Jinshan Temple is the riverside monastery where Xiao Feng and A'Zhu, traveling south from Tai’an, pause to watch the Yangtze River. The unceasing current prompts Xiao Feng to reconsider the identities behind the conspiracy that has shaped his family’s fate: the “leading big brother” and the “prime villain” may be one and the same person. The temple therefore becomes a place where a landscape of ongoing movement gives rise to a new direction in the investigation.

Setting and Visit

After arriving in Zhenjiang, Xiao Feng and A'Zhu visit Jinshan Temple to look out over the Yangtze. They watch the river rush east as they travel south at a deliberately slower pace than before, speaking along the way about unusual people and stories from the martial world. Their journey is still burdened by concern for Zhiguang, but the pause at the river gives them room to think through the unresolved past.

The Identity Hypothesis

At the temple, Xiao Feng suddenly proposes that the concealed “leading big brother” and the “prime villain” could be the same person. A'Zhu immediately recognizes the force of the possibility and agrees that they had not considered it before. Xiao Feng does not treat the identification as certain: he allows that they may be two different people, but reasons that they must be closely connected because the prime villain has taken such pains to hide the leading big brother’s identity.

The hypothesis also follows from the standing of the hidden figure. Even people as influential as Chief Wang were willing to follow the leading big brother, suggesting someone of exceptional stature; Xiao Feng reasons that the prime villain must be similarly extraordinary. The possibility that both roles belong to one man offers a way to connect the concealed leadership of the old affair with the person Xiao Feng holds responsible for his parents’ deaths.

Consequences for the Search

Xiao Feng sees the proposed identification as potentially decisive: if he kills the prime villain, he believes he will avenge the murder of his parents. A'Zhu’s response is affirmative, though her voice begins to shake as she recalls what the people at the Apricot Forest had said about the events of that year. The conversation thus joins a fresh deduction to the painful testimony on which their investigation depends.

Jinshan Temple’s importance in this episode lies in that turn of thought, rather than in any change to the temple itself. By the river, Xiao Feng and A'Zhu move from treating the two concealed figures as separate possibilities toward a unifying theory that could explain the conspiracy and point Xiao Feng toward revenge.