With a moment’s pause, Zhang Ye continued on, “When I mentioned that Gao E’s continuation of the writings of ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’ was mismatched with the earlier chapters, what I meant was the personal style of writing was different. I did not deny Gao E’s talent. On the contrary, I really respect him as he had given an ending to ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’ and facilitated the spread of the novel. Gao E made a huge contribution!”
F**k!
Why does it sound more and more like this was the truth!
A straight As student from the History department suddenly raised his hand to speak, “What you have just said, was built on the assumption that after the first 80 chapters of ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’, somebody had to continue to write it. I feel that it’s not the time now to argue whether it was Gao E or an unknown person who continued writing, but…what do you base it on when you say that only 80 chapters of the original manuscripts were written by Mr Cao Xueqin? Based on what are you saying that the 120 chapters consisted of someone else continuing the writings and were not the original works of Mr Cao Xueqin? Just based on a bet that a Qing dynasty’s poet work had mentioned the words of ’80 chapters’?”