Ma Dayuan and Kang Min

Ma Dayuan and Kang Min’s marriage ended in murder because Kang’s designs against Xiao Feng collided with Ma’s refusal to help her. The relationship links domestic betrayal to the Beggar Clan’s political crisis: Ma was not merely Kang’s husband, but a person whose decision to keep Xiao Feng’s origins secret became a reason for Kang to turn against him.

Marriage and social position

Ma Dayuan was a leading figure in the Beggar Clan, and Kang Min was his wife, known after his death as Madam Ma. The narrative first places her in mourning at the Ma family home, where Xiao Feng sees her in white beside Duan Zhengchun. That scene situates her within the circle of people drawn into the investigation and its personal entanglements, before the account reveals the hostility concealed beneath her role as Ma’s widow.

The marriage also figures in the struggle over Xiao Feng’s identity. In the account Madam Ma gives of the earlier events, Ma had learned of the secret of Xiao Feng’s birth and was pressed by Kang to disclose it. His unwillingness to do so made the household relationship part of a wider conflict involving the Beggar Clan and the question of Xiao Feng’s origins.

The motive for betrayal

Bai Shijing’s confession identifies Kang as the principal planner of Ma’s murder. He says she had secretly read Chief Wang’s will and repeatedly urged Ma to expose the secret of Xiao Feng’s birth. When Ma refused, Kang devised a plan against him. Her effort to bring that secret into the open thus became a direct cause of the betrayal: Ma’s resistance did not preserve their marriage but helped turn Kang’s attention toward eliminating him.

Kang and Bai Shijing acted together, but the account distinguishes their roles. Bai’s confession presents Kang as the chief schemer, while his own words reveal his participation and attempt to shift blame. Kang does not deny that the idea was hers. Instead, she openly expresses contempt for Ma, calling him weak and insisting that his death has not diminished her resolve. The exchange strips away the appearance of a grieving widow and exposes a marriage transformed into accusation and scorn.

Murder and aftermath

The circumstances of Ma’s death emerge during the confrontation in which Bai Shijing believes he is being forced to answer to Ma’s ghost. Xiao Feng recognizes that the supposed ghost is a martial artist using deception to draw out a confession. Under pressure, Bai reveals that he and Kang killed Ma, and that Kang’s motive was tied to Ma’s refusal to expose Xiao Feng’s parentage. What began as concealed wrongdoing becomes evidence in the wider case against those who had worked against Xiao Feng.

Bai’s confession does not save him. The concealed figure kills him, leaving the confession as the crucial account of how the marriage ended and why. Kang survives that encounter, but Xiao Feng later finds her severely mistreated and permanently unable to move after another person has attacked her. He does not kill her; instead, he uses water to relieve the immediate suffering caused by the ants on her wounds. The aftermath therefore separates Xiao Feng’s response from the revenge already inflicted on her: he condemns her responsibility for Ma’s death while refusing to add further torment himself.

Significance

The relationship’s decisive turn is the conflict between Ma’s refusal to expose Xiao Feng and Kang’s determination to do so. Their marriage is presented not as a private story apart from public affairs, but as a point where household betrayal feeds into a struggle over leadership, secrets, and reputation in the Beggar Clan. Ma’s murder makes the cost of that entanglement literal, while Bai’s confession gives the hidden crime a public consequence: Kang’s effort to exploit Xiao Feng’s origins becomes part of the evidence against her and her accomplice.