The deaths of Granny Tan, Zhao Qiansun, and Grandpa Tan turn Qiao Feng’s pursuit of a secret into a tragedy of suspicion and indirect responsibility. He does not kill any of the three: an unseen assailant kills Granny Tan and Zhao Qiansun, while Grandpa Tan dies after mistaking Qiao Feng for the murderer. Yet Qiao Feng recognizes that his own pursuit helped bring the group to this fatal encounter.

Causes and Background

Qiao Feng follows Zhao Qiansun out of Weihui because he believes Zhao, Grandpa Tan, and Granny Tan may know the identity of the person called the “leading big brother,” whose role is connected to the deaths of Qiao Feng’s parents. He also suspects that the two older former martial siblings may be concealing a continuing romantic attachment. That suspicion shapes his decision to intervene, though his main objective is to find a way to make them reveal what they know.

Zhao Qiansun travels covertly, keeping to corners and roof edges before leaving through the city’s eastern gate. Qiao Feng tails him without being noticed and follows him to a large wooden boat beside a canal. Inside, Granny Tan and Zhao Qiansun speak of their youthful past and of songs she once sang. Their exchange suggests enduring affection, but Granny Tan says that her husband, Grandpa Tan, distrusts Zhao Qiansun and that further meetings may cause trouble. Zhao Qiansun asks to hear the old songs because he fears he may not live much longer; she agrees to sing.

The Confrontation on the Boat

Before Granny Tan can sing more than a few lines, Qiao Feng enters the cabin in disguise. Neither Granny Tan nor Zhao Qiansun recognizes him. He accuses them of secretly meeting in a way that could be read as adultery, then they attack him together. In the cramped cabin, less than a zhang across, Qiao Feng turns their assault aside and answers with close-range techniques. By the seventh exchange, he has struck Zhao Qiansun at the waist and hit Granny Tan in the back, leaving both unable to move because their acupuncture points are blocked.

Qiao Feng says that he will bring them before the people gathered at an abandoned garden in Weihui to answer for their conduct. The threat matters because their meeting, though they insist they have done nothing improper, could destroy their standing in a society that judges such encounters harshly. Granny Tan refuses to disclose what Qiao Feng wants to know. Qiao Feng takes the jade hairpin from her hair and leaves the boat, intending to find Grandpa Tan and bring him back.

The Three Deaths

At the Rugui Inn, Qiao Feng shows Grandpa Tan the hairpin and says that his wife has been captured and may be in danger. Grandpa Tan follows him to the boat. When he looks into the cabin, Granny Tan and Zhao Qiansun appear to be leaning against one another. He strikes at Zhao Qiansun, then realizes that both are already dead: their bodies are cold, and Granny Tan is no longer breathing.

Qiao Feng examines Zhao Qiansun’s body and finds no weapon wound or blood. Instead, he sees a heavy bruise on the chest, as though Zhao Qiansun had been struck by a powerful palm. Grandpa Tan finds an identical mark on Granny Tan. The matching injuries establish that the pair were killed by a palm attack, but do not identify who delivered it. Qiao Feng is astonished: he had only blocked their acupuncture points before leaving, and wonders whether the unknown killer is the same adversary he has been pursuing. No evidence in the scene explains how the assailant knew the two were aboard the boat.

Grief and anger lead Grandpa Tan to attack Qiao Feng. Qiao Feng evades the blow and holds him by the shoulder, insisting that he did not kill Granny Tan. He offers to avenge her if Grandpa Tan will reveal the name of the enemy who killed Qiao Feng’s father, but Grandpa Tan rejects his explanation and cannot break free. In despair, Grandpa Tan bites through his own tongue and dies beside his wife. Zhao Qiansun, Granny Tan, and Grandpa Tan are thus all dead by the time Qiao Feng leaves the boat.

Aftermath and Significance

Qiao Feng does not conceal the bodies or sink the boat, although he considers that he could destroy the evidence. Instead, he reasons that hiding the deaths would make him appear guilty, gets off the boat, and searches the riverbank for footprints or another clue. He finds no trace of the killer. When he returns to the inn, A’Zhu has been waiting at the gate. She initially assumes that Qiao Feng killed the three, then hears his denial and asks who could have done it.

The episode leaves the killer unidentified and the question of the “leading big brother” unanswered. It also separates direct guilt from responsibility: Qiao Feng is not the killer, but his decision to detain the pair and summon Grandpa Tan places him at the center of the catastrophe. His attempt to use their meeting to advance his investigation instead ends with three deaths and no new answer, making the search for his parents’ killer more fraught rather than less.

Narrative Construction and Moral Pressure

The deaths are arranged as a sequence of partial understandings rather than a single witnessed attack. Qiao Feng first sees an apparent secret meeting and responds to what it seems to signify; Grandpa Tan later sees the couple leaning together and reaches his own conclusion before discovering that they are dead. In both moments, appearances invite judgment, but the second arrives too late for correction. The scene therefore makes the reader, like its characters, confront how quickly an inference can harden into an accusation—and how little that accusation can explain about the actual cause of death.

Aftermath and Significance

Qiao Feng does not conceal the bodies or sink the boat, though he recognizes that he could damage the bilge and make it disappear beneath the river. He instead reasons that hiding the deaths would make him seem guilty. After leaving the cabin, he searches the riverbank for footprints or another trace of the killer, but finds nothing. The choice to preserve the scene does not clear him: Grandpa Tan has already accused him, and the visible evidence establishes the manner of the couple’s deaths without identifying the attacker.

When Qiao Feng returns to the inn, A’Zhu has been waiting at the gate. Seeing his troubled expression, she understands that following Zhao Qiansun has not yielded the answer he sought. Qiao Feng tells her that all three are dead. A’Zhu assumes at first that he killed them, then accepts his denial and asks who could have done it. Her reaction makes plain how easily Qiao Feng’s actions can appear culpable even to someone close to him; the deaths have left him with suspicion but no explanation.

The episode leaves both the killer and the identity of the “leading big brother” unknown. Qiao Feng had pursued Zhao Qiansun in hopes of learning who was responsible for his parents’ deaths, but Granny Tan’s refusal to disclose what she knew and the sudden deaths of the three older figures bring his inquiry to a dead end. His intervention did not directly kill them, yet it helped set the fatal sequence in motion: he detained the pair, brought Grandpa Tan to the boat, and exposed him to a scene he misunderstood. The distinction between killing and causing harm without intending it gives the episode its central moral pressure.

The action unfolds through successive misreadings rather than a witnessed account of the murder. Qiao Feng reads the private meeting as evidence of misconduct; Grandpa Tan sees the two together and attacks before discovering they are already dead. Each inference outruns the facts available to the observer, while the unknown assailant remains outside the scene. The final search produces no footprint or clue, so the sequence closes not with revelation but with an unanswered question—and with Qiao Feng carrying responsibility for a catastrophe he did not perpetrate.

Consequences and the Unsolved Attack

The deaths leave Qiao Feng with no answer to the question that drew him after Zhao Qiansun. Granny Tan has refused to identify the person called the “leading big brother,” and the unknown assailant’s attack supplies no clue to that person’s identity. Qiao Feng wonders whether the killer is the adversary he has been pursuing, but the bodies establish only that both victims suffered matching palm injuries; they do not reveal who struck them or how the attacker found them on the boat. His search along the riverbank yields no footprints or other trace.

Qiao Feng could have hidden the bodies by damaging the boat’s bilge and allowing it to sink, but he decides that doing so would make him appear guilty. He leaves the bodies where they are and returns to the inn, where A’Zhu has waited for him. She first assumes that he killed the three, then hears his denial and asks who could have done it. Her initial suspicion echoes Grandpa Tan’s accusation: even where Qiao Feng is not the killer, his intervention makes him look responsible.

The sequence thus turns an investigation into a failure with consequences. Qiao Feng followed Zhao Qiansun to extract information, detained him and Granny Tan, and brought Grandpa Tan to the boat; those actions placed all three within a catastrophe whose attacker remains unseen. The deaths do not make Qiao Feng their direct perpetrator, but they leave him confronting the harm set in motion by his pursuit, while the identity of his parents’ killer remains undisclosed.