Appears first as a bit-part in 《
水浒传》: unhappy wife of the dwarf peddler Wu Dalang, seduced by the merchant Ximen Qing (
西门庆), she poisons Wu with arsenic — and is killed in revenge by Wu Dalang's brother Wu Song (
武松). Ming author Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng spun her off into the standalone novel 《
金瓶梅》 ('Plum in the Golden Vase'), giving Chinese literature its first domestic realist epic.
