Chapter 5 Summary, Analysis, 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 with Zhu inside the monastery latrine, staring up at the ventilation gap she remembered from her first days as a novice. She leaps, and because her body is smaller than the male novices', she is the only one who can fit through the gap. She drops into the plum trees, snaps off a branch, and grabs a wine jar before sprinting toward the terraces. Prefect Fang discovers her escape almost immediately and gives chase. Zhu knows she cannot outrun him to the Abbot's office, so she instead races to a specific terrace and hides in the shadows at the top of the stairs. When Prefect Fang's head appears, she swings the branch, knocking him unconscious.

Zhu checks that he is still breathing, then waits for him to wake. When he groans, she speaks in a high, feminine register, pretending to be a concerned nun. She tells him he fell and offers him the wine jar as medicine. He drinks it blindly. Zhu then slips across the courtyard to the nuns' dormitory and screams