The chapter opens with a discussion of the nursery rhyme, "The Three Talents," which the narrator learned from a young boy at the county administration office. The young boy tells the narrator that the rhyme was written in the village of Gu family, which was destroyed by the plague eight years ago. Gu family is completely isolated from the outside world. The narrator tells the story of how the three talents came to be, and how a student of the grand tutor hid the children of the founder of the dynasty and raised them. The descendents of the founding emperor tried to overthrow the government and establish a new government, but the emperor conquered them.