The chapter opens with a soliloquy from the Song of the Soldiers' Farewell, a popular folk song in the Ming and Qing periods. The song is a lament for the loss of life and the suffering that accompanies it. The soldiers sing that their brothers have died in battle so that they can live. They sing that if they do this, they are lower than beasts. The narrator says that he cannot sing the song because he cannot bear the pain and suffering of the song. He sees the sorrow in the man's heart, and he knows that he is hiding something. But right now, he says, they can only do what they can. He wonders if they should split their troops in two and fight against the enemy army at dawn. He says that the soldiers are too hungry and that the higherups have not replenished their supplies of food either. The smell of burning meat coming from the enemy camp makes the soldiers sing and cry. They are singing and laughing, and they are trying to go mad. Three hours after midnight, the chi army encircles the Yaotian army. The chi army outflanks them and captures zhao alive. The chapter ends with the chi soldiers exhorting their dogs to watch the burning corpses for signs of poison. They believe that the yaostian army is using the eclipse hounds to try and kill them.