Chang said, “Since I was a child in arms, my nature has been averse to intimacy.  Sometimes I have idled with wearers of silk and gauze, but my fancy was never once detained.  I little thought that in the end I should be entrapped.

“Lately at the banquet I could scarcely contain myself; and since then, when I walk, I forget where I am going and when I eat, I forget to finish my meal, and do not know how to endure the hours from dawn to dusk.

“If we were to get married through a matchmaker and perform the ceremonies of Sending Presents and Asking Names, it would take many months, and by that time you would have to look for me ’in the dried-fish shop.’  What is the use of giving me such advice as that?”

The maid replied, “My mistress clings steadfastly to her chastity, and even an equal could not trip her with lewd talk.  Much less may she be won through the stratagems of a maid-servant.  But she is skilled in composition, and often when she has made a poem or essay, she is restless and dissatisfied for a long while after.  You must try to provoke her by a love-poem.  There is no other way.”

Chang was delighted and at once composed two Spring Poems to send her.  Hung-niang took them away and came back the same evening with a coloured tablet, which she gave to Chang, saying, “This is from my mistress.”  It bore the title “The Bright Moon of the Fifteenth Night.”  The words ran: 

To wait for the moon I am sitting in the western parlour; To greet the wind, I have left the door ajar.  When a flower’s shadow stirred and brushed the wall, For a moment I thought it the shadow of a lover coming.

Chang could not doubt her meaning.  That night was the fourth after the first decade of the second month.  Beside the eastern wall of Ts`ui’s apartments there grew an apricot-tree; by climbing it one could cross the wall.  On the next night (which was the night of the full moon) Chang used the tree as a ladder and crossed the wall.  He went straight to the western parlour and found the door ajar.  Hung-niang lay asleep on the bed.  He woke her, and she cried in a voice of astonishment, “Master Chang, what are you doing here?” Chang answered, half-truly:  “Ts`ui’s letter invited me.  Tell her I have come.”  Hung-niang soon returned, whispering, “She is coming, she is coming.”  Chang was both delighted and surprised, thinking that his salvation was indeed at hand.

At last Ts`ui entered.

Her dress was sober and correct, and her face was stern.  She at once began to reprimand Chang, saying, “I am grateful for the service which you rendered to my family.  You gave support to my dear mother when she was at a loss how to save her little boy and young daughter.  How came you to send me a wicked message by the hand of a low maid-servant?  In protecting me from the license of others, you acted nobly.  But now that you wish to make me a partner to your own licentious desires, you are asking me to accept one wrong in exchange for another.