The narrator tells the young ladies that he will walk them back to the palace if they will have him as a handmaid. He tells them that he is a wanderer who does not have a home and that he would like to stay with them. The young ladies ask him why he is entering the palace, and he says that it is because he is in the late Ming dynasty. He says that if it were the Tang dynasty, he would have considered it, but now he is thinking of it as the late ming dynasty. The narrator says that he does not know the name of the young lady, but that she is a fictional name he saw in a book he read. He asks her if she is zicheng , and she says that her name is yan li. She tells him that she does not think that he has time to go to the capital during this period, and that she would rather stay in the palace. She says that people are searching for her, and asks him to send her a signal before they do. He replies that the society is in turmoil, and staying at the palace is a better option than wandering around in danger. He feels that the author is torturing him by not bringing duo duo together.