This chapter opens on the eighth day of winter, the twelfth year of the Republic of China. It is the middle of a conversation between Gu Qingzhou, a sixteen-year-old girl, and her mother, a friend of Gu's mother's. Gu tells her that her mother and the second-in-command of the army arranged for her to marry the second marshal, a man who is a close relative of her father. Gu says that he is going to break off their engagement because the marriage brings problems to the family and his father, and he will repay whatever the family owes him. He then goes back to his seat at the back of the carriage, and cries out in terror.