王熙凤凤辣子 · 10
Leaf 10 of the Red Chamber · 凡鸟 Common Bird
Wang Xifeng 王熙凤
In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the Main register (正冊) · nicknamed 凡鸟 “Common Bird”
The manager who runs money, servants and funerals: the register files her under a riddle — common bird, the character for phoenix taken apart — standing on a mountain of ice.
凡鸟偏从末世来， 都知爱慕此生才。 一从二令三人木， 哭向金陵事更哀。
A common bird, come in the house's last age — and everyone knew, and admired, the talent she was born with. First compliant, then commanding, then dismissed: weeping her way back to Jinling, and that case sadder still.
畫 One face of iceberg, and on top of it a single female phoenix.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 3
Laughter Before She Is Seen
潑辣Comes laughing in from the courtyard before she is seen, takes charge of the new cousin's welcome, and is presented by Grandmother Jia as the house's famous devil — call her Feng the Hot Pepper.
- ch. 13
Order at the Ning Funeral
協理Crosses to the Ning mansion to run the funeral of Qin Keqing: posts the duties, fixes the hours, flogs one servant for being late, and the disorderly house is orderly by morning.
- ch. 15
The Betrothal Bought with Silver
弄權Takes three thousand taels to break a widow's betrothal through a magistrate in her name; the bride and her lover both die of it and she only grows bolder.
- ch. 44
The Birthday Day Jealousy
潑醋Dances out of her own birthday party to find her husband with another woman on the bed, beats the wrong maid for it, and is pacified next day by his grandmother's order.
- ch. 55
The Books Taken from Her Bed
小產Overworked by the year's turn and the old dowager's birthday, she miscarries, keeps her bed, and the books go to Tanchun, Li Wan and Baochai.
- ch. 74
The Night Search of the Rooms
抄檢Walks the night search of the daughters' rooms with the whisperers at her elbow, and is turned back at Tanchun's door while a slap lands on the woman who taught them both.
結局 The ending
The register gives her three stages in one line — first obeyed, then commanding, then the woman-and-wood that means sent away — and weeping back to Jinling. The 120-chapter text keeps the shape of it: she dies as the house falls, her funeral thin, her daughter left to kin already pricing her.
The book itself: what happens, how long it is, which English version to read — The story · How long it is · Which translation · The lamp-oil night · The family tree · The first expulsion