Orphaned in infancy, she grows up under her wealthy paternal uncle and aunt who treats her unkindly. The first printed version of Dream of the Red Chamber, published by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E in 1791, contains edits and revisions that Cao never authorized. The book belongs to the period of the Decadent movement in Vienna after the turn of the 20th century. Already suspected of lax morality, his work was further condemned by the Nazi regime after his death.

Plaks, Archetype and Allegory in the "Dream of the Red Chamber" (Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1976). In the 1791 prefaces, Cheng claimed to have put together an ending based on the author's working manuscripts.In her bed, Bao Yu first travels to the Land of Illusion where he has a sexual encounter with Two-In-One, who represents Xue Baochai and Lin Daiyu. a b Editor's Preface, Ruchang Zhou, Between Noble and Humble: Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber (New York: Peter Lang, 2009), xiv. The newly married Yingchun becomes a victim of domestic abuse and constant violence at the hands of her cruel, abusive husband. Like his Viennese contemporary Sigmund Freud, the doctor and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) was a bold pioneer in exploring the dark tangled roots of human sexuality.

Wang Xifeng herself compliments her privately, but laments that she was "born in the wrong womb", since concubine children are not respected as much as those by first wives.

Although beautiful and learned, she is aloof, haughty, unsociable, and has an obsession with cleanliness. In 1819, the British diplomat and sinologist John Francis Davis (1795–1890) published a short excerpt in the London Journal Quarterly Review.