Azi ambushes Xiao Feng and is badly injured by his palm force

Azi ambushes Xiao Feng and is badly injured by his palm force after using a feigned death to lure him within range of a concealed poison needle. The encounter turns Xiao Feng’s suspicion into a real and lasting crisis: he repels an attack that comes too suddenly to evade, then discovers that his response has left A'Zhu’s sister near death.## The feigned death After telling Xiao Feng she would rather follow him than return to the Xingxiu Sect, Azi sees little appeal in the precarious position she has claimed as its senior martial sister. Xiao Feng jokes that she is a poor drinker and fighter, and that he would have to protect her rather than rely on her. She responds by sitting down in the snow and crying. When he starts to leave, her crying abruptly stops. He turns back to find her lying motionless and, at first, dismisses the stillness as another tantrum.

After walking several li, Xiao Feng looks back across the open terrain. Azi has not moved. He remembers that he killed her elder sister and that A'Zhu had asked him to care for Azi, and turns back rather than leave her alone. At close range he finds her embedded in the thick snow, without visible breath and cold to the touch. He recalls that Azi has feigned death before and knows the Xingxiu Sect’s Turtle Breath Skill can suspend breathing. Instead of panicking, he touches her torso and sends internal energy through her acupoints.

Azi opens her eyes and immediately shoots a shining blue needle from her mouth toward Xiao Feng’s forehead. The apparent death has brought him close enough for a sudden, concealed attack; the scene’s reversal is sharpened by the contrast between her motionless vulnerability and her prepared weapon.## The palm strike and its cost The needle comes within a few chi before Xiao Feng can react. He cannot count on evading it, so he sweeps out his right hand and uses a forceful palm wind to deflect it, twisting his body aside as he strikes. The poisoned needle passes within an inch of his cheek. His counterattack protects him from the weapon, but the same blow sends Azi flying across the snow and leaves her motionless again.

At first, Xiao Feng is angry at the treacherous attack and recognizes how lethal the Xingxiu Sect’s hidden weapons can be. Then he sees the consequence of his own response: Azi’s eyes are closed, blood is at the corners of her mouth, her face has gone pale, and she is no longer breathing. His immediate conclusion is that he has killed her. The scene’s decisive reversal is not simply that the ambush fails; the danger shifts from Xiao Feng’s life to the life of the attacker he has just struck.

Xiao Feng’s attempt to save her

The discovery turns Xiao Feng’s alarm into guilt. He recalls A'Zhu’s deathbed request that he care for her younger sister and is struck by the thought that he has killed her too. He quickly lays a hand on Azi’s back and pours his internal energy into her. When she moves faintly, he takes hope, but the movement stops; he sits cross-legged in the snow, supports her before him, and continues transferring energy through both palms, slowly enough to keep her breathing without worsening her grave condition.

He persists for half an hour. Azi stirs and softly calls him brother-in-law, but Xiao Feng does not stop to answer: he keeps working until her body gradually warms and her breathing returns. Only when she is breathing evenly, near noon, does he lift her and hurry onward. Her face remains without color, so the rescue has not ended the danger; it has only given him time to seek further help.

Care in transit and the limits of rescue

Xiao Feng carries Azi onward while keeping one hand against her back and continuously channeling his internal energy into her. After a long journey he reaches a small town, but finds no inn there; he has to travel more than twenty li farther north before finding a humble inn run by its owner alone. He asks for hot soup and feeds it to Azi a spoonful at a time. She manages only three mouthfuls before vomiting it back, mixed with blood. The attempt to nourish her makes the limits of his rescue plain: his strength can sustain her, but her condition remains grave.

A nearby pharmacy offers a possible remedy by accident. Xiao Feng hears a housekeeper ask for old mountain ginseng to keep a master near death alive long enough to speak his final words. Remembering that ginseng broth may sustain someone at the edge of death, he buys the two roots left after the housekeeper takes one, using a gold ingot. The pharmacy brews them into broth, which Azi keeps down. After several mouthfuls, Xiao Feng notices that her pulse has strengthened slightly and her breathing seems smoother. A Confucian doctor dismisses the purchase as wasted, arguing that ginseng cannot revive the dead; Xiao Feng nevertheless continues trying to preserve Azi’s life.

The doctor’s scorn provokes Xiao Feng’s anger, and he almost strikes him. He stops himself, checking his impulse against the conduct expected of an honourable hero: attacking a man without martial skill would violate that standard. Rather than retaliate, he picks up Azi and rushes out, leaving the doctor’s taunts unanswered. His restraint echoes the earlier danger of the encounter: force has already brought Azi near death, so the choice not to use it becomes part of his effort to keep her alive.

The hidden token and the aftermath

While continuing to tend Azi at the inn, Xiao Feng unties a purple ribbon attached to her clothes bag, hoping to get money for wine. A small yellow wooden tripod drops from beneath her skirt. Its meticulous carving and jade-like wood identify it as the Divine Wood King Cauldron, an instrument associated with the Xingxiu Sect’s Great Energy Dissolving Skill. Xiao Feng realizes Azi had claimed to hand it over while secretly keeping it concealed, a deception that could make the sect believe he possessed it and discourage anyone from searching her. Disgusted with the object and preoccupied with her condition, he sets it aside and uses the money to buy wine and meat, then continues channeling his energy into her. The concealed cauldron extends the scene’s pattern of misdirection beyond the ambush: Azi’s helpless appearance had concealed an attack, just as her apparent surrender of a prized sect object concealed continued possession.