Wu-niang’s immediate duty is to try to make peace between her aged parents-in-law. Tsai’s wife is not slow in telling her husband “I told you so” in regard to the evils that have followed their son’s departure, while Tsai naturally enough does not become any calmer for being told what a fool he is. To appease their wrath and to supply a bit of food Wu-niang pawns the few hairpins and other ornaments that she possesses. While his parents are slowly dying of hunger, Tsai-yung, by his brilliant record, has attracted the attention of the emperor himself. The latter orders that the daughter of Minister Niu, who has been refused to many a deserving suitor, should be given to him. Niu is overjoyed to receive as a son-in-law the candidate accorded the highest honors and immediately sends a go-between to arrange the affair. However, she returns to announce that Tsai-yung refuses, because he is married and has various obligations toward his parents. But the real reason, she whispers, is that the bride’s feet are too long. Minister Niu flies into a rage; he says that no one would any longer respect his position if he were to accept this refusal. He is going to speak to the emperor about it. Small wonder that under the circumstances Tsai-yung’s petition to the emperor to be allowed to return home is refused; instead he is again ordered to marry Niu-hsi in a mandate beginning with the words, “If filial piety is the basis of all virtues, then the perfection of all morals consists in serving one’s prince.” With tears he leaves the imperial palace and must submit to being married against his wishes to a second wife. He regrets that he cannot return to his parents (does not seem to feel any regrets about Wu-niang) and breaks out into a lamentation: “High reputation is a tie that binds; good fortune is an iron chain. Fortune and reputation are the instruments used by Heaven to inflict tortures on mankind!”