Ding Chunqiu takes the people away and burns down the Xue residence

Ding Chunqiu takes the people away and burns down the Xue residence in an episode that converts temporary medical care into captivity. After Xue MuHua treats the wounded under Ding Chunqiu’s control, Ding orders ten donkey carriages, has the drivers killed, compels the remaining people to leave, and sets the house alight. The prisoners are carried away with no explanation of where they are going.

From treatment to removal

After the night’s treatment, Xue MuHua has tended to the wounded, including HuiJing, whose frost poison has penetrated deeply after prolonged contact with the Frost Silkworm from Kunlun Mountain. By dawn, the patients have been treated and lie on beds or wooden door boards; Xue MuHua’s family make noodles for them. Ding Chunqiu eats two bowls and remarks that Xue has adapted well to the circumstances by not poisoning the food. Xue answers that he had considered it but would not display his modest skill before an expert. The exchange marks the limits of Xue’s resistance: he can speak back, but remains under the power of the man who has brought the wounded into his home.

Ding then tells Xue to have his family hire ten donkey carriages. Xue asks what they are for, but Ding refuses to explain and points out that the popular physician should have little difficulty finding them. Xue has no choice but to send his family to obtain the vehicles. The order shifts the situation from compelled treatment to planned transport, while withholding the purpose from the people who will be transported.

The drivers and the burning residence

When the ten carriages arrive that afternoon, Ding orders the drivers killed. The Xingxiu Sect disciples carry out the command, leaving the bodies at the scene. Xue is furious and challenges Ding over the killing, asking what the drivers had done to deserve it. Ding’s reply is that the Xingxiu Sect need not justify killing people by right or reason. The episode makes the drivers’ deaths a deliberate assertion of power, not an incidental consequence of the removal.

Ding next orders everyone into the carriages and tells Xue to bring any medical books or drugs he needs, since he intends to burn the house. Xue knows that arguing is useless. He has already memorized the medical texts, but the pills, ointments, and other remedies he painstakingly prepared remain material possessions he must gather and try to save. Before he can finish packing, Ding’s disciples set fire to the rear of the residence. The destruction thus reaches beyond the building itself: it threatens Xue’s stored medicines and separates him from the home and working environment in which he had treated the injured.

Captives and consequences

The people taken include XuanNan, six Shaolin monks, four subordinates of the Gusu Murong family, the Eight Friends of Hangu, and Xue MuHua’s family. Xue is the exception among the wounded group: the others have been injured, had their internal energy sealed, or suffered the effects of poison, leaving them unable to move freely. HuiFang, who had been ordered by XuanNan to escape and carry news to Shaolin Temple, had already been recaptured after failing to get far under the close watch of Ding’s followers. His failed escape leaves the group without the messenger who was supposed to alert the temple.

Ding’s party packs the captives into the ten carriages. Some Xingxiu Sect disciples drive while others escort the vehicles. The curtains are drawn and tied, leaving the occupants without light or a view outside. XuanNan and the others wonder where Ding is taking them, but they know that asking would bring only insult and humiliation, not an answer. Their enforced uncertainty is the episode’s final condition: they have been removed from Xue MuHua’s residence, the house is burning, and their destination remains concealed.

Narrative function

The episode links Ding Chunqiu’s treatment of people to his treatment of places and property. Even after Xue MuHua has treated the wounded and provided food, Ding offers no reprieve: he commandeers transport, kills its drivers, carries off the household and its guests, and destroys the physician’s residence. Xue’s knowledge and preparations do not prevent the loss of his home or medicines, while the prisoners’ injuries and confinement prevent them from resisting or learning what comes next. The abrupt move from dawn’s recovery and shared meal to the afternoon’s forced departure gives the apparent pause of medical care a grim reversal.