Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis: Key Events, Themes, and Study Notes

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens in 1347, during the second month, with twelve-year-old Zhu and sixteen-year-old Xu Da repairing winter-damaged roof tiles on the Dharma Hall. The two banter about desire and suffering, with Zhu mocking Xu Da's obsession with girls and Xu Da countering that Zhu knows what it means to want—a remark that startles Zhu, who connects her desperate will to survive with the desire the Dharma Master preaches against.

Their work is interrupted by the arrival of the Prince of Henan and his sons at the monastery. Xu Da identifies the heir, Lord Esen, and the younger son, Lord Wang. Zhu is struck by the reality of these figures from stories—representatives of a world where greatness exists. Watching them, she feels a strange pull toward the idea of greatness, like the queasy curiosity of standing in a high place.

The Abbot welcomes the Prince and his sons but recoils at their companion, a third youth left outside the Great Shrine Hall. Zhu realizes the warrior is a girl—beautiful but neither feminine nor masculine, with the hard haughtiness of a young man. Xu Da explains this is Lord Esen's eunuch, a figure of mutilation and impurity. Zhu feels a deep resonance with the eunuch, a vibration like two like substances touching, and is disturbed by what this likeness reveals about her own denied nature. She also notices ghosts gathering around the eunuch in full daylight—an eerie sight, since ghosts belong to night and dark places.

The chapter jumps to 1352, the seventh month (Ghost Month). Xu Da, now twenty-one and recently ordained, visits the novice dormitory with other young monks to make lotus lanterns for the river ceremony. They drink Zhu's illicit plum wine. Xu Da teases Zhu about avoiding water and washing, hinting that he knows more about Zhu's secret than he lets on.

Later, Zhu goes to a small abandoned storeroom to wash. A pack of dogs bursts through the paper window, and one lands on her. Prefect Fang, hearing the commotion, peers through the torn window and sees Zhu's naked body—mistaking her for a nun. He drags her out, accusing her of sexual contact with a nun, and threatens to have her expelled and never ordained.

Zhu's fear turns to anger, and she briefly considers killing Prefect Fang on the stairs. But she hesitates at the thought of murder. Instead, she asks to use the latrine, claiming she needs to wash after sexual contact. Prefect Fang, disgusted by the thought of female pollution, lets her go. In the latrine courtyard, Zhu hides her wine jars and uses the pretense to escape the accusation, reflecting that denying desire makes one vulnerable to those who see what you can't acknowledge.

Key Events

Zhu and Xu Da observe the Prince of Henan's arrival and the eunuch left outside the shrine hall.
Zhu feels a visceral resonance with the eunuch and sees ghosts gather around him.
Five years later, Xu Da returns as an ordained monk during Ghost Month.
A dog bursts through the storeroom window while Zhu washes, exposing her to Prefect Fang.
Prefect Fang mistakes Zhu for a nun and accuses her of sexual contact.
Zhu deflects the accusation by requesting to use the latrine, hiding her wine jars and claiming she needs to wash.

Character Development

Zhu: This chapter deepens Zhu's internal conflict. Her resonance with the eunuch forces her to confront the truth she denies—that her body is not the pure male substance of Zhu Chongba. Her anger at Prefect Fang reveals her fierce attachment to life and her refusal to be made nothing. Her quick thinking in the latrine scene shows her survival instincts and willingness to bend precepts to protect her identity.

Xu Da: Now ordained and working in the business office, Xu Da has matured but retains his teasing affection for Zhu. His comment about Zhu's fear of water and his history of herding novices out of the dormitory suggest he may suspect Zhu's secret, though he never confronts it.

Prefect Fang: His obsessive patrol of the nuns' boundary and his violent reaction to seeing Zhu's body reveal his prurient denial of desire. His accusation is driven by what he wants to see, not what is actually there.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Liminal identity: The eunuch is the chapter's central symbol—neither male nor female, neither warrior nor courtier. Zhu's resonance with him forces her to acknowledge her own liminality, the gap between the identity she performs and the body she inhabits.

Body as betrayal: Zhu's body keeps the score of her true nature—small breasts, monthly bleeding, a form that resembles the nuns. The body is an ever-present reminder that she isn't who Heaven thinks she is.

Desire and suffering: The chapter opens with the Dharma Master's teaching that desire causes suffering. Zhu connects her will to survive with desire, and the chapter suggests that denied desire—like Prefect Fang's—is more dangerous than honest desire.

Refusing fate: Zhu's internal declaration that she refuses marks a turning point. She will not let Prefect Fang hold her down so the nothing fate can catch her.

Spirit world and ghosts: The ghosts gathering around the eunuch in daylight are unprecedented in Zhu's experience, suggesting the eunuch's liminality attracts the dead.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter introduces the eunuch, a figure who will likely resonate throughout the novel as a mirror for Zhu's own identity. It also stages Zhu's first major crisis of exposure—a test of her ability to survive through wit and pretense. Her refusal to be made nothing, and her willingness to use the precepts against Prefect Fang's own obsessions, establishes the pattern of survival that defines her character.

Study Questions

1. Why does Zhu feel such a strong resonance with the eunuch, and what does this reveal about her?

Zhu feels a vibration like two like substances touching, an instinctual recognition of a kindred liminal being. The eunuch is neither male nor female, just as Zhu is neither truly the boy Zhu Chongba nor able to live as a girl. The resonance forces Zhu to confront the truth she denies: that her substance is different from the pure male substance of her stolen identity.

2. How does Prefect Fang's accusation reveal his own character?

Prefect Fang has spent years obsessively patrolling the boundary between monks and nuns, and his reaction to seeing Zhu's body—immediately assuming sexual contact—shows that his mind is already filled with the impure thoughts he projects onto others. His denial of desire makes him vulnerable to Zhu's manipulation, as she uses his disgust at female pollution to escape.

3. What does Zhu's decision not to kill Prefect Fang reveal about her moral code?

Zhu briefly considers murder as a solution, but hesitates because she distinguishes between minor precept-breaking (drinking, sexual contact) and murder. This suggests she has a moral line she won't cross, even in self-preservation—though her willingness to consider it shows how far her survival instinct extends.