Lu Xun

Lu Xun is the novel’s commanding husband figure, known in different contexts as Prime Minister Lu and Lu Shengxun. His decisive significance lies in the contradiction he embodies: he understands marriage as duty, protection, and public commitment, but also as a relationship in which his authority may determine where Su Xiangwan goes, whom she sees, and whether she can leave. The story repeatedly tests whether his possessiveness can become responsibility, and whether responsibility can compensate for the fear and injury produced by control.

Identity and Background

Lu Xun occupies a position of unusual authority and social visibility, yet the narrative gives that public power an intimate counterpart in his private conduct. He speaks as a husband who believes that marriage creates obligations that cannot be discarded when circumstances become inconvenient. When Su Xiangwan proposes divorce and offers to return the five hundred million in capital, along with its interest, he rejects the idea that their marriage is a temporary arrangement or a transaction that can simply be settled financially. He insists that once he has married her, he will fulfill his duties and will not allow others to bully her or make her bear the consequences of a dispute alone.

That declaration contains both the moral center and the danger of his character. Lu Xun can recognize an obligation even when Su Xiangwan is dissatisfied with the way he has acted, but he defines the obligation himself. His language converts marital status into protection while also making separation difficult. The same husband who promises not to abandon her can therefore appear as a guardian, an owner, or an authority determined to preserve the marriage on his terms.

His past helps explain the severity beneath his composure. Lu Xun recounts that he was kidnapped at the age of twelve, drugged by the kidnappers, and nearly lost his life; afterward, he was resistant to many medicines. He tells Su Xiangwan about the experience with an unwavering gaze, describing the pain as though it belonged to someone else. The confession reveals a formative encounter with helplessness and bodily danger, giving later scenes of vigilance, medical concern, and protective aggression a personal history rather than leaving them as mere displays of power.

Marriage and the Struggle for Control

Lu Xun’s relationship with Su Xiangwan begins inside the framework of the Five-Hundred-Million Contract Marriage and Secret Marriage, but he repeatedly tries to transform contractual terms into a permanent emotional and social bond. He plans a European honeymoon, says that a wedding can be held whenever she wants, and tells her that objections may be voiced freely. His willingness to arrange the future suggests that he wants the marriage publicly and emotionally ratified, not merely maintained as a private convenience.

At the same time, his intimacy is often expressed through pressure. When he suspects that Su Xiangwan regards him as someone to visit only when she has physiological needs, his reaction is sharp and offended. During moments of jealousy or anger, he presses her down and demands emotional recognition rather than calmly accepting distance. His conduct makes the marriage a contest over who has the right to define closeness: Su Xiangwan seeks the freedom to withdraw, while Lu Xun repeatedly treats withdrawal as a threat to the relationship that must be reversed.

His control is most visible when he confronts danger or rivals. He coldly orders someone to let Su Xiangwan go, and elsewhere demands that a woman not leave a manor because he can ensure that Jin Zhengnan will never leave the Hospital if she does. The threat exposes the coercive underside of his protective role. Lu Xun can defend a loved one by placing another person under extreme pressure, making the language of rescue inseparable from intimidation.

The marriage also becomes a field of negotiation over competing claims. Lu Xun tells another party that any arrangement intended to separate someone from Su Xiangwan must include a promise not to interfere in his affairs with her. He declares that even on a rare day of rest he would rather accompany his parents and wife than collect another woman. When Cheng Chuchu complains that she learned of the marriage only that day and criticizes him for not meeting her at the airport, his response reinforces the priority he assigns to his current household over an older expectation.

Protection, Care, and Jealousy

Lu Xun’s protective behavior is not limited to declarations. When Song Yuner is placed in the guest room, he quietly asks Su Xiangwan whether she blames him for doing so without her consent. The question acknowledges that his decision affects her sense of security, even though he has already acted before obtaining permission. He often seeks to preserve peace by controlling the arrangement first and requesting emotional approval afterward.

His concern becomes more practical when Su Xiangwan is unwell. After she develops a fever and severe bodily weakness, Lu Xun attends to the situation and tells her that a Chinese doctor will come to the house. He asks her to cooperate with the pulse examination and take the medicine obediently. The gentle tone does not erase the command embedded in the request, but it shows a different face of his authority: medical care, monitoring, and persistence rather than punishment.

Lu Xun is similarly alert to emotional changes that others overlook. He holds Su Xiangwan with one arm, lifts her chin with the other, and insists that she look at him while asking what she is thinking. He tells her that he is not unhappy and observes that even Butler Wu can see her sullen expression. The scene turns jealousy and suspicion into an attempt at direct emotional access. Lu Xun does not simply want her physical presence; he wants to know whether her inward attention remains with him.

His response to her vulnerability can become openly tender. After an episode in which she is frightened, he ignores wounds on his face, crouches down, embraces her tightly, and reassures her that he is there. The gesture contrasts with his threats and interrogations: the same body that has carried force into confrontations becomes a shelter. Yet the contrast also keeps the central problem alive, because Lu Xun’s protection is most convincing when Su Xiangwan is afraid, while his methods are often among the forces that make intimacy feel unsafe.

Rivalries, Boundaries, and Return

Lu Xun’s understanding of kinship and romantic boundaries is repeatedly tested by the presence of people whose social labels do not settle their emotional significance. He explains that Shen Yiyun is his uncle’s adopted child and therefore his cousin, and that he arranged a house near the theater because she came to Cloud City to perform. Elsewhere, he explains that Song Yuner lived next door to his family from childhood and had once shown him kindness, making her an important lifelong friend rather than a secret lover. These explanations are attempts to stabilize relationships through names, histories, and publicly intelligible categories.

The instability of those categories is precisely what fuels conflict. Chu Fei mocks Lu Xun by saying that he liked Su Xiangwan greatly and therefore regarded Lu Xun as an eyesore. Chu Fei’s claim transforms kinship and rivalry into a direct competition for Su Xiangwan’s allegiance. Lu Xun does not answer the challenge through philosophical argument; he answers by recovering the marital position. When he arrives at the Mo residence and tells Mo Beiyu that he has come to fetch his wife, he presents the marriage as the decisive boundary that rivals cannot ignore.

His pursuit of Su Xiangwan after separation is therefore both romantic and possessive. At ten in the evening, he personally appears at the gate of the Su Family Residence to ask where she is. The hour and the physical act of appearing at the gate give the search the force of an emergency, but the question also reveals dependence: Lu Xun cannot remain at a distance once he believes that his wife is elsewhere. His return is not passive reconciliation; it is an intervention intended to restore the arrangement he considers rightful.

The same pattern appears in the way he reacts to perceived betrayal. He asks coldly whom Su Xiangwan saw that day, and later asks whether a woman’s problem has been resolved as Su Xiangwan walks toward the door. His questions are rarely neutral requests for information. They measure loyalty, test the security of the bond, and reveal how quickly affection becomes surveillance when Lu Xun fears losing control.

Change, Remorse, and Narrative Role

Lu Xun is not presented as a static tyrant. His conduct includes moments of remorse in which he recognizes that he has acted wrongly, even if recognition arrives after harm has occurred. He drinks wine and says that he did something unscrupulous the previous day, describing himself as depressed and no longer feeling fully human. The admission is understated, but it matters because he does not treat every action as justified merely because he is the husband or the more powerful party.

He also becomes capable of imagining Su Xiangwan’s emotional state with unusual precision. At one point, the corners of his lips rise as he imagines the expression on her face and the tone in which she spoke. This is a small but revealing shift from command to interpretation. Rather than responding only to her literal words, he tries to reconstruct the feeling behind them, suggesting that attachment has begun to demand empathy rather than simple obedience.

Near the end of the represented arc, Lu Xun admits that his mind is elsewhere and gently asks whether Su Xiangwan is still angry with him. The question reverses his earlier posture of certainty. He no longer assumes that marital status guarantees forgiveness; he recognizes anger as an independent emotional fact that must be faced. His concern is still framed through the intimate language of husband and wife, but the request for reassurance shows a man who has become vulnerable to the judgment of the person he has tried to keep close.

Lu Xun’s narrative role is consequently double. He is the engine of the romance’s pursuit-and-possession structure, the husband who plans the honeymoon, defends the household, searches through the night, and insists on taking his wife back. He is also the source of the marriage’s crisis, because his claims of protection can become threats, and his commitment can become confinement. The novel’s central tension does not ask whether he feels love; his actions make that evident. It asks what love becomes when power, fear, duty, and emotional dependence are all expressed through the same marriage. In Lu Xun, devotion is never separate from control, but the story allows remorse, care, and self-questioning to keep that contradiction open rather than resolving it into a single judgment.