Eventually, the two wander off into the forest and have sex. They repeat the act over the next few nights, hiding their relationship from the master, until he discovers them asleep and naked, drifting around the lake in the rowboat. He wakes them up by pulling the plug out of a drain hole in the boat. Rather than expressing anger or disappointment, he merely warns his apprentice that "lust leads to desire for possession, and possession leads to murder" and tells him that since the girl has recovered from her illness, she will have to leave. After the master rows the girl ashore the following morning, the apprentice is distraught and runs away that night in pursuit of her, taking the monastery's Buddha statue and the rooster with him. The implications of his two thefts are that while he is burdened with his craving as symbolized by the bird, he also has with him the "burden" of his master's teachings as symbolized by the Buddha statue.
