Su Xiangcheng Moves Back to the Su Family Ancestral Residence

Su Xiangcheng Moves Back to the Su Family Ancestral Residence is a separation event in which an unresolved conflict between Su Xiangcheng and Lu Xun becomes physically and symbolically legible. After Lu Xun asks her to accompany him to his old home, she refuses, tells him that he may stay there if he returns late, and then withdraws indoors. Lu Xun does not come back that night; the next morning, Su Xiangcheng packs her luggage and returns to the Su Family Ancestral Residence. The move briefly restores her proximity to her grandfather, but Lu Xun’s arrival by noon prevents the separation from becoming a clean break.

Causes and Immediate Tension

The move follows a deliberately cold exchange. Lu Xun invites Su Xiangcheng to accompany him to his old home, while she answers that she is not in the mood and that he can go alone. Her further instruction that he should stay there if it becomes late carries more force than a casual domestic remark: it converts emotional displeasure into permission for him to remain away. When Lu Xun asks whether she wants him to live there, she responds with indifference and walks inside, refusing to continue the conversation.

The scene’s value shift is from shared domestic companionship to estrangement. Lu Xun stares coldly at her retreating back before leaving in dejection, and the narration confirms that he truly does not return that night. His absence supplies the immediate condition for her decision the following morning. Rather than waiting for the quarrel to resolve within their shared home, Su Xiangcheng turns the temporary distance into a change of residence.

The Move to the Ancestral Home

The next morning, Su Xiangcheng packs her luggage and moves back to the Su Family Ancestral Residence. The suitcase makes the separation material: this is not merely a refusal to speak or a night spent apart, but a withdrawal of her belongings and daily presence from Lu Xun’s household. The ancestral residence functions as both refuge and return, bringing her back into the care of an older family structure after the instability of her marriage.

Her grandfather is sitting in the living room reading a newspaper when she arrives. He notices that she has returned with a suitcase and frowns, although he does not immediately question her. Su Xiangcheng then tells him that she has applied for leave from Lu Xun and asks to stay with him for several days. Her explanation presents the move as temporary and manageable, but the luggage and the timing reveal that the marital disagreement has already acquired practical consequences.

Lu Xun’s Return and the Failed Separation

Su Xiangcheng tells her grandfather that married couples naturally experience awkward moments and insists that she and Lu Xun have no real problem. Her grandfather remains suspicious rather than reassured. The uncertainty ends only when Lu Xun appears at the residence at noon. His arrival demonstrates that the distance created by the previous night has not dissolved his investment in the relationship.

The meeting also prevents the ancestral home from becoming a secure space entirely outside Lu Xun’s reach. Su Xiangcheng does not confront him in front of her grandfather, and the two leave the social setting of the family residence before the tension is fully resolved. After lunch, Su Xiangcheng’s expression darkens as Su Xiangnan sees Lu Xun out through the courtyard. The gesture preserves outward composure while leaving the emotional conflict intact.

Relationships and Wider Context

The event belongs to a recurring pattern in which intimate relationships are negotiated through residence, absence, and claims of marital status. Su Xiangcheng’s movement back to her family home temporarily places her within the protection of her grandfather, while Lu Xun’s prompt appearance reasserts the pull of the marriage. The ancestral residence therefore becomes neither a permanent escape nor a neutral family setting; it is a contested space where private conflict becomes visible to relatives.

The episode also occurs against a background of fragile trust and blurred kinship boundaries. In another explanation, Lu Xun identifies Shen Yiyun as his uncle’s adopted child and therefore his cousin, adding that he arranged for her to live near the theater when she came to Cloud City to perform. His later insistence that a non-blood relative is, apart from the name, simply a man or woman shows why Su Xiangcheng is sensitive to undisclosed relationships and why domestic reassurance does not easily settle her suspicions. Lu Xun’s own past further complicates the emotional atmosphere: he recalls being kidnapped at twelve, drugged by the kidnappers, and nearly losing his life, an experience that left him resistant to drugs. These histories help establish a marriage shaped not only by affection, but also by fear, guardedness, and the need to control uncertain situations.

Emotional and Narrative Significance

The move is a small domestic action with a larger structural consequence. It transforms an argument into a separation, tests whether Lu Xun will allow emotional distance to stand, and gives Su Xiangcheng a temporary return to familial shelter. Yet the event ends not with reconciliation but with an interruption of separation: Lu Xun comes to the ancestral residence, the family observes his presence, and the couple remains bound together by an unresolved marriage.

The surrounding narrative repeatedly links physical vulnerability with the need for protection. Su Xiangcheng later collapses from fever at an elevator entrance before she can press the button, while Lu Xun responds to fear with close physical reassurance, telling her not to be afraid because he has been there all along. In this context, her return to the ancestral residence can be read as another attempt to relocate safety when the marital home feels emotionally unsafe. The same pattern appears when she is frightened and seeks comfort from Lu Xun, and when their flirtatious exchange ultimately has her identify him as her husband. The event thus occupies an unstable middle ground between flight and return: Su Xiangcheng leaves the shared home, but Lu Xun follows, preserving the marriage’s hold even as trust remains unsettled.