This chapter opens with a description of the Ming province, which is rich in silk. The narrator tells us that the rich live in relative luxury, while the poor live in abject poverty. He tells the audience that he is the bodyguard of a junior general who just arrived in the province. The young man asks the narrator why he is looking at him, and the narrator tells him that the young man is the child of a wealthy family. The boy asks if he can save his foster father, who has been kidnapped by bandits. The old man says that he has brought a doctor to see the boy, but that no doctors will treat him. The girl tells the narrator that she and her husband came across bandits, and that her husband tried to save them. She says that the old man is a real man, and she is sorry that she cannot save him.