The quality of the dyes has noticeably worsened, and the factory owner, Wang, and his subordinate chief, Boss Wa, decide to hire some Manchu overseers to improve the work.

When sitting in a tea house discussing their problems, the workers are joined by Chu Jen-chieh, a good-hearted small-time con man and the foreman's younger brother who is posing as a monk.

He offers to help, but since he cannot actually do kung fu, he and the foreman's assistant, Ah Chao, devise a plan to trick the Manchu into reinstating the full salary pay, with Jen-chieh posing as the Shaolin's head abbot of 36th Chamber, San Te.

His first attempts to enter by stealth are thwarted by the vigilant monks and his own bumbling, but eventually he manages to sneak his way in, just to run into the real San Te.

Jen-chieh returns to town to find that the conditions of the workers have worsened: their salary has been cut by nearly half, and any who have protested had been laid off to eke out a meager existence.