Lu Xun’s Order for Su Xiangwan to Stay Away from Chu Fei

Lu Xun’s Order for Su Xiangwan to Stay Away from Chu Fei is one of the marriage’s clearest attempts to convert fear into a private rule. Lu Xun initially appears to be restricting Su Xiangwan out of jealousy, but he insists that the prohibition is grounded in the lethal political and criminal danger surrounding Chu Fei’s expansion into Yuncheng. The order therefore operates on two levels at once: it is a demand for marital obedience and a warning that proximity to Chu Fei may place several lives at risk.

Origin in Lu Xun’s Protective Bargain

The order develops from Lu Xun’s wider struggle with Lin Yanche over Su Xiangwan and Su Qingrou. In negotiating over the East District land, Lu Xun states that his condition is simple: if Lin Yanche wants Su Xiangwan to leave him, Lin Yanche must never interfere in Lu Xun’s affairs with Su Qingrou. Su Xiangwan realizes that Lu Xun is prepared to use a major commercial conflict for her sake, forcing her to sever ties with Lin Yanche. This context establishes Lu Xun’s characteristic method: intimate relationships are defended through bargains, conditions, and the authority of his position rather than through trust alone.

The same controlling logic appears in his handling of other relationships. When Song Yuner leaves a meal, Lu Xun does not ask her to remain; instead, he summons Manager Wu and orders him to take her wherever she wants to go. The gesture is courteous on its surface but still places the movement of a woman within Lu Xun’s managed sphere. His order concerning Chu Fei belongs to this broader pattern of private governance, in which protection and restriction are difficult to separate.

The Threat Posed by Chu Fei

Lu Xun’s confrontation with Su Xiangwan becomes more severe after Chu Fei suddenly arrives in Yuncheng. Lu Xun asks whether she would choose her cousin’s brother or choose him if they could not remain on the same side. Su Xiangwan tries to avoid the question by saying that she does not understand the men’s careers and does not want to become involved. Lu Xun refuses to treat the matter as an ordinary romantic rivalry.

He explains that Chu Fei has planted spies beside Lin Yanche and that, if Lin Yanche had not discovered them in time, Lin Yanche would have died first, followed by Lu Xun and then Su Xiangwan. The sequence turns the prohibition from a purely domestic quarrel into a warning about collateral danger. Lu Xun’s fear is not abstract: Chu Fei’s network has already reached the circle surrounding them, and Su Xiangwan’s connection to Chu Fei could expose her to the same violence.

The danger is reinforced when Lu Xun and Lin Yanche fly directly to Yan City. Chu Fei’s men are waiting at the airport immediately after their arrival, apparently having calculated the timing of the flight. Lu Xun has brought many people with him, so he does not believe their safety is immediately threatened, yet the presence of Chu Fei’s men confirms the suspicions that led to the confrontation. The airport encounter gives concrete form to the order’s security rationale: Chu Fei’s reach is organized, anticipatory, and capable of placing armed representatives exactly where Lu Xun and Lin Yanche will appear.

The Order as Marital Control

Lu Xun explicitly rejects the interpretation that he wants Su Xiangwan to stay away from Chu Fei merely because he is jealous or overbearing. He grips her shoulders and insists that he is not joking, presenting the instruction as a serious command rather than a preference. The physical force of the gesture gives the rule an additional dimension. His words invoke protection, but his body enforces obedience, making the marriage itself the immediate institution through which the prohibition operates.

Su Xiangwan eventually answers in a daze that she understands and addresses him as her husband. Her response is not framed as an independent assessment of Chu Fei’s danger; it is a submission to Lu Xun’s seriousness and marital authority. Lu Xun appears relieved, releases her shoulders, places an arm around them, and leads her toward his private elevator. The movement from confrontation to physical closeness does not erase the coercion. Instead, it shows how the relationship repeatedly absorbs commands into gestures of intimacy.

The prohibition also exposes the unstable boundary between kinship and desire in the surrounding social world. Shen Yiyun is identified as Lu Xun’s cousin because she was adopted by his uncle, and Lu Xun has arranged for her to stay near the theater after she comes to Cloud City to perform. Su Xiangwan reacts angrily when she learns that Lu Xun has not explained this arrangement openly. Later, she argues that a relative connected only by name is still a man and a woman, and that she has no blood-related cousin. These exchanges help explain why Lu Xun treats Chu Fei’s relation to Su Xiangwan as politically and romantically dangerous even when others might describe it through family language.

Chu Fei’s Counterclaim

Chu Fei gives Lu Xun’s prohibition a direct antagonist when he declares that Su Xiangwan matters to him. He argues that although she was similarly dressed as a close relative, he ultimately had no blood kinship with her and, more importantly, liked her very much. In his eyes, Lu Xun is therefore an eyesore. Chu Fei’s language collapses the protective and familial disguises surrounding Su Xiangwan into an open rivalry over access to her.

Chu Fei nevertheless distinguishes his pursuit from immediate force. He says that he will not force a woman and is not in a hurry to obtain her; he prefers the process of pursuit and wants it to last as long as possible. This makes his threat less straightforward than a direct assault, but no less disruptive. His declared interest turns Su Xiangwan into the center of a prolonged contest, while Lu Xun responds by attempting to close the field through a marital command.

Operation and Narrative Significance

The order is repeatedly tested by the story’s contrast between official identity, private intimacy, and assumed relationships. In one intimate exchange, Su Xiangwan identifies Lu Xun as her husband while pulling off his shirt flirtatiously. Lu Xun remains uncertain whether she truly recognizes him, suggesting that even the marital title can become unstable when identity, performance, and desire overlap. Yet the title is also the strongest justification available to him when he demands that she avoid Chu Fei.

The rule’s significance lies in its double meaning. As a safety measure, it responds to spies, airport surveillance, organized men, and the threat of death surrounding Chu Fei’s arrival. As a marital rule, it extends Lu Xun’s established expectation that Su Xiangwan should obey him and remain within the boundaries he sets. The same command can therefore be read as care expressed through coercion: Lu Xun tries to keep Su Xiangwan alive by limiting her freedom, while Chu Fei’s pursuit makes that limitation appear necessary. The resulting tension is not resolved by a simple distinction between love and jealousy. The order shows how, in Lu Xun and Su Xiangwan’s marriage, protection becomes most forceful precisely when trust is most fragile.