The narrator tells the story of a thirty-year-old man who has just arrived in Shanghai. He is a bachelor and has lived in the city for the past 30 years. He has a wife and two children, but he is still very much in love with his wife. He tells her that he has come to see her, but she will not believe him when he says that he is not her husband. He also tells her about his father, an old thief, who has recently died. The narrator asks about his mother, and she tells him that she has gone to her father's house.