Winter makes Sinegard miserable, and most first-years abandon Lore because Jiang has not taught all semester. Rin keeps going to the Lore garden only because it gives her privacy to train from the forbidden Seejin text. While practicing balance in a willow tree, Jiang finally appears, startles Rin into falling, and identifies both her stolen book and her dangerous misunderstanding of the form.

Jiang refuses to report Rin but warns that Jun was right to keep her from Seejin. After watching Rin demonstrate, Jiang says her footwork is impressive but her lack of strength makes the technique useless. He decides to teach Rin partly to spite Jun and partly to stop Rin from injuring herself, then tells Rin to meet him at the campus gates.

At dinner, Raban and Kitay explain that Jiang is a mystery at Sinegard: possibly connected to the Cike, widely disliked by the masters, and attached to the neglected discipline of Lore. Raban also reveals that Altan once wanted to pledge Lore before Jiang withdrew his bid. The next day, Jiang takes Rin off campus despite Jun's objections, explains that Sinegard collects the children of Warlords as leverage and indoctrination, and brings Rin to the Widow Maung in the meatpacking district.

Jiang gives Rin a bizarre strength-building assignment: every day she must carry a piglet named Sunzi from the Widow Maung's shop up the mountain for water and back again. For four months, Rin rises before dawn, hauls the growing pig, arrives at class late and smelling of swine, and then trains with Jiang. Jiang teaches animal-based fundamentals, the five elements as martial metaphors, the religious and military history of martial arts, and practical combat through exhausting drills and sparring.

Rin's training pays off when Rin throws Jiang in a sparring match and later withstands a powerful punch by channeling the force into the ground, cracking the garden stone. Jiang is ecstatic and urges Rin to pledge Lore, saying he can teach Rin to become a shaman and preserve a dying art connected to the gods. Rin admits she plans to pledge Strategy with Irjah because she wants a secure path into the Militia and to become a good soldier, leaving Jiang disappointed.