Now alone and feeling that the Revolution has failed him, Liang searches for “danger to throw [him]self against” and finds it when his friend, Little Li, moves back into his family’s apartment (148). Li is on his own as well, and Liang joins Li’s group of friends and former classmates, the sons of high-ranking cadres who have also lost their parents. These “privileged children” (148) are “planning revenge” (149) for their sudden loss of status: they form a gang of sorts and practice fighting, eventually engaging in a real confrontation with a “bunch of hoodlums” (151).

However, after the fight, Liang realizes he has more in common with these “hoodlums” than with the children of the former elite. The younger of these “misfits” include orphans and those, like Liang, whose parents have been sent away during the Revolution, while the older people are “garbage collectors, cart pushers,” and the like (153). By the time Liang turns 14, he’s spending all his time with these street dwellers, hanging out in tea houses and sleeping wherever he “[ends] up late at night” (153). Liang takes on the arduous job of pushing carts for a living and drinks and smokes to “dull” his “pain,” despite knowing Father would be ashamed (154).