Three years have passed since Shao Zhen's mother died, and she has not heard from her estranged husband. She is angry that he has not come home to say good-bye to her. She has made it clear that she is not in love with him, and that he is not the one she loves. She accuses him of being a "bastard" and asks if he can get rid of her with a "mere word of thanks." He replies that he will treat her to "a mealsometime." He tells her that when he met her, she told him that there were no women who would want their husbands to be in contact with his "ex-lovers." As a man, he also does not want the woman he will spend the rest of his life with to be affected by her former lover