I want to know the story of Du Liniang from the Kun Opera "Peony Pavilion".

Introduction of the story:

Du Bao, a governor of Nan'an during the Southern Song Dynasty, had only one daughter, who was named Liniang. Chunxiang, a maid of honor, accompanied her and led her on a secret tour of the garden. When Li Niang returned to her house, she suddenly had a dream. She dreamed of a scholar holding a willow branch and asking her to write a poem, and then she was carried to the Peony Pavilion by the scholar's arms and ****ed into a cloud and rain of joy.

Liniang went to the garden again the next day, looking for the dream. Disappointment under the lovesickness, description of the increasingly thin down. One day look in the mirror, see themselves all of a sudden thin into that way, busy self-painting spring face, and inscribed a poem on. She also told Chunxiang about the dream mirror, and asked Chunxiang to have the painting framed.

On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Liniang died. Before her death, she instructed Chunxiang to put Chunrong in a rosewood box and hide her under the stone of Taihu Mountain in the garden, and she also instructed her mother to bury her under the plum tree by the Peony Pavilion in the garden.

Liu Mengmei, the former Liu Chunqing, a Guangzhou scholar, Liu Mengmei picked up Liniang's Chunrong box, returned to the study, hung the Chunrong in front of the bed, night and day to burn incense and worship. Liniang in the netherworld in three years, the king of Hades pay ghosts, found Liniang life is not yet finished, to make their own home.

Liu Sheng had passed the Scholarship examination. And told Du Bao that the lady is indeed alive again, the emperor was informed of this, the emperor wants several people to come to testify against each other. The emperor concludes that Liniang is indeed alive. The emperor ruled to let them recognize father and daughter, husband and wife. Liniang also persuaded Liu Sheng to recognize his father-in-law, Du Bao, and the whole family was reunited.

Expanded Information

Background

In the twenty-eighth year of the Wanli reign, Tang Xianzu resigned from his official post and returned to his hometown of Linchuan County, Jiangxi Province, to live in the countryside. He was 49 years old. In his life, he heard about the love encounters of some young men and women, and these experiences aroused his creative feelings. Soon after he returned to his hometown, he began the writing of "The Peony Pavilion Returns Its Soul".

The Peony Pavilion is a legend (play) written by Tang Xianzu, a playwright of the Ming Dynasty, and published in the 45th year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty. It is one of the outstanding works in the history of Chinese opera, and is one of the four great classical dramas of China, together with Cui Yingying's Tale of the West Wing, The Touching Sinus E Foe, and The Palace of Eternal Youth.

References

Baidu Encyclopedia - Peony Pavilion