A swarm of lepers
Commissar Pei's division ends up defeated and on the brink of death in Korea. Many of the men decide to leave, instead of fighting useless battles. As Commissar Pei and Yu Yuan are passing through the woods many of the man come out asking to be taken back in. They are wounded, faces swollen and most of them seem to be poisoned by the mushrooms and herbs they've been eating. Yu Yuan contemplates how these men were proud in their youth and vitality only a few weeks ago, but now they look like a swarm of lepers.
Dr. Greene's goodness
Yu Yuan ends up wounded and captured by American troops and finds himself in a hospital. There he meets Dr. Greene who is different from everyone else there. She treated him with genuine kindness, which seems to stem from genuine humanity. Whenever he was with her, he felt her goodness flowing out from her like water from a fountain, constant, and effortless.
Beasts of burden, burning firewood
At the prison camp, Yu Yuan meets another Communist soldier around his age. He tells him about his experience where he lost a finger to frostbite. He tells him how the Communist leaders sent troops to the front without winter clothes, which ended in devastating consequences. They treated their men like beasts of burden, like burning firewood.
