Terms of Service

Description of Service

HonglouData is a digital-humanities project for Dream of the Red Chamber, offering character profiles, an interactive relationship graph, an event timeline, poetry search, chapter text, and an AI-assisted Q&A ("Ask") feature. Some advanced features (Q&A quota, graph export, etc.) require a Pro subscription.

Accounts

You may sign in via an email magic link or a Google account, or use paid entitlements without an account via an order code. If signing in by email, provide an address you can actually receive mail at. You are responsible for safeguarding your login credentials and order code; we are not liable for losses arising from your failure to keep them secure.

Subscriptions and Payment

We offer two payment paths: an online Stripe subscription (auto-renewing, cancel anytime in subscription settings), or a scanned Alipay/WeChat payment with an order-code memo, manually verified and activated (renewal requires payment again after expiry).

Current pricing is shown on the upgrade page (/upgrade). We reserve the right to change pricing; price changes do not affect a billing period you have already paid for.

Refunds

For order-code entitlements, you may request a refund within 24 hours of activation if unused; beyond 24 hours, or once used, refunds are handled based on actual usage. Stripe subscriptions can be canceled anytime, which stops renewal at the end of the current billing period; fees already paid for the current period are generally non-refundable except as required by law.

For billing questions, email us with the payment time, amount, and your order code / account details.

Content and Intellectual Property

Our structured data on characters, relationships and the timeline is compiled from the original text of Dream of the Red Chamber, which is in the public domain; we hold rights to our curation, layout algorithms and interface design. Bulk scraping, resale, or use to train other commercial AI products is not permitted without our consent.

For academic citation, please credit "HonglouData (hongloudata.com)" with the access date, and verify against a scholarly print edition and the original text.

Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Scrape or attack our services at scale using automated tools
• Attempt to bypass subscription limits, forge order codes, or abuse free quotas
• Use the "Ask" feature to generate illegal, infringing, or harmful content
• Interfere with other users' normal use of the site

Availability and Disclaimer

The service is provided "as is." We do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation, nor the accuracy of content generated by the Q&A feature — always verify scholarly claims and citations against the original text and authoritative annotated editions. We may modify, suspend, or discontinue features from time to time.

Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of, or inability to use, the service. Our total liability to you will not exceed the amount you paid us in the preceding 12 months.

Changes to These Terms

We may modify these Terms from time to time; updates are posted on this page with a revised "Last updated" date. Continued use of the site after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

Contact Us

Questions about these Terms? Email contact@hongloudata.com.