In the meantime, zhu is still at the academy, and he and daolin are having a little chat. Strangely enough, the two of them seem to be in a good mood, and zhu tells daolin that he's been writing to his master for a long time, but he hasn't responded to it. . The two exchange pleasantries, and then zhu asks if anyone knows of daolin's friend, who's back in the country. He's glad to hear that, because zhu's name seems to be on everyone's lips, and that's a good sign. The master tells zhu that it's time to send daolin back to school, but zhu says that it was zhu who violated the law by keeping the court affairs in abeyance during the storm. The masters conversation is interrupted by the sound of a fainting daolin, and the two men rush to his aid. The older man, the wiser, knows better than to let a student slip through the cracks.