In the middle of a conversation between lin and xia, lin asks xia to tell him a story. xia tells him that he was once a palace graduate, but that all he can do now is farm in the countryside. He tells lin that his family has been involved in a power struggle, forcing him to form his own faction. On one side there was the bureaucrats and on another was his family. After he left, his family got into trouble, so he could only bury his name and become an anonymous person. lin tells xia that he wants to become an official. jin will be able to do so if he can escape from his family, and lin promises that he will become a virtuous husband in the future.