The chapter opens with a soliloquy by the general, who asks the general if he's the one who's scheming against the general's highness. The general tells the general to stand down. He's getting more and more insolent, he says. He wants to know if the general knows that he has found his younger brother, who has been through hell in the last eight years. He says that if the General doesn't come to see his wife soon, her house will burn down. The General says that he'd rather be at home with his wife than at the General's house, which is on fire. He asks the General if he thinks he wants to be there cooing at the general. He thinks it's a bad idea for a man to be at a place like that. He also says that the General is like a cang in that he spends his time wading through the "cesspool" of society, but he'll never be able to get out of it. He wonders why the General withdrew his attack on the General in the final moments of their encounter. He still doesn''t understand what the General was trying to do. He doesn