In this chapter, the narrator tells us that he heard a banging at the next-door neighbor's house the other day. It was the owner of the house who was beating up his wife. The narrator calls the police, but she can't figure out how to do anything about it, since she's just a woman and doesn't have the money to call the cops. Aunt Xu tells the narrator that the woman's family is at the hospital, and that the patient is in critical condition. She's been sent to the hospital too late to be rescued, so she'll have to stay in the hospital for a while longer. She says that she hopes the narrator can prepare himself mentally, since he's going to have to deal with a lot of things after the fight. He tells her that a friend of his saw a man in an abandoned alley, and he'll go there to look for him. He'll pay for the hospital fee he got from the teacher, and will come back later after he gets some money from home. He says that this is not her fault, since the man beat up the woman because she was wearing shoes, but that she should've known better. He promises to help her, but he won't