Madam Rong’s Recurring Nightmares

Madam Rong’s recurring nightmares unsettle the matriarch of a prosperous family, making its wealth and many descendants feel less like protection than a burden. Their persistence shapes the household’s daily routine and brings a parade of interpreters to her, none able to dispel the fear for long.

Family Authority and Private Distress

As a young woman, Grandmother Rong gave birth to nine sons and seven daughters over two decades, and all sixteen survived to adulthood. Her children laid the foundations of the family fortune, securing her an unassailable place at the top of the clan hierarchy. Their care, along with the attention of her grandchildren, helped her live longer than she otherwise might have done, but prosperity and longevity did not make her happy.

She suffered from complex, distressing dreams and often woke screaming. Their terror lingered into daylight, so that even her numerous descendants and the family’s immense wealth could come to seem like crushing responsibilities. The nightmares thus disturb not only her sleep: they invert the signs of her public security, making family and fortune part of what weighs upon her.

A Household Search for Meaning

The distress became a recurring household concern. Every morning, a couple of local scholars were invited to the Rong Family Mansion to interpret the previous night’s dreams. Their regular visits give the nightmares a place in the family’s daily life, but repetition does not bring resolution; as time passed, it became clear that the scholars were of little help.

Among the many people called in, Grandmother Rong was most impressed by a young man who had recently arrived in Tongzhen from overseas. He could explain the inner meanings of her dreams without error and sometimes seemed to foresee the significance of people who would appear in the future. His youth, however, led others to discount his abilities. Grandmother Rong herself regarded him as excellent at dream interpretation, while remaining wary of his divination.

The Limits of Interpretation

The young man’s success had clear boundaries. If he began a divination on the wrong footing, he seemed unable to correct it. He could deal with dreams from the first part of the night, but not those that came toward dawn or the dreams within dreams. He had never formally studied the relevant techniques; he had picked up a little by following his grandfather and listening. His skill was therefore real but incomplete: he could make sense of some of Grandmother Rong’s dreams, not master every form of them.

That distinction preserves the nightmares as an ongoing condition rather than a mystery definitively solved by an interpreter. The household’s repeated consultations show its effort to impose meaning on her terror, while the failure of the scholars—and the young visitor’s limits—leave a remainder that interpretation cannot reach.