O’Yam goes to the docks to meet the fisherman coming in to San Francisco’s bay. She is there to tell her betrothed, Fou Wang, that his mother, Ah So Nan, is dying. When she asks if she can come with him to his home to grieve with him, he says, “Today is for sorrow […] I would for a time forget all that belongs to the joy of life” (115).

O’Yam is distraught when her friend, Liuchi, finds her and asks what's wrong. O’Yam tells the woman about Fou Wang’s mother, so the woman brings O’Yam home for tea and tries to reassure her friend. Just then, another young woman pokes her head into the room and says, “The mother of Fou Wang is dead” (116).

Ah So Nan’s children grieve intensely for their mother, and Fou Wang makes a vow: “Three years, O mother, will I give to thee and grief. Three years I will minster to the three souls” (116).

O’Yam’s father, Kien Lung, has never been overly sold on Fou Wang’s betrothal to his daughter. When Fou Wang’s grief consumes him, Kien Lung takes the opportunity to try and make a new match for his daughter—this time to the much older Moy Ding Fong.