公元前494年，吴越交战，越国溃败，越王勾践被迫投降，臣事吴王。越王勾践获释归国后采纳大夫文种计谋，将民女西施敬献吴王，以麻醉吴王夫差，吴国最终于公元前473年被吴国所灭。在这出流传千古的吴越争霸故事中，绝世美女西施一直是人们津津乐道的主角之一。“东施效颦”“卧薪尝胆”都是《红颜罪》这部小说所涉及的我们耳熟能详的历史故事，“红颜祸水”“红颜误国”也是几千年来那些不无偏见的历史学家谈论吴国灭亡教训之际津津乐道的话题。然而在《红颜罪》这部小说里，我们看到的西施不仅美丽善良，而且忍辱负重，深明大义，她不仅以一介小女子柔弱之躯担当了欲爱不能的情感苦难、精神痛苦，还赶赴国难，替一群明争暗斗，阳奉阴违的男人实施杀戮与颠覆的阴谋承担了千年骂名。西施对范蠡的真情苦恋以及西施在吴国的苦痛哀怨，是贯穿《红颜罪》同一线索的两个方面。尽管吴王因沉溺西施美貌而国政日损，直至走向亡国自尽，越王因西施而东山再起，成为春秋末年最后一个霸主，但对于《红颜罪》来说，无论是越王勾践复仇的决心，还是吴王夫差事实上表现出的爱美人胜于爱江山的命运结局，都不是这部在我看来有意为西施与范蠡爱情故事“翻案”的小说主旨所在。因为从整部小说里我们可以看出，为了表现并翻新作者心目中两千多年前那场爱情悲剧的历史真相，《红颜罪》不仅尽可能地拓展了西施和范蠡这两位苦恋者的情感世界，而且设置了更加充满悲情诗意的氛围场景（In 494 BC, Wu and Yue were at war, Yue was defeated, the king of Yue Goujian was forced to surrender and subject to the king of Wu. When the king of Yue Goujian was released and returned to his country, he accepted the senior official Wenzhong’s plan, politely presented peasant girl Xishi to the king of Wu, to captivate the king of Wu Fuchai, eventually Wu was destroyed by Wu in 473 BC. In this story of contending for hegemony between Wu and Yue, the stunningly attractive woman, Xishi, has always been one of the leading characters people take delight in talking about. “Mere copycat” and “sleep on brushwood and taste gall” are very familiar historical stories involving in this novel of Sin of A Beauty, “dangerous beauty” and “a beauty endangers the realm” are also topics people discuss enthusiastically when those prejudiced historians are talking about lessons of the extinction of Wu for thousands of years. However, in this novel of Sin of A Beauty, we see Xishi is not only beautiful and kin-heated, but also swallows humiliation and bears a heavy load, understands the important principle thoroughly, she does not only undertake emotional suffering and mental pain of to love will not by the humble little girl weak body, but also hurries to national calamity and bears thousand years infamy for a group of infighting and ostensible men and carry out massacre and subversive conspiracies. Xishi’s true love to Fan Li and her suffering and sad in Wu are two aspects of the same clue running through Sin of A Beauty. Although the king of Wu wallows in the beauty of Xishi and national affairs are damaged day by day, until the state is conquered and he takes his own life, the king of Yue stages a comeback due to Xishi and becomes the last powerful chief of the princes at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, but for Sin of A Beauty, whether the revengeful determination of the king of Yue Goujian, or the fate the king of Wu Fuchai actually shows loving beauty is better than loving the state, are not the purport of this novel that seems to me having intention of “reversing” the love story between Xishi and Fanli. Because we can see from the whole novel, to express and renovate the historical truth of than love tragedy more than two thousand years ago in the author’s mind, Sin of A Beauty does not only expand the emotional world of these two bitter lovers Xishi and Fan Li, but also set up a more poetic atmosphere scene filled with pathos.）...