Determined that Shou will have an education, Josei hales him off to the local school where he will board. Shou takes the place of a pupil who has fallen ill. When Shou and another friend go to visit the invalid, they finds he has died, but his young stepmother seems unaffected by the tragedy. Shou's seatmate is Gyokugen who has been constantly in a bad humour since his widowed mother remarried, and remarried his own tutor. At the examinations Gyokugen too collapses, and Josei takes him to his home.

Josei has missed Shou (a lot- dreams he's come back and clasps him in his arms and wakes to find himself holding the pillow. Chinese male friendship, I tell you- it's more romantic than western het sex) but meanwhile his superior Shukujin hauls him away to investigate a suspicious and madly popular sect. The beautiful high priestess promises success, prosperity, children to barren couples and relief from pain. In Gyokugen's house Josei finds the link between the sick boys and the beautiful priestess.

Shukujin plots to get Josei alone with him in a certain pleasure area, but he reckons without Josei's deductive instincts and his plans fall through. And meanwhile, a high-class courtesan is being threatened by ruffians sent by one of Josei's colleagues when the woman refused an assignation with him. She turns out to be Sekkou, an old friend of Shukujin's- but 'Not that kind of friend,' he assures the disapproving Josei. At seventeen Shukujin saw all his friends getting married and knew that his own unwilling turn would come soon. So he enlisted Sekkou's help. For several months they carried on what seemed to be a passionate affair, and when his father got wind of it and came up to collect his son, Shukujin insisted he would marry the courtesan or die. His father gave Sekkou money and dragged his son away, but now each time the old man mentions marriage, Shukujin starts talking suicide. Thus he has remained a happy bachelor ever since. Shukujin's scheme gives Josei an idea when an overbearing mother-in-law threatens to break up the marriage of Josei's local bookstore owner.

Josei sneaks a visit to Shou's school and is set upon by his classmates seeking 'lucky' keepsakes from the prodigy who passed the exams at fifteen. Taken in to the school master's house so he can put his clothes in order, he meets a former student, last descendant of a line of warriors, stopping briefly to say good-bye before going to the wars. This student meets the master's beautiful daughter when he saves her pet bird. And then he makes his lonely way to the northern battlefield. But he leaves something behind that leads to tragedy. A sad and thoughtful meditation on people's ambitions, desires and fate.

At Josei's request, Shukujin has had a sluice system built to drain the river floodwaters that have often harmed the region. But to do so he had to borrow from a wealthy merchant, Chou Shishuu, because the province's exchequer says it doesn't have the funds. Now he and Josei are on a visit of thanks, along with the well-spoken treasury assistant who negotiated the loan. Shishuu is a kindly old man with an only daughter whom he suggests Shukujin might want to marry. Shukujin desperately tries to think of a way to refuse, but changes his mind when he sees a beautiful young woman in the house. Only the beauty is Shishuu's niece, not his daughter- and his daughter refuses to marry him! Complicating matters are the daughter's tutor, someone Shukujin thinks he knows, and the fact that the treasury assistant and the tutor know each other, in some painful context, from before. Oh- and isn't it odd that the treasury has no money just now, right after collecting the spring taxes? A satisfying mystery where past crimes, betrayals and passions all return to affect the present.