Yet, as soon as her child joined the monastery, Mrs. Mou found her own state of mind taking a turn for the worse: "I felt that when he became everyone's I had lost him, and I couldn't stop from dwelling on it." Mrs. Mou returned to Taipei and mulled it over for two months before adopting a more positive outlook and once again returning to Puli.
然而，孩子一旦出了家，莫太太自己卻開始退轉。「我覺得好像失去了他，孩子變成了大家的，沒有辦法釋懷」，莫太太回台北想了兩個月，最後想通了，又回到埔里。