In this chapter, the narrator recounts the story of how he escaped from the prison of his former friend, a man named Dongcai, who was serving time for the murder of his daughter. The man, named lao xizi, had been in prison for many years for theft, counterfeit medicines and other crimes. He was sentenced to death by hanging for his crimes, but he was released after serving only a few months. Coincidentally, the man who killed his daughter was the same man who had escaped from prison thirteen years earlier. The narrator explains that the man's real name is xie, and that everyone in the jail had a different name, except for xie. Supposedly, xie escaped because he was afraid of being caught and killed by a mob of people who were yelling at him to be killed immediately. Strangely enough, he managed to escape from prison the very next day.