Now that the emperor has left, the phoenix seal is in his hands, and he's in charge of the palace, the narrator tells us. He's worried about what's going to happen to the people in the pavilion. He wonders why the emperor hasn't bothered to visit him, and wonders if the emperor left to look for Bixuan. The narrator doesn't think the emperor would leave the palace just like that, but he does think that it's a "miracle" that she's left the world like that. He also wonders if there's something wrong with his stomach. He remembers that the concubine asked tao-hong to come to the pavilion to make sure he ate the porridge that she gave him. The concubines don't get any porridge, which means that all the women in the palace are threats to the emperor, and the narrator is one of them. The only way out of this mess is to get the people of the pavilion alive.