Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

Lessons

Mark is taking lessons from Pan four nights a week at the training hall. Much of the first few weeks are dedicated to staring at each other. Mark grows comfortable with this practice, realizing that it evokes strength from within. One evening, Pan brings Mark to his apartment. Pan's wife prepares a meal for the two men. After his two sons greet their guest, they and their mother disappear for the evening.

Pan relates accounts of his past experiences and ventures and how he vanquished his enemies and defeated hoodlums and criminals. Pan's wife tells Mark in the twenty-five years he had been training martial arts, that he, Mark, had been the only person to be accepted as his private student. Later Mark becomes discouraged in his progress with Changquan boxing and asks Pan if he can drop that part...