Cao Xueqin's life in his later years was extremely difficult due to the decline of his family. We can know the record of Cao Xueqin in the poems of his friends Duncheng, Dunmin and Zhang Yiquan. In Dunmin's Gift for Cao Xueqin, he wrote: Find a poet to live on the wall of a monk and sell paintings to pay for the restaurant. The wild songs of Yancheng are sad, and the old dreams of Qinhuai recall prosperity. Duncheng wrote in "To Cao Xueqin": Artemisia selengensis is old and not beautiful, and porridge and wine are often credited to the whole family. The secluded alley of Hengmen is now worried about the rain, and the museum ruins the old dream. From these poems, we can see the poor life of Cao Xueqin. The house is dilapidated, and the whole family is too poor to afford porridge and wine. They supplement their families by selling paintings. Qinhuai romantic, Jinling powder in the past prosperity, and today's decline formed a sharp contrast.
Duncheng said that he "blocked Peng Hao in this area." Dunmin visited Cao Xueqin and said that "the firewood flies and the smoke is thin, and there is no one in the mountain village." In Zhang Yiquan's poem "Walking with Cao Xueqin to Abandon the Temple in the Western Suburb", there is a sentence "Lonely people in the Western Suburb are lonely", and in the poem "Violin Creek Lay Man", there is a sentence "It is different to stay in the Western Suburb". These are all from Cao Xueqin's Flowers and Willow Flourishing Place.