Everyone waits for the patriarch to arrive. The patriarch welcomes the young master to his home. The young master tells the patriarch that he has heard that the family's partnership with the li family has been terminated. The father is upset, but he is willing to help the family. The elder master tells him that business is not as simple as it sounds. He wants to know what is going on, but the elder master refuses to tell him. He tells the father that although the family is a manufacturer of pills, they do not produce them. Instead, they sell their herbs to a partner in the pavilion, who then sells the herbs to them. The li family gets the herbs from the pavilion and sells them to the elder family. This is a disaster, says the elder man, because almost all of the herbs sold to the pavilion come from the family and herbs are not sold at all without this partnership.