Jia Baoyu was not an ordinary child. When he was born with a gleaming piece of jade in his mouth, his grandmother, the Dowager Lady Jia, declared it a heavenly omen. The family had the jade set in a golden chain and hung it around his neck, where it never left him.

But Baoyu himself was a puzzle to his aristocratic clan. At his first birthday ceremony, when objects were placed before the infant to predict his future path, he ignored the seals of office, the scholar's brushes, and the golden ingots. Instead, he reached for rouge, powder boxes, and hair ornaments.

"Another debauchee!" his father, Jia Zheng, roared in fury. "He will grow up to be a dissolute profligate and a disgrace to his ancestors!"

Yet Baoyu was no ordinary playboy. He spoke of women with a reverence that bordered on philosophy.

"Daughters are made of water, men of mud," he once declared. "When I am in the presence of a daughter, I feel clean and pure. But the sight of a man makes me feel muddy and foul."

The household shook their heads. Such talk was nonsense—or worse, heresy, in a society where women were expected to be silent and obedient.

Among the countless women in the Jia mansion, two would shape Baoyu's destiny more than any other.

Lin Daiyu, his cousin, arrived at the mansion shortly after her mother's death. She was delicate as a willow in spring, brilliant as a winter star, and sharp-tongued as a summer storm. Her beauty was the beauty of a porcelain vase that threatened to shatter at the slightest touch.

And Xue Baochai, another cousin, came with her mother and brother seeking refuge within the Jia compound. Where Daiyu was willowy and melancholic, Baochai was round-faced and gracious. Where Daiyu spoke with barbed wit, Baochai smiled with diplomatic grace. She wore a golden locket that, by coincidence or fate, matched Baoyu's jade stone.

The stage was set for the greatest love triangle in Chinese literature—a story that would span twelve women of Jinling, hundreds of characters, and the slow, beautiful decay of an aristocratic dynasty.