Yunlou

Yunlou is a systematic research work on Dream of the Red Chamber, focusing on the long-debated questions of authorship and central purpose through large-scale character-prototype analysis.

Unlike traditional Redology studies that rely primarily on textual variants or biographical speculation, Yunlou adopts a structural approach. It reconstructs approximately 200 fictional characters in the novel as projections of identifiable historical figures, emphasizing the stability of relationship networks, narrative roles, and life trajectories across the text.

Based on this reconstruction, Yunlou argues that the novel’s ideological core and narrative structure align more closely with the late-Ming / early-Qing historical context than with mid-Qing gentry life. Within this framework, Yunlou proposes that the author of Dream of the Red Chamber may have been Fu Shan (傅山), rather than Cao Xueqin.

Regarding purpose, Yunlou interprets the novel as a terminal narrative. Rather than romanticizing aristocratic life or personal emotion, the work depicts the systematic dissolution of the “Red Chamber world,” functioning as a historical reckoning and deliberate closure of a cultural order.

As an integrated explanatory framework, Yunlou remains subject to academic discussion, but its character-centered structural methodology offers a distinctive and coherent approach to understanding the novel’s authorship and intent.