Li Yu promises that he has been practising his swordwork. And indeed, he is making a little progress; Baozi cannot help but be a little disappointed that he never really took to it, but he hides it. So long as the boy learns enough to defend himself if he ever has to, there is no need for him to become a master swordsman. But he had hoped... especially now: as far as his own skill in weapons goes, if he is going to be make a career of directing battles, he is determined not to go into them needing to be protected. Lu Zhi would never have done so.
He is coming along well in all his other lessons - well, almost all. Even his calligraphy is quite legible, if it is never likely to be elegant. His regular teachers speak very well of him when Baozi ventures to enquire, and although Li Yu will never boast of it, he is reckoned the best weiqi player among the school's students.
He looks nervously at Baozi, "Is something wrong, Shifu?"
"Oh! No, Yu, nothing is wrong." He just isn't sure how to say this; he meant to say it the last time he visited. "The opposite: you are a good student and I am proud of you. I... I would like to adopt you, and take you with me to the capital."
The boy looks up at him, shocked, and then bursts into tears.
"But... not if you do not want... you are old enough to make up your own mind."
"Oh no, Shifu," Li Yu wipes his eyes fiercely, "I would want nothing more, Sh- Father."
Baozi finds it almost as difficult to tell Dewang. "It isn't that I have any doubt about his education here," he insists, "but I miss him."
Baozi returns to the capital via Xi He. Another thing he meant to do the last time he visited Hu Qu, and didn't dare - he would dearly like to make Lu Yu's acquaintance, but it is after all partly because of him that Lu Zhi is dead. Perhaps his son will hate him for it, or at least not want to have to see him.
He needn't have worried. "Administrator Mao, how wonderful to see you!" His pleasure seems genuine.
Baozi finds that he and Zijia share many interests, but unlike Baozi he can quite comfortably carry on a conversation even with a relative stranger. He brings their talk around to the rebellion five years ago, when he was just a child, and asks intelligent questions about the battles and stratagems.
"And is it true," he asks, "that you led a charge at Ping Yuan, as well as planning the assault?"
Baozi looks awkwardly away for a moment. "It was really my elder brother Zhiteng's plan, and I only led the charge because no-one better was able to ride. My elder brother's soldiers followed me for his sake."
"I see you are a warrior as well as a strategist," Zijia says. "Like my father." And he falls silent for a while.
Baozi is amazed and embarrassed to be compared to the great minister, and insists that that is not true. "I have a little skill with the sword but I am no warrior, at least not yet. My elder brother Yan is teaching me."
Zijia nods, almost absently, and when he finally speaks again it is with sudden vehemence. "One day I will avenge my father. When politics does not demand the rebel Dong be rewarded for his treason." He has a plan too, when - he does not say if - he is finally able to assail Dong Zhuo: he would launch a raid on Shuofang, making use of the river.
He invites Baozi to stay as an honoured guest. When it finally comes time for him to leave, Lu Yu tells him that he has a gift for him. It is a suit of armour.
"I am sure that my father would have liked you to have it. You will wear it better than I would."
Baozi looks more closely. The white paint has been scrubbed off it but it is indeed Lu Zhi's armour. "I cannot accept this," he protests. "I have no right to take it." But Zijia insists.