Madam Ma's Confession and Death is the final disclosure of the plot against Xiao Feng: facing death, Madam Ma admits that resentment over his indifference drove her to manipulate and destroy several men, arrange Ma Dayuan’s murder, and help expose Xiao Feng’s Khitan identity. But though she alone could name the “Leading Big Brother” behind the old conspiracy, she dies before revealing him, turning the confession into both an explanation and an unanswered question.

The grievance behind the conspiracy

Madam Ma confesses that she resented Xiao Feng because he had never looked at her with interest. When Ma Dayuan refused to expose Xiao Feng’s origins, she instructed Bai Shijing to kill him. Her account makes the motive personal and spiteful: she wanted to punish Xiao Feng for ignoring her, and to make him lose his position and reputation.

She had found Chief Wang’s will in Ma Dayuan’s safe and secretly read the letter without apparently disturbing its seal. The contents gave her the means to strike. She wanted Ma Dayuan to reveal publicly that Xiao Feng was Khitan, so that he would be driven from leadership of the Beggar Clan, rejected in the Central Plains, and placed in danger. Her confession connects the private slight she nursed to a public crisis that threatened Xiao Feng’s place in the martial world.

Ma Dayuan’s murder and the conspiracy

Madam Ma says Ma Dayuan scolded her after she pressed him to expose Xiao Feng, and threatened to confine her at home. More than a month later, on the fourteenth day of the eighth month, Bai Shijing visited the Ma residence for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Madam Ma says she manipulated his feelings and threatened to accuse him of having assaulted her unless he killed Ma Dayuan. Bai Shijing, unwilling to kill her, complied.

She confirms that Ma Dayuan was given Ten Fragrance Bewitching Powder and that Bai Shijing broke his throat, making the murder appear to have been committed by someone using the Throat-Lock Capturing Technique. She attributes the idea of implicating Gusu Murong to Bai Shijing. The confession thus distinguishes the roles within the crime: Madam Ma arranged and compelled the murder, while Bai Shijing carried it out and helped disguise its source.

Madam Ma also recounts how the wider effort against Xiao Feng developed. She says she first ordered Bai Shijing to disclose the secret of Xiao Feng’s birth, but he remained loyal and nearly took his own life rather than betray him. She then approached Quan Guanqing, whom she says she won over, and brought in Elder Xu because she believed Quan Guanqing alone could not bring Xiao Feng down. This account explains why Quan Guanqing led the conspiracy while Bai Shijing was ultimately exposed as a traitor, despite Bai Shijing’s earlier resistance and continuing reluctance to wrong Xiao Feng in every respect.

The theft of Xiao Feng’s fan was another point she clarifies. Madam Ma denies that Bai Shijing took it: Quan Guanqing persuaded Elder Chen to do so, and Elder Chen entered Xiao Feng’s home after Xiao Feng had left. Her testimony separates this act from Bai Shijing’s part in the scheme and gives Xiao Feng a more precise account of the conspiracy’s mechanics.

The name she withholds

After hearing the confession, Xiao Feng asks who wrote the letter to Chief Wang and signed as the “Leading Big Brother.” Madam Ma says that, among those still living, only she and the man himself know the identity. She names several people who have since died, including Elder Xu, Zhao Qiansun, Shan Zheng, the Tan couple, and Zhiguang, emphasizing how few witnesses remain.

Xiao Feng openly pleads for the name, promising to do what he can for her. Madam Ma makes her answer conditional: she wants him to hold her and look at her carefully. Xiao Feng is reluctant, but believes she is the only remaining source for the identity of the enemy who killed his parents. He agrees, while insisting that loyalty to Ma Dayuan prevents him from insulting his friend’s widow. The exchange makes the confession’s final revelation depend on a demand that Xiao Feng finds personally repugnant, yet still cannot dismiss while the secret remains so consequential.

The mirror and the interruption

A’Zi appears outside the window and mocks Xiao Feng, misreading his effort to obtain the name as intimacy with her father’s lover. Xiao Feng dismisses the accusation and again asks Madam Ma to answer. Instead, she asks for a mirror after hearing that her appearance is ugly. A’Zi holds up a bright mirror, and Madam Ma sees her blood- and dirt-stained face. The sight confronts her with an image sharply at odds with the beauty on which her self-conception has rested.

Xiao Feng tells A’Zi to put the mirror away, warning that upsetting Madam Ma could hasten her death. He feels that Madam Ma has stopped moving and breathing, and confirms that she has died. Xiao Feng is alarmed not because he mourns her, but because she was the only person who could identify the “Leading Big Brother.” A’Zi asks whether he cared for Madam Ma; he explains that he needed the answer. Her interruption and the mirror scene close the confession without resolving its central mystery: Madam Ma dies before naming the figure behind the letter and the old enmity.