Mount Tiantai

Mount Tiantai is both a Buddhist retreat and a turning point in Xiao Feng’s search for the truth about his past. He and A'Zhu travel there to meet Zhiguang, a respected monk whose role in the deaths of Xiao Feng’s parents makes the visit fraught with danger. At the mountain, Zhiguang reveals that Xiao Feng’s birth father was Xiao Yuanshan; after Zhiguang’s death, the journey also helps redirect Xiao Feng and A'Zhu toward the life they imagine beyond the Central Plains.

Setting and Reputation

Mount Tiantai lies in eastern Zhejiang. Its paths are steep, winding, and difficult to follow, while its scenery is described as beautiful and tranquil. A local legend associates the mountain with Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao, who were said to have entered it by chance and met celestial maidens.

The mountain is also an important Buddhist setting. Guoqing Temple is renowned as a center of the Tiantai school, associated with the eminent monk Zhizhe in the Sui dynasty. Zhiguan Temple, though less imposing in appearance, has a particularly strong reputation in the martial world. When Xiao Feng arrives, he finds an ordinary small temple whose exterior plaster and paint have largely peeled away—a marked contrast with its fame.

Zhiguang and the Journey to the Mountain

Xiao Feng has reason to regard Zhiguang with anger: the monk took part in the battle that killed his parents. Yet Zhiguang later devoted himself to gathering medicinal bark in remote regions, helping people suffering from malaria and illnesses caused by miasma. The work saved many lives but left Zhiguang seriously ill; after recovering, he had lost his martial arts. His reputation for serving ordinary people earned him the name Living Buddha of 10,000 Families, and Xiao Feng recognizes that this record makes it difficult to treat him simply as an enemy.

After a fire in Tai'an, Xiao Feng and A'Zhu set out south toward Mount Tiantai. Xiao Feng deliberately travels without his former urgency: he fears that rushing might mean arriving only to find Zhiguang dead, or the monk’s temple burned, and knows that Zhiguang often roams rather than staying at the temple. On the way, the pair pass through Zhenjiang and visit Jinshan Temple to look out over the Yangtze River. Their slower journey leaves room for conversation, though their worries prevent it from becoming an uncomplicated sightseeing trip.

At Zhiguan Temple, the innkeeper’s stories of Zhiguang’s ability to foretell events show how local reverence has grown around the monk. Xiao Feng does not dwell on such claims. He hopes instead that Zhiguang will disclose the identities of the hidden leading figure and the prime villain, while acknowledging inwardly that the monk’s kindness to the people has led him to set aside his personal grievance over his parents’ deaths. The journey to Mount Tiantai thus brings together Xiao Feng’s search for justice and his reluctance to make a revered benefactor suffer for the past.

Revelation and Aftermath

At the temple, Zhiguang explains that Xiao Yuanshan left a message on the stone wall outside Yanmen Pass, identifying himself as Xiao Feng’s father and addressing his son as Feng’er. Xiao Feng had been given the Qiao surname because he was entrusted to Qiao Sanhuai for upbringing. Hearing his father’s surname for the first time, Xiao Feng weeps, stands, and bows to Zhiguang in gratitude. Mount Tiantai is therefore the setting for a decisive disclosure: the name and family history concealed from Xiao Feng are connected at last to his birth father.

Zhiguang’s death soon complicates the encounter. Xiao Feng and A'Zhu believe the prime villain had warned the monk that they were coming for revenge, leading Zhiguang to take poison after speaking with them. Xiao Feng insists that he had no intention of harming Zhiguang; the monk’s death is understood as an act he chose, not the outcome Xiao Feng sought. The pair leave the mountain in silence, carrying both the revelation and the cost of a meeting that Xiao Feng had hoped might resolve part of his past.

From the Mountain to a Different Life

After leaving Zhiguan Temple, A'Zhu invokes Zhiguang’s words that Han and Khitan identity, along with kindness, enmity, honor, and disgrace, may be treated as dust. She suggests that Xiao Feng leave the martial world behind and live beyond Yanmen Pass. The proposal gives the journey a direction beyond pursuit of the hidden villains: instead of continuing to organize his life around revenge and reputation, he might choose a quieter existence.

Xiao Feng admits that he is tired of living amid struggles for survival and welcomes the thought of the northern grasslands. He imagines riding, hunting, and releasing eagles and dogs; A'Zhu responds that she will tend the cattle and sheep. Their exchange gives the mountain journey a tender, forward-looking close, while its later significance is sharpened by what the pair have learned there. Mount Tiantai links the exposure of Xiao Feng’s lineage with a possibility that reaches beyond inherited grievance: a life in which ethnic labels and martial-world obligations need not determine every choice.