At this point his newly wedded wife, Niu-hsi, enters. Evidently the relation between the two is still an extremely distant one, for his wife, in asking Tsai-yung to sing a ballad for her, remarks that every time she comes to listen to his music, he stops. She too has her grief which she would like to have dispelled by sweet music. Tsai-yung begins to play, “The pheasant in the morning begins his long flight”, and “The wild duck separated from the companion he loves.” But these songs do not suit Niu-hsi’s mood. She wants not a song of a disappointed lover, but one to fit the present situation where husband and wife are together. “My lord, in the calm of this lovely evening, in full view of this ravishingly beautiful scenery, sing me the ballad, ‘When the storm wind moves the pine trees.’” Tsai-yung starts to play it, but alas! as Niu-hsi discovers, he gradually slips into the air, “When I think of returning to my native land.” Niu-hsi is disappointed because she cannot penetrate her husband’s melancholy mood. He explains that he cannot play better because he has his old lute no longer. In answer to his wife’s questions Tsai-yung speaks of his lute with evident symbolism, telling her that he has thrown his old lute aside but that at the bottom of his heart he loves it still. Niu-hsi guesses the cause of her husband’s grief, but she cannot persuade him to confide it to her. The two drink wine together and recite verses, but when the hour becomes late Tsai-yung asks his wife to retire and calls for his servant. Before the latter appears Tsai-yung sings to notes of his lute about a dream in which Wu-niang had appeared to him; but, in the words of Heine, “Es war ein Traum.” He asks the servant to find him a trustworthy messenger whom he may send to his native village to inquire about his parents. But before this plan is put into operation an impostor appears, bringing an alleged letter from Tsai-yung’s father, according to which all the family are enjoying the very best of health. The letter gives the young scholar great pleasure and earns its bearer a rich reward; Tsai-yung gives the impostor some pearls and some gold for his father in addition to a letter in which he states that he is detained at the capital, but that he hopes to return home soon. Meanwhile, he very humbly begs forgiveness for the long delay. The false messenger is portrayed in a monologue as the most cowardly and the direst of villains. That it is so easy for him to deceive Tsai-yung is not so far-fetched as it may seem to the Westerner, for the employment of professional letter-writers is a very common practice in China where the percentage of illiteracy is high.