Did Baoyu tell Daiyu the story of "rats stealing taro"?

Personally, I think the most memorable episode in A Dream of Red Mansions is the one in which Baoyu told Daiyu that "rats steal taro". Why is this passage worth remembering?

First of all, Baoyu's story is really superb, but all readers are deeply attracted by the story of the mouse; Secondly, when I first read it, I never knew what this mouse story was about. Is it true that, as Lin Daiyu said, Jia Baoyu made up the story to amuse her?

It's not that simple. What we see through Baoyu is Mr. Cao Xueqin's calm and wise eyes. Ten years' review of A Dream of Red Mansions has been added and deleted several times. How can we leave a boring story for us to have fun? This must mean a lot.

The original text describes it this way: the little mouse said to other mice: I am different from you. I don't steal directly, but I transform myself into a taro, wander among taro, no one can find it, and then secretly move away. You can move a lot slowly. It's much lighter than stealing it directly from you. Many mice are full of praise, but how to change it? I want the little mouse to demonstrate. The little mouse suddenly turned into a very beautiful woman. Many mice laughed. How can they become beautiful girls without becoming taro? When the mouse returned to its original shape, it said, you are really ignorant. You only know that taro is fruit, but you don't know that Master Gu's young lady is the real Xiangyu!

Please pay attention to this last sentence: I didn't know that Miss Gu was the real Yu Xiang!

You see, this last sentence seems to be a joke, but it is really the finishing touch!

Jia Baoyu said that Lin Daiyu is a fragrant jade, but actually "fragrant taro" is equivalent to "fragrant jade", and the rat who wants to steal fragrant jade is naturally himself. This coincides with an idiom in the ancient history of China: stealing women and jade.

What do you mean, having an affair? There is an allusion that Han Shou, the assistant of Jia Chong, the powerful minister of the Jin Dynasty, had an affair with Wu Jia, the daughter of Jia Chong. In order to win Han Shouhuan's heart, Wu Jia gave Han Shouhuan the extraordinary fragrance given by Emperor Wu of Jin to Jia Chong as a token of love. Later, when Jia Chong found out, he simply married his daughter to Han Shou and did a good thing.

So, this is the story of stealing women and jade. Jia Baoyu compared Lin Daiyu to Xiang Yu and compared himself to a mouse that stole Xiang Yu. Isn't this an implicit confession?

Therefore, uneducated people really can't understand what Zuo Zongtang is saying!