Xiao Feng and Duan Yu

Xiao Feng and Duan Yu are sworn brothers whose friendship becomes entangled with Xiao Feng’s pursuit of revenge against Duan Zhengchun. Because Duan Yu is Duan Zhengchun’s son, the connection Xiao Feng recalls as a source of warmth also makes his intended vengeance feel nearly impossible.

Friendship and Unrecognized Kinship

Xiao Feng recalls meeting Duan Yu in Wuxi, where the two had competed in a drinking contest. The memory returns when Xiao Feng, back at an inn in Xinyang with A'Zhu, orders ten jin of wine and tries to reckon with how he might avenge his parents. The contest had revealed an extraordinary martial resource in Duan Yu: he used the Six Meridians Divine Sword to force wine out through his fingers, while Xiao Feng knew he could not match that skill or its underlying internal energy.

Neither Xiao Feng nor A'Zhu understood Duan Yu’s place in the Dali royal family. Duan was the ruling clan’s surname, shared by many people, and Duan Yu had never told them he was a prince. Their friendship thus began without knowledge of the bloodline that would make Xiao Feng’s revenge personal in a new way.

Revenge Meets the Dali Connection

Madam Ma’s account identifies Duan Zhengchun as the younger full brother of Dali’s emperor and the South-Stabilizing Prince. She explains that his involvement in the old encounter at Yanmen Pass had been tied to Dali’s security: in her telling, he joined the effort to intercept Khitan warriors because the survival of Great Song and Dali were intertwined. Xiao Feng hears the name he has spent months seeking and understands that his target is a powerful Dali prince, not simply an obscure figure from the past.

That discovery gives the memory of Wuxi a different weight. Xiao Feng reasons that, as head of the Dali clan, Duan Zhengchun must be far more formidable than Duan Yu, whose internal energy already surpassed his father’s. Duan Yu alone, at that time, could use all six forms of the Six Meridians Divine Sword. Xiao Feng therefore sees not only a formidable enemy but also the father of the sworn brother whose ability had impressed him. A'Zhu counsels patience and strategy, but Xiao Feng insists that he will not live under the same sky as his parents’ killer and is willing to set aside the usual rules of the martial world to settle the score.

Brotherhood in the Shadow of War

The broader story places Xiao Feng’s personal loyalties amid Dali and Liao’s political struggles. Accounts of Liao’s succession describe how YeLu ZhongYuan once declined an opportunity to take the throne and supported his brother YeLu ZongZhen, later receiving exceptional rank and military authority. When YeLu HongJi becomes emperor, he likewise gives ZhongYuan great honors and command, while ZhongYuan’s son YeLu NieLuGu holds the Southern Chancellery and the title Prince of Chu. These inherited offices and alliances help frame the political world in which Xiao Feng’s sworn brotherhood with a ruler of Liao acquires public consequences.

The contrast is sharp: Xiao Feng’s bond with Duan Yu arises from personal companionship, while his conflicts with Dali and Liao are shaped by parentage, succession, and state power. The available episodes establish that Duan Yu’s royal identity was hidden from Xiao Feng and that Duan Zhengchun became the object of Xiao Feng’s revenge; they do not show the two sworn brothers resolving that contradiction. Their relationship remains a measure of how blood ties and political identities can intrude upon a chosen bond.