Red roses and mosquito blood were used to describe the feelings between men and women in Zhang Ailing's novel, Red Rose and White Rose. Red roses symbolized passionate and deep love. They were the core of the emotional entanglement between the male and female protagonists in the novel. Mosquito blood symbolized those short-lived, trivial, and insignificant feelings. The impurities in mosquito blood made the entire relationship seem impure. This metaphor compared the complicated feelings between men and women to red roses and mosquito blood, expressing the nature and characteristics of this kind of relationship in simple language, and also implying that this kind of relationship was not worth pursuing.