Elder Xu

Elder Xu is a senior member of the Beggar Society whose death turns an unresolved political conspiracy into a public demand for vengeance. The news of his killing draws the Society’s elders to a memorial in Weihui, where Xiao Feng encounters the accusation against him firsthand; later, Madam Ma’s confession places Elder Xu within the plot to expose and overthrow Xiao Feng.

Identity and Position

Elder Xu belongs to the Beggar Society’s senior leadership. His death is treated not as a private loss but as an injury to the Society: its members gather for his memorial and speak of finding a way to capture Xiao Feng, whom they blame for the killing. The gathering also reveals that the Society’s old discipline has weakened since Xiao Feng led it, a decline that pains him despite their now-hostile relationship.

The surviving evidence does not establish Elder Xu’s personal history or his precise duties within the organization. It does show the weight his death carries among its members. His memorial brings the Society’s leading figures together, and the ceremony’s signs make the death an explicit summons to collective retaliation.

Death and Memorial

Xiao Feng first learns that Elder Xu has died while eating noodles with A'Zhu in Sanjia town. Two Beggar Society members discuss the death outside the shop, describing him as having suffered a violent end and immediately accusing Xiao Feng. They also report that a condolence gathering will begin in Weihui two days later, where the Society’s elders and members intend to discuss capturing him. Xiao Feng and A'Zhu decide to go there in hopes of finding a clue.

When they reach Weihui, Xiao Feng sees Beggar Society members scattered through the streets and alleys. Their disorder contrasts with the strict, thriving organization he remembers building. Although he and the Society have become enemies, he regrets seeing the results of his years of work undone so quickly. The memorial is therefore not merely a place to investigate the accusation against him: it also brings him face to face with the decline of the group he once led.

Following the Society’s coded speech, Xiao Feng learns that Elder Xu’s memorial tablet has been placed in an abandoned garden in the western part of the city. He and A'Zhu buy incense, candles, joss money, and animal offerings, then join the other mourners and kowtow before the tablet. Fresh blood on it signifies, by the Society’s custom, that the deceased was murdered and must be avenged. The mourners denounce Xiao Feng without realizing that he is standing among them. Fearing that someone will recognize him, he leaves with A'Zhu.

The Accusation and the Investigation

Elder Xu’s death becomes one of the central reasons Xiao Feng is treated as the suspected killer and pursues the identity of the “Leading Big Brother.” At a later meeting with Zhiguang, the monk recounts that Xiao Feng has been accused of killing Elder Xu and several others while investigating the old case. Xiao Feng tries to explain that he did not kill them, but Zhiguang has already gone to fetch an object connected with the matter. The distinction between accusation and established fact remains important: the evidence records the charge against Xiao Feng, while Madam Ma later identifies Elder Xu as a participant in her conspiracy.

The memorial intensifies the pressure to solve the case. Its ritual marking of murder makes vengeance an institutional obligation, while the Society’s discussion of capturing Xiao Feng turns suspicion into a practical pursuit. At the same time, Xiao Feng sees the gathering as a possible source of information. His search for the hidden leader is shaped by the deaths surrounding the inquiry, including Elder Xu’s, and by his hope of finding a weakness that might compel those who know the secret to disclose it.

Role in the Conspiracy

Madam Ma’s eventual confession clarifies Elder Xu’s place in the political plot against Xiao Feng. She says that after recruiting Quan Guanqing, she also sought Elder Xu’s involvement in the campaign to bring Xiao Feng down. Her account connects the conspiracy’s recruitment of allies with the public accusation that followed: Elder Xu was not only a victim whose death rallied the Society, but also someone Madam Ma drew into the earlier scheme.

This revelation helps explain why Elder Xu’s death matters beyond the memorial. It sits at the intersection of two unresolved questions: who organized the campaign against Xiao Feng, and who killed the people connected to that affair? Madam Ma’s statement identifies his involvement in the plot but does not, in the cited evidence, establish who killed him. Xiao Feng’s uncertainty over the “Leading Big Brother” likewise persists, and the death itself removes one more person from the chain of people he is trying to question.

Narrative Significance

Elder Xu is chiefly defined through his absence: reports of his death, the blood-marked tablet, the Society’s mourning, and the later account of his role in the conspiracy. These appearances give the same event two political meanings. To the Beggar Society, the death demands vengeance against Xiao Feng; to Xiao Feng, it is a clue in a search for the hidden author of the campaign against him.

The memorial also gives the investigation a public and communal form. Xiao Feng must stand among people who condemn him, conceal his identity, and leave before his presence is discovered. Elder Xu’s death thus sharpens the conflict between Xiao Feng and his former Society while narrowing the circle of people who might explain the old conspiracy. The evidence establishes the accusations and Madam Ma’s account of Elder Xu’s involvement, but leaves the identity of his killer unresolved.