This chapter's epigraph is from a poem by Zillah. In this poem, Zillah tells the story of how she came to be the daughter of the founder of the chen family. Zillah was born in the middle of the famine in China, and the famine was so severe that her family had to flee to India to escape the famine. When she was a child, her family was so poor that they had to sell all of their land and crops to pay for Zillah's treatment. When Zillah grew up, her father had to go into the wild to collect herbs to cure her and her mother. He was attacked by wild beasts and died.