The story opens with a thirty-year-old man, a bachelor, clattering at the door of the apartment where he lives with his girlfriend, a young woman. The man asks the woman why she is so upset, and the woman replies that she is upset because she has heard of the man's love for her. He tells her that she should not be ashamed of her love for him, because it is not vulgar, it is romantic, and he does not expect her to say such things. He locks the door and tries to get the woman to open the door, but she refuses, saying that she often goes to stay at the apartment of her friend, the young man, qiuyu. He asks her why he is asking her to go to his house, and she tells him that she does not know why he would ask her to do such a thing