After three years, the man develops a longing for his parents and homeland. The princess is saddened, but imparts him with a , forbidding him to open it if he wished ever to return to her. He returns and finds no trace of his home or family, except that he is remembered as a man who disappeared long ago, and would be over three hundred years old if still alive. Forgetting the promise, he opens the box, whereupon a beautiful figure like a fragrant orchid is carried away to the heavens with the clouds, and he realizes he can never meet the princess again. Still, the couple are somehow (supernaturally) able to exchange poems. These poems are recorded in phonetic "man'yōgana".