When the carriage pulls away from the palace, the young officer tells the old man not to touch him. It's just one of his mother's "jokes" . The old man says that he was twelve when they first met, and that he remembers vividly the officer's demeanor six years earlier. The carriage stops, and the young man tells the officer that the two tigers have been fighting each other for so long. The empress has promised to marry the officer to his only daughter. The officer says that it's not yet decided whether or not the empress will marry him to her daughter. He also says that the commander of the guards has been friendly with the dowager, who has promised her daughter to the officer. The young officer wonders why the commander didn't provoke him. He's glad to see him for once, he says, but he's still not happy to see the hypocrites climbing the ladder of power. He says that if they're hypocrites, then you're a villain. The