Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary

Home for his leave, Lin enjoys playing with three-year-old daughter Hua, who seems attached to him despite his absence most of the year. He loans money to Shuyu's brother, Bensheng, who agrees to thatch their roof as repayment. He and Shuyu have a rare laugh together when she tells him her brother needs the money because he was fined for sewing pigs' rectums shut so they would be fatter and heavier at market.

Lin begins to see how constantly hard Shuyu works, and how little money she spends on her own needs. She tries to give him money that she has saved out of what he has sent her. He sees how she feeds him and Hua and will not eat the dishes herself. She lives like a devoted servant, dutiful in all things, including cleaning and decorating his parents' graves...