The chapter opens with a flashback to the night before, when Zhao Ba was bitten by a serpent. He was so scared that he wanted to cry. The next day, he saw three beggars begging for food in front of his store. He gave them one drawer of buns, but the beggars refused to eat them because they knew where the money came from. The beggars ran off with the buns, and the owner of the store was furious. He wanted to get rid of his master, and he was afraid that he would make another mistake. When they were talking, yan Laojiu suddenly became very serious. He told them that the beggar they were robbing was a crippled man who couldn't give them his money, and that he was using the insects to get them to give him money. When the insects rolled off the man's body, he was soaked in sweat. The narrator tells us that this was the last straw for the old man, and his property was confiscated.