They continued on their way to Xi-chun’s apartment. Being younger and more immature than the other cousins, Xi-chun was much more frightened by this visitation and, at first, seemed to be quite bewildered by it. It took all of Xi-feng’s efforts to calm her down. Unfortunately, while they were searching in Picture’s trunk, they came across a large packet containing thirty or forty silver medallions. So instead of evidence of immoral conduct, one had found stolen goods. There was also a carved jade belt-buckle, a pair of men’s boots, and a pair of socks.
Zhang Ye looked at the audience, “There’s this line ‘so instead of evidence of immoral conduct, one had found stolen goods’ in there. If a meticulous person were to flip through the ancient text of ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’, he would realize there was no such line. Only Zhiyanzhai’s edition has it. This line is in no way Cao Xueqin’s original text. So instead of evidence of immoral conduct, one had found stolen goods—This is simply Zhiyanzhai’s own comment!” And coupled with the previous information, I want everyone to take a clear look, “Look, the origins come from here! And clearly, Zhiyanzhai’s ancient text was many years before Gao E’s edition. Of course it couldn’t be Zhiyanzhai erroneously copying Gao E’s ancient text. That is illogical. Hence, this is how a mistaken portion from Zhiyanzhai entered Gao E’s version. This was because Gao E was using Zhiyanzhai’s ancient text as a template!”