Ming is bored with the book, but he does manage to find time to read it. He asks why the head maid gave him this book, and she tells him that she gave it to him so that he would be able to please his "royal highness." Ming asks why his mother told him to kill those who were upset, and he tells her that he must do what his mother said. He tells her to take off her clothes, so he can treat her wound, and Ming says that he has used to be injured by imperial doctors, but that as soon as his mother finished, his pain disappeared. Ming asks if he should kill his mother as her mother said, but she says that she has just gone to see her mother. She says that Ming scratched his arm, and that she is going to destroy Ming's chambers