Drawing on his personal experience of dramatic rise and fall, Cao devoted more than a decade, amid hardship, to writing Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone. This monumental novel portrays the decline of the aristocratic Jia family through the tragic love story of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. Celebrated for its intricate plot, vivid characters, psychological depth, and rich depiction of Qing society, the work is widely regarded as the pinnacle of classical Chinese fiction. Sadly, Cao died before completing it; the existing 120-chapter version is believed to have been finished by Gao E. The novel has inspired a dedicated field of scholarship known as "Redology."
The snow celery
Cao Xueqin (c. 1715–1763) was one of China's greatest novelists, a writer, poet, and painter of the Qing Dynasty. His given name, Xueqin, poetically evokes the image of "snow upon celery." Born into the wealthy and influential Cao family, which served as Commissioners of Imperial Textiles in Nanjing, Cao enjoyed a life of luxury in his youth. However, when the family fell from imperial favor and its property was confiscated in 1727, he moved to Beijing and spent his later years in considerable poverty in the city's western suburbs.