This is the current active preprint version (V3). It supersedes all earlier versions (V1 and V2). The permanent concept DOI (10.5281/zenodo.17780495) always points to the latest version. Please cite this version. For the latest version, always use the concept DOI above. --- The creative mechanism of Dream of the Red Chamber has been the central enigma in Chinese literary studies for nearly three centuries. This study establishes, through a comprehensive methodology that forges a closed loop of evidence combining historical documentation and internal textual evidence, the seminal discovery and systematic verification that Xi Yin Yu Shi by Geng Zhaozhong is the full-scale creative blueprint and philosophical operating system for the novel. The research constructs a decisive five-tiered evidentiary chain: microscopically, confirming the textual fingerprint of the verse "日邊紅杏倚雲栽" and the paleographic identity of the character "牌," proving physical contact; mesoscopically, revealing the exact physical matches of seven characters' domino combinations and their full compliance with the generative rules of the "Colour-Pattern Regulations (Se Yang Ze Li)" in Xi Yin Yu Shi; macroscopically, demonstrating the transplantation of the core architecture from "twelve golden men" to "Twelve Beauties of Jinling"; logically, the narrative's internal rule-consensus and error-diagnosis create a logical paradox that renders the hypothesis of independent invention untenable. Furthermore, the study identifies a highly concentrated "Genesis Scene" within Xi Yin Yu Shi, where elements such as "Red Mansion," "Dream," "twelve golden men," seven core character symbols, and the naming of the "Four Springs" co-occur with unprecedented density, forming a statistically improbable matrix of co-occurring evidence that defies explanation by chance alone. Transcending empiricism, this research achieves a threefold theoretical leap: First, it deciphers the mechanism of "civilizational semiotic transcoding," illustrating how great classics can be generated via the path of "high-energy symbolic system → identification → internalization → transcoding." Second, it lays the foundation for "Civilizational Generatics," a new discipline exploring how civilizations generate their canonical works, prompting a fundamental paradigm shift from static "hermeneutics" to dynamic "generatics." Third, it redefines Xi Yin Yu Shi as a pre-modern system of "cultural computation" and a "literary animation engine," whose "Principle-Form" philosophy, symbolic lexicon, and dynamic library of "Shi" together constitute an executable dynamic model of civilizational aesthetics. Ultimately, this study not only provides a definitive answer to the greatest puzzle in Redology but also uncovers a long-obscured tradition of systematic and structured creative thinking within Chinese civilization, thereby offering a crucial historical paradigm and an operational "civilizational grammar" for the future of AI-driven cultural creation.
Jiaming Geng (Fri,) studied this question.