From the forcefulness with which the Knave spoke, Vesperus realized that the affair was a lost cause. He knew, too, that the money and clothing would be stolen goods, and he was afraid of the trouble they could land him in.

"I am in rather a difficult spot," he said, "but I haven't spent all my travel money yet, and I still have a few plain garments left. I would not want to put you to any expense."

After saying a few things to comfort his friend, the Knave made as if to leave. Vesperus, his hopes dashed, could not find it in his heart to ask him to stay, and showed him to the gate.

After this frustration did Vesperus curb his desires? Did he reform? The reader is not the only one who is perplexed over these issues; the author himself is not sure, either, and will have to continue into the next chapter before he resolves them. Thus far, although Vesperus's mind has been corrupted, his conduct is without blemish. He is still, believe it or not, a man who could lead a virtuous life.

Each passage of discourse is bound to contain several superb images that invariably delight the reader and cause him to burst out laughing. They are too numerous to list in full, but two examples may be cited: the likening of sex tonics to examination tonics and the comparison of talent and looks with medicinal sweeteners. Humorous though these remarks are, they also contain a profound truth. I don't know how many thousand apertures the author's mind possesses, to radiate such brilliance!

Lyric:

Let us tell how Vesperus's joyous mood was swept clean away by what the Knave had said. After the latter's departure, he was like a dead man, unable to bring himself either to speak or to eat. He sat alone in his room, turning the following thoughts over and over in his mind: In the course of my twenty-odd years I've seen a great many things in this world, but I've rarely seen another man's penis. Ordinary people keep theirs tucked away under their clothes, where naturally they can't be seen. The only time anyone showed me his was when those nancy-boys took down their trousers and did it with me, but they were younger than I was and naturally their things were smaller than mine. Since the only ones I ever saw were smaller, mine appeared larger. When I was young and played the nancy-boy myself with my schoolmates, we did see each other's things, but we were all of an age and naturally we were about the same size. I came to regard that size as normal and assumed from my own experience that everybody's was much the same. But he claims he has never seen one as small as mine. If so, it's utterly useless! What good is it?

There's one thing that puzzles me, though, Vesperus reflected. When I had sex with my wife, she enjoyed it every bit as much as I did. And in the days when I used to visit courtesans and seduce maids, they would cry out with passion and spend, too, which they never would have done if this thing hadn't brought them pleasure! If it's so useless now, why wasn't it useless then? Why has it become useless all of a sudden? Obviously he must have been deceiving me in order to get out of his commitments.

Thus a moment of suspicion was followed by a moment of wild hope, after which Vesperus suddenly awoke to the truth: No, that's not it, he said to himself. My wife's vagina was quite unformed before I developed it. Now its dimensions match my own exactly-a perfect fit, with no room to spare, between my shortness and thinness and her smallness and shallowness, which is why she enjoys it. It's like cleaning your ears. If a tiny cleaner is inserted in a tiny ear and twiddled about, it gives a pleasant sensation, whereas in a large ear it may have little or no effect.

The Knave told me the other day that women have ways of faking their cries. Who knows whether the maids and courtesans I slept with may not have felt obliged to flatter me after accepting my money and presents? In fact perhaps they didn't even want to give any cries at all, but just faked them to deceive me. And if their cries can be faked, why not their spending too? The things he told me may not be entirely reliable, but they can't simply be dismissed either. From now on, whenever I meet someone, I'll make a point of looking at his penis to see if it bears out what the Knave says.

Henceforth, whenever he attended a literary gathering and one of his friends went out to relieve himself, Vesperus would follow along and do likewise, glancing first at his friend's penis and then back at his own. It was true; everybody's was more impressive than his. Even when he was going along the road and noticed someone relieving himself outdoors, he would be sure to scrutinize the man's organ out of the corner of his eye.

Nothing in the world is proof against self-doubt. Before, when he thought he had a large penis, even if he had met up with a Xue Aocao, he would have concluded his was better because Xue's was mainly for show and might be of no practical use. [50] But now that he was consumed with fears about his own size, even if he had seen a boy's, he'd have felt, The boy's is better than mine, for even if mine is the same size, it may not be as firm as his.

For these thoughts, gentle reader, you must not laugh at him. This was a golden opportunity to purge himself of evil and lay a foundation for cultivating his virtue and reforming his conduct. Who knows, perhaps Lu Nanzi, who shut his door against an importunate widow, and Liuxia Hui, who kept his self-control with a girl on his knee, may have shared these very thoughts of his, thoughts that have made them the leading paragons of all time.

After Vesperus had completed his comparative studies, his desires began to slacken and he became less and less inclined to run risks for the sake of sex. Although the Knave's advice was harsh medicine, he thought, I shall just have to swallow it. At least he is a man! I felt like hiding my face in shame when he laughed at me, but think how I'd have felt if I'd been having sex with a woman and right in the middle she had come out with some scathing remark! What should I have done then, stopped and withdrawn, or stayed on until I was ejected? From now on, I'm going to give up all thought of seduction and devote myself wholeheartedly to my proper task. If I can succeed in the examinations, I'll put up some money and buy a couple of virgins as concubines. Theirs will be smaller than mine, and naturally I'll earn their appreciation rather than their contempt. Why waste my energy on all these religious exercises?

After this decision, he gave up his frivolous pursuits and concentrated on his studies. If he noticed any women coming to burn incense, he no longer rushed off to look at them. In fact, if he met any outside the temple, he would duck inside to avoid them, lest they discern his contours through his unlined summer gown and have a private snicker at his expense. Needless to say, if he met a woman in the street, he would hang his head and pass quickly by.