A'Zhu and A'Zi's abandoned upbringing

A'Zhu and A'Zi's abandoned upbringing is a concealed family history that shapes their identities and brings private kinship into collision with revenge. Sent to separate households as infants, the sisters grow up without knowing their parents or each other; a red character on each shoulder and a pair of matching gold locks preserve the clues that eventually reunite them with Ruan Xingzhu and reveal Duan Zhengchun as their father.

Separation and Signs of Descent

A'Zhu explains that she was only a little over a year old when she was given to another family, too young to remember either parent. Her adoptive household knew only that her mother's surname was Ruan. In reality, she was Duan Zhengchun's daughter, as was her younger sister A'Zi, born about a year later. The sisters’ separation thus leaves them with different fragments of their origins: A'Zhu knows the surname associated with her birth mother but not her own, while neither girl grows up able to recognize the other.

Their mother gave each daughter a gold lock, and each bears a deep-red Duan character tattooed on her shoulder. The matching marks were intended to make recognition possible in the future; the locks also carry paired twelve-character inscriptions. A'Zi's inscription begins with words whose sound points toward bamboo, while A'Zhu's begins with words that point toward stars. A'Zhu had regarded the verses as pleasing rhymes, but later recognizes that the wording contains a clue to her mother's name, Xingzhu. The objects are not merely keepsakes: together, they provide evidence of a shared parentage that neither sister could establish from memory.

Family Circumstances and Fosterage

The sisters’ parents were not married. Duan Zhengchun was already married to Dao Baifeng, and his relationship with Ruan Xingzhu existed alongside other romances from his youth. The account places that household situation within the political and social position of the Duan family: Dao Baifeng was the daughter of a powerful Baiyi headman, and the marriage helped secure support for the Duan rule in Dali. The Baiyi custom of monogamy and Dao Baifeng's refusal to accept a second wife sharpened the difficulty of Duan Zhengchun's other relationships. These circumstances provide the family context for the sisters’ birth, but the evidence identifies the immediate result plainly: their parents separated, and the girls were sent away.

A'Zhu says that Ruan Xingzhu feared taking the children home. Her own father was strict about family conduct, and she believed he would kill her if he learned of the affair. Rather than bring the sisters into that danger, she entrusted them to other households and marked their shoulders in hope they might one day be recognized. The arrangement protects the children from the anticipated consequences of disclosure, but it does so by depriving them of their parents and each other during childhood.

Recognition and Reunion

The clues become legible only after A'Zhu encounters A'Zi's matching mark and lock. She learns that Duan Zhengchun and Ruan Xingzhu have recognized A'Zi as their daughter; the paired lock and shoulder character lead her to understand that she too belongs to this family. A'Zhu had not known the meaning of her inscription or the identity hidden in her own name. Recognition therefore comes not through a remembered face, but through repeated signs deliberately left on the two girls.

A'Zhu's knowledge of the family is confirmed by what she overhears: Duan Zhengchun and Ruan Xingzhu embrace A'Zi and speak tearfully of having abandoned both daughters. Duan Zhengchun says he would find A'Zhu and bring her back. A'Zhu is outside the window as they speak, so the promise to seek her reaches her at the moment she discovers that she has been sought. The scene makes reunion possible, yet it comes after years of separation and cannot restore the childhood the sisters did not share.

Kinship, Revenge, and Consequence

The discovery is bound to Xiao Feng's search for the man he believes responsible for the deaths of his five relatives. Madam Ma has disclosed Duan Zhengchun's name, and A'Zhu herself obtained that information by disguising herself as Bai Shijing and questioning her. She recognizes the terrible consequence: the father she has just discovered is also the object of Xiao Feng's revenge. Their histories converge through a chain of mistaken identity and concealed knowledge, turning the family revelation into an immediate moral crisis rather than a simple recovery of origins.

A'Zhu decides not to tell Xiao Feng in time to prevent the encounter. She believes that asking him to abandon revenge would not change his decision, and she fears that killing Duan Zhengchun would bring the power of the Duan family against him. She later asks Xiao Feng to watch over A'Zi, whom she worries may take a wrong path, and imagines the sisters joining him beyond Yanmen Pass to ride, hunt, and herd cattle and sheep. The request gives their belated sisterhood a future in words, even as the circumstances surrounding the discovery make that future precarious.

Significance

The sisters’ origin story distinguishes biological descent from the family life they actually experienced. The Duan name and matching tokens establish shared parentage, but neither sign can return the girls to the years in which they were raised apart. Foster households, hidden births, and parental promises all shape who can recognize whom and when; the objects preserve a possibility of reunion without undoing the abandonment.

The plot also makes the discovery consequential beyond the family. Duan Zhengchun's identity connects A'Zhu's newly understood origins to Xiao Feng's pursuit of vengeance, while her concern for A'Zi converts recognition into an obligation of care. The marks and locks begin as safeguards against permanent anonymity; when their meaning is finally understood, they reveal a kinship that intensifies, rather than resolves, the conflicts among love, family loyalty, and revenge.