The Lu Family Old Residence is more than a family home: it is the domestic stage on which Lu Xun and Su Xiangwan’s marriage becomes visible to relatives, where private affection meets household expectations, and where Su Xiangwan is progressively treated as a genuine daughter-in-law. Within its study, dining spaces, and gathering rooms, chess games, meals, birthday preparations, and musical performances turn the residence into a compact social world governed by affection, scrutiny, and family authority.

Family Home and Social Stage

The residence is occupied and managed by Lu Cheng and Shen Hui, whose presence gives it the character of an established household rather than a temporary refuge. When Su Xiangwan arrives late, Lu Cheng and Shen Hui are delighted to see her. Lu Cheng immediately wants to draw her into a game of chess after lunch, while Lu Xun wants her to rest with him, leaving her caught between two competing claims on her time. The scene presents the house as a place where she is not merely visiting: both the older generation and her husband assume that her presence naturally belongs within the family’s daily rhythm.

Lu Xun also uses the residence as a site of marital protection and practical responsibility. When company business requires an early departure, he explains that they must return to handle the matter and promises to come back for dinner the following weekend so that Su Xiangwan can play chess with Lu Cheng. Crucially, he has brought Su Xiangwan with him rather than leaving her alone at the old house. His decision joins logistical care with possessive companionship, showing that the residence can be both a family center and a space from which Lu Xun determines how his wife moves.

Domestic Routine and Marital Negotiation

The study condenses the household’s competing forms of intimacy. Su Xiangwan plays chess with Lu Cheng while Lu Xun sits nearby, unusually absorbed in his phone and apparently bored by the game. When Shen Hui calls Su Xiangwan to dinner, she follows her mother-in-law out but turns back to make a face at Lu Xun. Lu Xun then offers to play several rounds with Lu Cheng after dinner so that his “little daughter-in-law” can rest. When Lu Cheng objects that she has already been sitting for two hours, Lu Xun leaves the study, and Lu Cheng remarks that the younger man is too concerned with his wife’s comfort. The exchange makes care legible as a family joke while also confirming Lu Xun’s priorities.

Meals at the residence open more consequential subjects. Shen Hui asks when Lu Xun and Su Xiangwan intend to have a baby, and Su Xiangwan lowers her head and attempts to redirect the question to Lu Xun. He answers that she is still young and that he wants her to enjoy another two years before having children. His reply sounds dignified and protective, but Shen Hui is not easily persuaded. The old residence therefore functions as a pressure chamber in which marriage is measured against reproduction, while Su Xiangwan and Lu Xun negotiate their private timetable under parental observation.

The house also carries the small rituals of marriage. On one occasion, Su Xiangwan finds a note from Lu Xun on the bedside table announcing that Shen Hui is holding a party that evening and, most urgently, that it is his mother-in-law’s birthday. The late notice leaves her only half a day to prepare a dress and a present, making the domestic space a point of sudden transition from private bedroom to public family occasion. Lu Xun’s note is both communication and evidence of his imperfect planning: he knows the family obligation matters, yet he gives his wife very little time to meet it.

Weddings, Gifts, and Performance

The old residence is connected to the couple’s wedding preparations as well as to the ceremonial display of their marriage. After Lu Xun and Su Xiangwan agree to visit a wedding shop, they spend the entire afternoon in bed instead. The contrast between the expected public labor of selecting wedding clothing and the private intensity of their relationship reveals how the marriage repeatedly moves between social form and physical attachment. Lu Xun is so domineering in his desire for her that he would rather prevent her from getting dressed; at home, he replaces the various pajamas she has bought with a large T-shirt for her to wear. Domestic space thus becomes the setting where his possessive habits are most plainly expressed.

A later visit to the Su Clan’s residence brings the emotional consequences of the wedding into view. Lu Xun drives Su Xiangwan there, where Su Qingrou is waiting. Su Xiangwan greets her sister with open excitement over the wedding dress, while Su Qingrou’s eyes redden and she recalls the hope that they might one day wear wedding dresses together. The residence is not the scene of that exchange, but it forms part of the connected family geography through which wedding clothing, sisterhood, and marriage obligations circulate. Lu Xun’s household is consequently linked to the Su family’s emotional history rather than standing apart from it.

The Lu Family Old Residence becomes especially prominent during Shen Hui’s birthday celebration. Lu Xun returns early to Jingshan Villa to accompany Su Xiangwan for dinner, then goes upstairs while she applies makeup and changes clothes. He sees her in her gown and is struck by how dazzling she looks. When she later greets Shen Hui, she offers birthday wishes and presents the gift with both hands. Shen Hui responds warmly, noting that Su Xiangwan is careful with the family accounts yet has apparently spent her own money on the present. The exchange confirms that Su Xiangwan’s place in the family is being evaluated through generosity, manners, and financial responsibility, not only through her marriage to Lu Xun.

Belonging, Scrutiny, and Conflict

The birthday gathering turns the residence into a public arena. Su Xiangwan is humble and polite before the elders and wins their favor with her gracious manner. Upstairs, she and Shen Hui speak at length about the love of parents: Su Xiangwan explains that she grew up with her grandfather and sister and that Shen Hui and Lu Cheng gave her the parental affection she had long yearned for. Their conversation is interrupted by Lu Cheng, who comes looking for his wife because everyone is waiting and because the evening’s musical presentation must begin. The movement from private confession to scheduled performance shows how quickly the old house shifts between emotional refuge and ceremonial obligation.

Lu Cheng is anxious that the family’s daughter-in-law might make a mistake and become a laughingstock, since the Lu Family is hosting the evening. Su Xiangwan reassures him that she knows something about several instruments but is not proficient in any of them, and asks him to choose one or two at random. His concern is affectionate, but it also demonstrates the standards attached to her position. In the Lu Family Old Residence, acceptance is generous yet conditional on successful performance of family manners.

The wider gathering brings other relationships into the same space. Lu Xun chats with Lin Yanche and Song Yuner, while Su Qingrou and Jin Zhengnan speak in a corner. Su Xiangwan warns her sister that Song Yuner is deliberately targeting her and suggests that Su Qingrou and Jin Zhengnan leave for the airport when possible, while offering to remain for a while. The residence therefore concentrates not only the Lu family’s warmth but also rivalries and vulnerabilities imported from outside relationships. A family party can become a protective formation, a display of status, and a site where old conflicts threaten to surface.

Narrative Significance

The Lu Family Old Residence repeatedly converts private relationships into observable family facts. Chess makes Su Xiangwan part of Lu Cheng’s routine; meals place her marriage under discussion; the bedroom and wedding preparations expose Lu Xun’s possessive intimacy; gifts and musical performance test her conduct as a daughter-in-law; and conversations with Shen Hui give her an emotional history within the household. The residence’s significance lies in this continual alternation between enclosure and display. It shelters affection, but it also makes affection answerable to parents, customs, schedules, and reputation.

Against more openly dangerous spaces in the wider story, the old residence appears comparatively safe, yet its safety is never neutral. Its doors and rooms organize access, attention, and obligation. Lu Xun decides when Su Xiangwan accompanies him, Lu Cheng summons her to chess or performance, Shen Hui questions her about children, and the family collectively watches how she behaves. The house is therefore the architectural form of marital belonging: a place where Su Xiangwan is welcomed as family while learning the rules by which that welcome is maintained.