Xiao Feng and A'Zhu

Xiao Feng and A'Zhu form a relationship of love and chosen loyalty that briefly offers Xiao Feng a way out of vengeance and the hostility surrounding his Khitan identity. Their shared plan to live beyond Yanmen Pass gives that hope a concrete shape, but A'Zhu’s discovery that Duan Zhengchun is her father places love and revenge on a collision course. She takes Duan Zhengchun’s place at the appointed meeting and dies from Xiao Feng’s blow, leaving him to confront both his grief and the unintended harm at the heart of their tragedy.

From Shared Displacement to Intimacy

After hearing Zhiguang explain that Xiao Feng’s birth father was Xiao Yuanshan, A'Zhu urges Xiao Feng to take seriously Zhiguang’s teaching that Han and Khitan identity, like honor and enmity, may be no more than dust. She suggests that Xiao Feng leave the dangerous life of the martial world and go beyond Yanmen Pass to hunt and raise cattle and sheep. He admits that he is tired of struggling to survive among armed opponents and imagines a freer life on the northern grasslands.

A'Zhu makes clear that she means to share that life with him, not simply visit him there. Xiao Feng understands that her proposal is a commitment to live together permanently, and her willingness to accept his Khitan identity moves him. She tells him that Han and Khitan are both human and that her wish to be with him is freely chosen. In response, he joyfully lifts her and catches her, then asks whether she will regret following him. A'Zhu answers that she would stay even through hardship and danger.

The change in their relationship is also expressed in the names they use. Xiao Feng asks A'Zhu to stop addressing him formally and call him big brother. Though shy, she agrees. He says that he is no longer alone and despised as a lowly barbarian because someone in the world respects and admires him. A'Zhu completes the thought: she intends to remain at his side and endure misfortune, humiliation, danger, and tribulation with him. His laughter gives way to tears; the promise consoles him precisely because it does not pretend that their future will be easy.

A Future Interrupted by Revenge

Their immediate journey together is still bound to Xiao Feng’s search for the person he believes responsible for the deaths of his family. He tells A'Zhu that they will make one last inquiry of Madam Ma in Xinyang before going north. A'Zhu has also accompanied him through the long journey from Mount Tiantai toward Xinyang; their growing closeness is reflected in the contrast between his earlier indignation and the grief that her conversation and jokes have eased.

When Xiao Feng learns that the person called the leading big brother was Duan Zhengchun, A'Zhu questions why a prince would have taken part in a matter involving the defense of Great Song and Dali. The account she hears connects Duan Zhengchun’s role to the danger that a Khitan victory over Great Song would also threaten Dali. Xiao Feng identifies Duan Zhengchun as the man he has spent months trying to find. Yet he tells A'Zhu that he will hold the person who actually committed the deed responsible rather than punish Duan Zhengchun’s entire family, a restraint that sits uneasily beside his determination to take revenge.

At a farmhouse, Xiao Feng and A'Zhu share a simple meal of rice and chicken. She appears troubled and says that she is ill; he notices her discomfort and tries to care for her, wrapping her in his robe and proposing that she rest while he confronts Duan Zhengchun. A'Zhu fears that their parting will last much longer than he expects and asks him to postpone his revenge for a year so they can first live together beyond the pass. Xiao Feng refuses, explaining that delay would mean seeking Duan Zhengchun in Dali, where the Duan family’s experts, including practitioners of the Six Meridians Divine Sword, would make the encounter more dangerous.

His answer reveals how greatly the relationship has changed his priorities. Xiao Feng says that if he were alone, he would enter even a dangerous stronghold without concern for his life; now, because he wants to care for A'Zhu and remain with her for life, his own survival matters. The promised life beyond Yanmen Pass is still his hope, but the revenge he has pursued continues to dictate the immediate course of events.

Hidden Kinship and A'Zhu’s Choice

A'Zhu’s identity as Duan Zhengchun’s daughter emerges through a shared identifying mark. She explains that when she and her younger sister A'Zi were given to other families, a red character for Duan was tattooed on each girl’s shoulder so they might be recognized later. A'Zhu had seen the same mark on A'Zi and learned that the sisters shared their parentage. She had also overheard Duan Zhengchun and Ruan Xingzhu lamenting the daughters they had abandoned and promising to find them. The people who raised A'Zhu knew Ruan as her mother, but A'Zhu understands that her birth surname is Duan.

The revelation gives Xiao Feng and A'Zhu a painful parallel: both were separated from their birth families as children. Xiao Feng had been raised by Qiao Sanhuai after the people who knew his father’s identity entrusted him to another household; A'Zhu, too, had been sent away before she could know her parents. Their bond rests not only on romantic affection but also on a recognition of shared childhood loss.

A'Zhu has learned that Xiao Feng’s appointment with Duan Zhengchun will bring the man who fathered her into conflict with the man she loves. She does not simply ask Xiao Feng to abandon his revenge: she believes he would agree to such a request, but that doing so would leave the deaths of his relatives unaddressed. Instead, she disguises herself first as Xiao Feng, tells Duan Zhengchun that the meeting is canceled and the past forgiven, then disguises herself as Duan Zhengchun and meets Xiao Feng in his place. Her decision makes her the substitute between the two men and directs Xiao Feng’s blow away from her father.

As A'Zhu explains what she has done, she offers a distinction that becomes central to the tragedy: a person may kill without intending to cause the harm that follows. She recalls that Xiao Feng never meant to harm her, yet struck her; she likewise frames the deaths of Xiao Feng’s parents as an unintended wrong by Duan Zhengchun. Xiao Feng recognizes that her sacrifice is not only an appeal for forgiveness but an effort to protect him from the consequences of killing the prince. Because the Duan family possesses the Six Meridians Divine Sword, killing Duan Zhengchun would likely expose Xiao Feng to further danger.

Death and the Unfulfilled Promise

Before she dies, A'Zhu asks Xiao Feng to look after A'Zi, her only sister, whom she has scarcely known since childhood. Xiao Feng promises that they will find A'Zi when A'Zhu has recovered; A'Zhu imagines her sister joining them beyond Yanmen Pass, where she and Xiao Feng would ride, hunt, and raise cattle and sheep. The future they had promised one another briefly expands to include the sister whose absence shaped A'Zhu’s early life.

A'Zhu dies in Xiao Feng’s arms. He checks her pulse and breath, calls to her, and tries to revive her with his internal energy, but she does not respond. A'Zi, who has been nearby, accuses Xiao Feng of killing her sister. He accepts responsibility and urges A'Zi to take revenge on him, unable to escape the knowledge that the blow was his even though he had not known whom he was striking.

The relationship’s ending reverses the hope with which it had taken shape. Xiao Feng had believed that A'Zhu’s devotion meant he was no longer alone; now the promised journey beyond the pass survives only as the future they cannot share. Her death binds together his revenge, his love, and the question she leaves him with: how to reckon with harm caused without intent. The loss also leaves him with A'Zhu’s last request to protect A'Zi, a continuing obligation rooted in the love and kinship that her sacrifice tried to preserve.