When the Imperial Consort, Jia Yuanchun—Baoyu's eldest sister and the family's most exalted connection to the throne—returned for a brief home visit, the Jia mansion was transformed.

A magnificent garden was constructed for her visit. Pavilion after pavilion, bridge after bridge, grotto after grotto—the Grand View Garden was a miniature world of sublime beauty, a universe in a courtyard, costing hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

"Too extravagant," Yuanchun said upon seeing it, tears in her eyes. "Father, Mother, you have spent far too much."

But after the Consort returned to the Forbidden City, she sent word that the garden should not be allowed to lie empty. Let Baoyu and the young women of the household make it their home.

And so began the golden age of the Grand View Garden.

Baoyu took the Chamber of Enjoying Twilight. Daiyu chose the Bamboo Lodge, where the wind whispered through green stalks like a lament. Baochai settled in the Alpinia Park, simple and elegant as her character. Other cousins filled the remaining pavilions—the Autumn Studio, the Smartweed Loggia, the Pear Fragrance Court.

In this enchanted space, poetry reigned supreme. They formed the Crab-Flower Poetry Club, gathering to compose verses, drink tea, and mock each other's literary pretensions. They flew kites in spring, admired chrysanthemums in autumn, and welcomed the first snow of winter with wine warmed over plum-blossom fires.

They were young, beautiful, and privileged beyond measure.

And they did not know—could not know—that every petal falling from the crab-apple trees was counting down the hours of their happiness.

The glory of the Jia clan was already beginning to rot from within. The family's finances were a labyrinth of debt. The male heirs dissipated fortunes on gambling and concubines. The servants schemed and embezzled. And in the imperial court, political currents were shifting in ways that would eventually sweep the entire magnificent edifice away.

But in the Garden of Total Vision, where the girls wrote poems and Baoyu dreamed of a world where daughters never had to marry and leave, the illusion was perfect—and perfectly fragile.