With the eldest son gone, Wang Lung feels greatly relieved, as if "the house was purged of some surcharge of unrest." After the experience with the eldest son, Wang Lung resolves to quickly take the second son out of school and to apprentice him to a trade.
To the relief of Wang Lung, his second son is greatly different from the eldest. This difference will be clearer later in the novel, when the second son is very practical and mercenary, and the eldest, who is partly influenced by his wife, prefers opulence and extravagance.
Wang Lung arranges the apprenticeship of the second son to the grain merchant, the father of the eldest son's betrothed, and, while there, Wang Lung also talks of arranging a second bond of the families by betrothing his ten-year-old daughter to Liu's ten-year-old son. A final discussion must wait, however, for "it was not a thing that could be discussed face to face beyond this."
On returning home, Wang Lung thinks of the possible betrothal of his second daughter. He is pleased to reflect on his daughter's beauty and the fact that her mother had bound her feet "so that she moved about with graceful steps." But he is sad to find that the bindings are very painful and make her cry and lose sleep.
Most of all, he is moved by her confession that her mother told her not to cry at night, nor bother Wang Lung with her pain, for she must endure the pain of foot-binding or her husband some day will not love her, even as Wang Lung does not love O-lan. For the first time in years, with all of his children provided for, and a tie with the land established in his youngest son, Wang Lung begins to think of O-lan as the faithful servant which she has been to him.
His new regard for O-lan causes him to realize that the "fire in her vitals" is now causing her great pain. His new feeling for her moves him to force her to go to bed while he goes for a doctor.
