquis' Mansion.
Before leaving the Marquis' Mansion, although he was a noble and respected young master of the Marquis' Mansion, with people following him everywhere and no worries about food and clothing, he was actually full of grievances and debts. The grievances between him and the Gu family had long been complicated and could not be untied.
After leaving the Marquis' Mansion, although he suddenly fell from a life of luxury to a hard and rough living environment, he was able to let go of all his burdens and worries, live with a completely new outlook, make friends, build his family business, and start from scratch.
During this process, he finally matured mentally and was able to look at his father and the past with a more tolerant attitude. Although he might not forgive him, he gradually came to understand him.
Without his Ningyuan Marquis Mansion, his property would probably be ransacked and his title taken away in the tide of transition from the old to the new; but without the Ningyuan Marquis Mansion, he could still be self-reliant and decide his own life.
This process was positive, endowing this man with powerful abilities, keen observation, and precise calculations. Ultimately, it enabled him to make decisions about his own marriage more independently than Qi Heng, and to resolve obstacles more decisively than He Hongwen, without much waffling or hesitation. However, there were also shortcomings.
Just imagine a successful man who has gone through many hardships and tasted the bitterness of life and finally been reborn from the ashes. How could he be so naive as to give his feelings without reservation and love like an adolescent boy.
Having experienced betrayal and great suffering, and then slowly struggling to get up, it is inherently difficult for such a man to love and trust unconditionally again - this is also the main complaint of many readers about the male protagonist.
So I said at the beginning that I didn't want to write the typical evil and charming male protagonist who is sharp and indifferent to everyone in the world but deeply in love with the female protagonist. For someone with life experience like the male protagonist, falling in love requires time and a process, and requires mutual understanding and touching. The kind of passionate love that comes from the sudden encounter of gold wind and jade dew does not belong to him.
Thank you to my readers who understand me, and thank you to those readers who cannot understand but tolerate me.
Finally, let’s talk about Man Niang. This character has also been hotly discussed by everyone. Some people support her, while others criticize her.
I honestly admit that the inspiration for this character mainly comes from two literary figures, one is Cheng Dieyi, whose life is like a play, and the other is Xiren, who is "gentle and docile in vain, like osmanthus and orchid in vain".
I was very young when I watched "Farewell My Concubine", but I was shocked by Cheng Dieyi played by Leslie Cheung. It was strange that I couldn't fully understand the emotions in "Jane Eyre", but I could understand Cheng Dieyi's excessive "immersion in the role".
When a person pours all his emotions, enthusiasm, talent, time and even thoughts into one thing, the result is bound to be an almost insane fanaticism, overwhelming and irreversible.
What Cheng Dieyi actually loves is not Duan Xiaolou, but the "strong and powerful King of Western Chu" in the play.
Man Niang does not love Gu Tingye, but a dream she has had since childhood, an ideal to which she has poured all her life's passion. Any noble man who can satisfy her wishes can become her male protagonist.
Life is like a play, and life is like a play.
The difference is that Cheng Dieyi only hurt himself, while Man Niang not only hurt herself, but also hurt others, including innocent people and even her own relatives.
Let’s talk about Xiren.
Cao Gong's writing of characters is entirely in plain language, employing various techniques to meticulously describe the person's words and actions, without offering explicit judgment or commentary. Simply put, his writing is like, "I've clearly described what this person did and said. Whether this person is good or bad, you can judge for yourself."
The result is that in the eyes of a thousand readers, there are a thousand Wang Xifeng, Jia Baoyun, Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai...
Xiren was undoubtedly a good girl, gentle and docile to others, attentive and considerate to her master, and thorough and prudent in her work. However, was she truly a good maid? This raises the question of "consistency of interests."
Zijuan is almost universally recognized as the best maid in the Red Mansion. She is sincere to Lin Daiyu and is both a good friend and a sister. However, her essential interests are basically the same as Lin Daiyu's, so her kindness can be said to be in line with the trend.
But what happens when the interests of the master and servant are at odds? Xiren encountered this tragic problem.
Putting aside the question of whether Xiren was truly responsible for Qingwen's expulsion, which has always been a matter of public opinion, what about the Xue and Lin issue? Xiren knew that Baoyu liked Lin Daiyu, but she still sided with Xue Baochai without hesitation.
Xiren would of course defend herself by saying 'Miss Lin is not a good wife, it is Miss Bao who can really help Master Bao', but the truth is, she is determined to be a concubine, so whether the eldest wife is easy to get along with is very important.
Compared with Lin Daiyu's straightforwardness and temper, Baochai's deliberate friendship with Xiren; compared with Lin Daiyu's melancholy and difficulty, Baochai's kindness and generosity directly determined Xiren's attitude, and then the attitude was transformed into various intentional or unintentional actions, even various actions in front of Mrs. Wang.
It is not possible to say that Xiren was wrong, but what about her so-called "sincerity" towards Baoyu? Baoyu's love and Baoyu's feelings are not as important to Xiren as herself.
The same is true for Mannia.
She keeps saying that she loves Gu Tingye forever and will be with him till death do us part, but with her intelligence, could she not realize that Gu Tingye's real wish is to gain his father's approval, live a proper and affirmed life according to his father's expectations, have a gentle and sensible wife who is a good match for him, and have legitimate children?
Man Niang certainly knew this, but it was not in her interest. In front of her own interests, what did Gu Tingye's wishes and suffering matter?
Of course, Man Niang would also defend herself like Xiren, "Erlang has only suffered grievances in that family. I am doing this for his own good. Only by leaving the Gu Mansion and living with me can Erlang have the best future. He will definitely be happy in the future if he is with me."
Unfortunately, Man Niang forgot to ask Gu Tingye whether he loved her and whether he was willing to live with her.
Madam Liuli and Academician Gao have sincere feelings for each other, a love that truly transcends worldly views, it is passionate and unyielding. They once compromised with reality, but because they have such a strong and unstoppable love as the driving force, neither time nor space can stop them, and they are finally able to break through everything and be together.
Man Niang devoted her entire life, paying countless costs, to choreographing a grand spectacle that she thought would be a hit, meticulously mulling over every detail and meticulously preparing every scene. Unfortunately, the leading actor refused to appear.
The structure of this article still has many shortcomings, and there are many aspects of the character creation that I am dissatisfied with. Because the article is too long, many details are wrong and missing. I hope I will have the opportunity to improve it in the new article in the future (or maybe I won’t have the opportunity).
I am really, really grateful to the readers who have been with me along the way and tolerated my willfulness and nonsense. If I were a reader, I would also be very angry with myself. I hope that everyone and I can meet more reliable authors in the future.
Okay, I can go back to the forum and continue spitting with my old comrades. I think my old rivals must be very lonely without me.
Finally, I wish you all a happy life and a happy family.
Concern leads to confusion
End of February 2013
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