In Chapter 120, one day on his way home, after escorting Lady Dowager's coffin, Chin Cheng comes across a figure with a shaved head and bare feet, draped in a red felt cape. It is none other than Pao-yu, but before the young man can say anything to Chia Cheng, a monk and a Taoist priest come over and urge him to hurry away without delay. Then, suddenly, they vanish without a trace.
On the surface, Pao-yu's becoming a monk seems to be in accord with Tsao Hsueh-chin's original creative intent; however, Pao-yu's becoming a monk displays a lack of logical, as well as realistic, imagination because Pao-yu is married to Pao-chai. They seem to be a fairly happy couple and have made some compromises with the future goals of fame and an official career. Besides, Pao-yu has already gained his chu-jen degree, and his family is once again regaining its former prosperity. Thus, it would seem that there would be no need for Pao-yu to become a monk. In addition, Pao-yu has been accorded the title of "The Immortal of Literary Genius," a goal which Chia Ching longed for but failed to attain. Yet Pao-yu attained it easily. Being an immortal after death is something that the feudal aristocrats are eager to achieve. But all of this is in blatant contrast to Tsao Hsueh-chin's original intent—that is, that Pao-yu would decide to become a monk in order to make a thorough break with dark, doomed feudal reality. The Board of Punishment (after receiving a sufficient sum of money) issues an order to release Hsueh Pan, who decides to turn over a new leaf in his life, and, in addition, he agrees to marry his concubine, Hsiang-ling. Meanwhile, Pao-chai is terribly grieved that Pao-yu has become a monk and that she has been left behind, pregnant.
Chin Lan has gained his chu-jen degree, and next year, he will become an official court scholar. More changes occur: Hsi-chun will have Green Lattice Nunnery in the Garden for her devotions to Buddhism. Chiao-chieh will probably marry Mr. Chou, a wealthy country gentleman, and Hsi-jen is engaged to marry Chiang Yu-han, a man from a wealthy southern family—a man who, it turns out, was once extremely fond of Pao-yu (so fond, in fact, that they once exchanged scarves). Thus, it seems as though his marriage to Pao-yu's maid is predestined.
Chin Yu-tsun is also pardoned under the general amnesty, but he is ordered back to his native place and is reduced to the status of a common citizen. On his way back, he meets his benefactor, a Taoist priest, Chen Shibyin, according to whom, wealth and poverty, as well as success and failure, are all predestined. While they talk about Chin Pao-yu and Lin Tai-yu and all of the family members, Chen Shih-yin reveals all the details about the Illusory Land of the Great Void's being the Blessed Land of Truth. There, the good people are favored by fortune, while the dissolute people meet with calamity.
On the whole, the last forty chapters are basically in accord with Tsao Hsueh-chin's original purpose. He wanted to create tragic endings for some of the main characters in the novel, especially the central figures in the love tragedy—Chia Pao-yu and Lin Tai-yu—so as to make the novel one of the great literary works in Chinese literary history. Here, we must give credit to Kao Ngo's contributions to the novel. In part, he succeeded with Tsao Hsuehchin's original purpose, but it is a great pity that he was reluctant to reflect truthfully the feudal decline of his time and his class. On the contrary, he emphasized at the end of the novel, the revival of the feudal Chin family—thus dramatically distorting the theme of the original novel and weakening the courageous, rebellious spirit that breathes life and vitality into the first two volumes of this classic work of literature.
