This chapter's epigraph comes from a conversation between Lin and his mother. Lin tells his mother that he became pregnant with her husband, Ching-zhen, until Ching-dong did not show his true colors. He says that Ching-ning was right, and that Lin's mother was the idiot here. Lin says that his mother is so open-minded that she is able to see that he is not the same as his father. He tells her that his father is still in his university, but that his present situation, aside from the "inexistent boy," is fine. The more he protests and forbids his mother, the more the world will back him up, he says.