Hung Lou Meng, Book I of II by Cao Xueqin, Literary Criticism

Subsequent to the visions of a dream which he had experienced, the writer relates, he concealed the true circumstances and borrowed the attributes of perception and spirituality to relate this story of the Record of the Stone. With this purpose, he made use of such designations as Chen Shih-yin (truth under the garb of fiction) and the like.