This chapter opens with a soliloquy by Duan, in which he laments the fact that he is being kept waiting for his chance to marry Guizhou. He is worried that the emperor's doctor has said that Guizhou is not in good health, and that someone will come to him and say that he has left the country. Duan says that he does not want Guizhou to leave him alone on the throne, but he does want the emperor to argue with him about what is best for China. He says that if the emperor leaves him without saying goodbye, he will live for many years, and he wants the emperor in front of him to argue about it. He asks why he is still holding back, and Duan replies that he had thought he was merely a young man from a noble family, but now he is the emperor, and everyone is watching them. He feels that he was willing to get married, but the emperor said that congratulations, and so he feels that his feelings for Guizhou are "all fake," and that he should not let something happen that shouldn't. He wants to go somewhere else, and if he had been "more selfish and crazier" at the moment, he would have been happier. He wonders what the ending would be like if he were to be more selfish, and more crazy, and the emperor were to become a good king, and Guizhou would become a tutor of the king