On the next page we see the grandmother as a young woman kneeling at the edge of a lotus-filled body of water plucking a seed. The text tells us that she is taking a lotus seed from the River of Perfumes at the Imperial Garden. She does this to have something with which to remember the emperor. In a darkened, simply furnished room, we see B place something under a simple altar. The text tells us that it is the seed, wrapped in silk, which she would take out whenever she was sad or lonely.
B stands with a young man on the next page, wearing a red dress and a draped white headpiece.
Both she and the young man are looking down at something she holds in her hand. We are told that theirs was an arranged marriage, and that when he went off to war, she raised their children alone. On the following page B holds a young boy by the hand as they run across a war-torn landscape. She has left her fine combs behind, but she carries the lotus seed with her. The next double- page spread is chaotic.