Madam Ma—Bai Shijing

Madam Ma—Bai Shijing is a relationship defined by manipulation and a coerced betrayal: Madam Ma used their intimacy and the threat of exposing him to force Bai Shijing to murder her husband, Ma Dayuan. Her later confession to Xiao Feng also clarifies that Bai did not carry out every act against him; his reluctance to betray Xiao Feng remained, even as Madam Ma exploited his vulnerability to make him kill.

The relationship and Ma Dayuan’s murder

Madam Ma recounts that Ma Dayuan had scolded her and threatened to confine her and punish her if she disclosed the secrets he wanted kept. She says she had never cared for or respected him, and that his harsh treatment made her determined to retaliate. More than a month later, on the fourteenth day of the eighth lunar month, Bai visited her home for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Madam Ma says she deliberately drew him into an intimate relationship and ordered him to kill Ma Dayuan. When Bai refused, she threatened to accuse him of having forced himself on her. He would not kill her, and, under that pressure, killed Ma Dayuan instead.

The account makes their relationship a mechanism of leverage rather than mutual trust. Madam Ma presents Bai’s fear of exposure as the means by which she overcomes his refusal; the murder follows not from his own grievance against Ma Dayuan, but from the ultimatum she imposes.

Concealment and betrayal

Madam Ma says she gave Ma Dayuan Ten Fragrance Bewitching Powder and ordered Bai to break his throat, making the death appear to have been carried out by the Gusu Murong family’s Throat-Lock Capturing Technique. She confirms the broad plan, but attributes the choice of that technique and the false attribution to Bai. The disguise attached the killing to a different martial household and helped obscure the pair’s responsibility.

Her confession also draws a boundary around Bai’s betrayal. She says she ordered him to reveal the secret of Xiao Feng’s birth, but that he remained loyal and was so distressed by her pressure that he picked up a knife intending to kill himself. She says she let him go that time. The episode depicts a man capable of committing murder under her coercion, yet still unwilling to expose Xiao Feng on his own initiative.

The conspiracy against Xiao Feng

Madam Ma next says she approached Quan Guanqing, who agreed to organize the effort to bring down Xiao Feng after she had been intimate with him for three nights. She judged Quan alone insufficient and enlisted Elder Xu as well. These details place Bai within a wider plot against Xiao Feng, but distinguish his role from Quan’s: Bai was not the person who stole Xiao Feng’s fan.

When Xiao Feng asks about the theft, Madam Ma explains that Quan persuaded Elder Chen to do it. After Xiao Feng had left home, Elder Chen entered the house and took the fan. Bai, she insists, would not have done anything that wronged Xiao Feng. Her account therefore separates the conspiracy’s participants and acts: Bai murdered Ma Dayuan and was pressured to expose Xiao Feng’s origins, while Quan and Elder Chen were responsible for the fan theft.

Significance of the confession

The relationship comes into view through Madam Ma’s retrospective account to Xiao Feng, after her ability to move or harm others has been lost. Her confession resolves why Quan had led the conspiracy while Bai had been captured as a traitor, and it revises the impression that Bai had freely joined every attack on Xiao Feng. That distinction does not undo Bai’s responsibility for Ma Dayuan’s murder; it shows instead how Madam Ma’s leverage produced different acts from different people, while Bai’s underlying loyalty to Xiao Feng persisted in some matters.