Zhōng Xū Mèng 終須夢
The Inevitable Dream by 彌堅堂主人 (撰)
About the work
Zhōng Xū Mèng 終須夢 is an 18-chapter (huí 回) Qīng-dynasty vernacular romance novel in the cáizǐ jiārén 才子佳人 (scholar-beauty) tradition. The work is attributed to 彌堅堂主人 (Mí Jiān Táng Zhǔrén, “Master of the Míjiān Hall”), a studio-style pen name whose holder has not been identified. The story is set during the Míng dynasty (“皇明”), in the Zhangzhou 漳州 region of Fujian, and follows the scholar Kāng Mènghè 康夢鶴 and the young woman Pù Yùzhēn 卜玉真, whose betrothal is contracted at a temple oracle in the opening chapter and then repeatedly disrupted by poverty, scheming rivals, false reports of death, and wrongful accusation. After many trials — including shipwreck, a fraudulent marriage, and the scholar’s journey to success in the imperial examinations — the couple is reunited and their destined union consummated. The title alludes to the idea that what is fated must eventually occur.
The narrative opens with a dramatic prologue: two families — the scholar Kāng Zhènyè 康振業 and the military officer Cài Bīnyàn 蔡斌彥 — visit the Temple of the Heavenly Empress (Tiān Hòu Niángniáng 天後娘娘) to enquire about the sex of an unborn child. The oracle results bind the as-yet-unborn children in a “match indicated by the signed verse” (jiě qiān shī zhǐ fù wéi hūn 解簽詩指腹爲婚). The narrative then traces the fortunes and misfortunes of the contracted couple across eighteen chapters. Chapter-heading couplets follow the standard format of late-Míng and Qīng colloquial fiction.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
Zhōng Xū Mèng is a lesser-known Qīng vernacular romance that has received no significant modern scholarly edition or study. The catalog assigns it to the Qīng dynasty and attributes it to 彌堅堂主人, an otherwise unattested pseudonym formed from a studio name (mí jiān táng 彌堅堂). No preface or colophon in the surviving text gives the author’s name or a date of composition. The prose style, chapter structure, and thematic apparatus — the temple oracle, the betrothal of unborn children, the scholar’s triumphant examination success (三及第, “triple degree pass”), and the eventual reunion — are consistent with the flourishing period of cáizǐ jiārén fiction, roughly 1700–1820. The setting in Fujian, the detailed local landscape description of Zhōngshān 鍾山, and the references to Fujianese local customs suggest the author may have had personal familiarity with the Zhangzhou region.
The plot is organized around a sequence of separations and reunions standard to the genre: poverty-driven dissolution of the match (ch. 3), a flood and drowning scare (ch. 10), the faithful heroine’s suicide attempt (ch. 11), the hero’s success in the examinations (ch. 16), and final restoration (ch. 18). The narrative shows awareness of earlier fiction of the same type, including implicit comparisons to Píng Shān Lěng Yàn 平山冷燕 and Yùjiāolí 玉嬌梨.
The text has not been collated against other editions. Its date of composition remains uncertain; a range of 1700–1850 is defensible on internal grounds.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- 駐春園小史 at Project Gutenberg (a comparator work of the same genre)