In chapter 19 of Dream of the Red Chamber, the maid Xiren tells Baoyu that her mother and brother plan to buy her out next year. If he truly wants her to stay, she says, he must agree to two or three things. “Not two or three,” he answers. “Two or three hundred, and I will agree.”
She asks him to at least appear to enjoy study, and to stop mocking monks and Daoists and playing with rouge.
The narrator explains that the talk of leaving was a ruse. She used it first to test his feelings and to curb his temper.