The narrator tells us that the novel opens with a conversation between a young man named Gui li and his teacher, Mr. Mingning. The narrator says that Gui li has been sent away to a school because he's a troublemaker. He tells the students that the distance between them is too great. They recite a poem called "The Clear Moon Shines brightly by Night" from an old collection of nineteenth-century English poetry. This poem is about the moon shining brightly by night and the cycle of the seasons. It's about friendship and distance. This is a quote from one of the poems, "useless south /archer and north /dipper" . This quote reminds the narrator that he and Gui li used to be close friends, but now they're miles apart. He says that friendship is as solid as a solid stone, but friendship is useless in the north and useless south. He also tells the story of how he sold his family's estate and bought this abandoned house. He's now teaching for free at the school. This makes the narrator want to run away. He wants to know what's going on with the poem. He asks the teacher what feelings the poem is trying to express, and the teacher tells him that the poem doesn't express anything at all. He then tells the narrator to let Gui li go.