ABSTRACT
Let us for a moment suspend disbelief and enter the world of Hangzhou in the year 1612. Shortly before her death, a teenage poetess writes the following verses:
Cold rain on the secluded window makes an unpleasant sound, Lighting the lamp I leisurely read [the drama] Mu dan ting (The Peony Pavilion). In this world there is also someone even more amorous than I, How can it be that I, Xiaoqing, alone have a broken heart?1
