This chapter opens with a familiar voice asking the news about the murder. The news reported that the murder was an accident, were they lying, or who would dare commit such a crime in today's age? The voice is wang, and he is the man who was found dead in the street. wang asks why he thinks it was murder, and the voice answers that it is more likely that the bodies were lopped from the car while it was driving. The voice flatters wang by suggesting that he is insane, and wang says that he has left his belongings behind. He says that this is his name in the world, and that from the surname he is probably not a samurai, but a lowly ronin. He can't enter a shop, he says, because there are so many other mailmen, and if there were, he would be unable to extract money from his stamp album. He also says that the guards won't be able to keep up with him, because he looks like a "money bag" . . He decides to join the army.