Chapter 7: Palace Flowers, New Friends, and a Drunken Curse

In Chapter 7, we take a walking tour of the Rongguo Mansion's inner quarters. When Aunt Xue distributes beautiful artificial palace flowers to the young ladies of the house, the delivery route quietly maps out the physical and social geography of the estate. The sequence culminates in a quintessential display of Lin Daiyu's sharp, sensitive pride when she realizes she is the last to receive her gift.

The narrative then crosses over to the neighboring Ningguo Mansion for a family banquet. Here, Jia Baoyu meets Qin Zhong, the beautiful and bashful younger brother of Qin Keqing. The two boys form an immediate, intense bond. However, the elegant facade of the banquet is shattered by the elderly, decorated servant Jiao Da. In a drunken, venomous rage, Jiao Da screams out the darkest, most scandalous secrets of the Ningguo household—proving that beneath the surface of this wealthy family, severe decay has already set in.

In this episode:

• Zhou Rui's wife delivers the palace flowers, revealing hidden family dynamics.
• A glimpse into the private marriage of Jia Lian and Wang Xifeng.
• Daiyu’s iconic, sarcastic reaction to receiving the "leftover" flowers.
• Baoyu meets his intellectual and aesthetic match, Qin Zhong.
• Jiao Da’s explosive, truth-telling drunken curse.