This chapter opens with a young man who has just read an "unspeakable book" . The narrator asks the young man why he is so angry. The young man tells him that he broke into the emperor's house without permission and that the emperor had prepared the house specially for him. He then asks the narrator why he didn't tell him that the house was the base of Gu Jing's. The man replies that Gu Jing is "gay" and that he just told the emperor that he was. He says that he'll take the emperor back to tell him where he's been. He doesn't trust the emperor, he says, because the house is getting dark. He tells the narrator that he has seen fireflies at night and that once they've seen the kind of light, they'll be trapped in it for life. He also tells the story of a river god who lost his wife and a woman who was his mortal wife. The river god's wife died and the woman's tears of sadness broke the banks of the river. The people of the area would wear wedding clothes and pretend to be married so that the river god would be comforted. He adds that the people