At dusk the men were led to the couches and the two girls came to join them. Their sweet, tender voices made the men forget their sorrows.

After 10 days, when it was time for Liu and Ruan to go home, the girls said: "It was your good fortune to come here. Why do you want to leave?"

So the men stayed on for six more months.

But when spring came and the burgeoning flowers, trees and chirping birds reminded them of home, Liu and Ruan said they must go.

"Your sins are drawing you away," said the girls. "What can we do?"

They summoned the other girls, 30 or 40 in all, and, after a grand feast, they saw the men off, showing them their way home.

When Liu and Ruan reached their homes, they found that all of their kinsmen and friends were long gone and that everything was different. The men were told that they had lost their way in the mountains seven generations ago, never to return.

In the eighth year of Taiyuan (383) of the Jin Dynasty (265-420), the men departed once again to a mysterious place.