Xiao Feng and Duan Zhengchun

Xiao Feng and Duan Zhengchun are joined by a chain of mistaken blame and hidden kinship that makes revenge collide with love. Xiao Feng seeks Duan as the man responsible for his parents’ deaths and other losses; Duan is also A'Zhu’s father, a fact she discovers and conceals until she takes his place beneath Xiao Feng’s palm. Their relationship is therefore not a simple meeting between avenger and target: it is a tragedy shaped by what each knows, what each has done, and the daughter caught between them.

The Pursuit of Duan Zhengchun

For months Xiao Feng has been trying to identify the man he believes lies behind the calamities of his life. At Madam Ma’s house, A'Zhu, disguised as Bai Shijing, coaxes from Madam Ma the name of the supposed leading big brother: Duan Zhengchun, the younger full brother of Dali’s emperor and the South-Stabilizing Prince. Madam Ma’s account presents him as a powerful prince whose involvement in the old expedition against Khitan warriors was connected not only to Great Song’s safety but to Dali’s own security. When Xiao Feng hears the name, he recognizes it as the answer he has travelled thousands of li to find.

The disclosure does not settle the question of what Duan did. Xiao Feng and A'Zhu leave Xinyang together, and she worries that he will face the numerous and powerful Duan family alone. Xiao Feng insists that he can wait years if necessary and vows to kill Duan, even imagining his remains fed to dogs. His determination is grounded in what he understands as filial and personal duty: he says he cannot die with his eyes closed before avenging his parents. He nevertheless takes A'Zhu’s hand and recalls their promise to pasture cattle and sheep beyond Yanmen Pass, placing a shared future beside the revenge he intends to pursue.

Kinship Behind the Accusation

The evidence of their connection reaches back to the ambush outside Yanmen Pass. Zhiguang tells Xiao Feng that the writing left on the stone wall identifies his father as Xiao Yuanshan and addresses him as Feng’er; the people who entrusted the infant to Qiao Sanhuai kept his given name but gave him his foster family’s surname. Xiao Feng receives the revelation with tears and bows in gratitude. Later, he confronts Duan with the belief that a grave mistake Duan made at Yanmen Pass led to his birth mother’s death and his father’s suicide.

Duan’s wider family history makes the concealed relationship more complicated. He is a prince who has had relationships with several women, and his first wife, Dao Baifeng, comes from a Baiyi family whose customary monogamy sharpened the conflict within their marriage. Among Duan’s past relationships was Ruan Xingzhu, A'Zhu and A'Zi’s mother. A'Zhu and A'Zi were born a year apart outside Duan’s marriage. When Duan planned to return to Dali and Ruan could not take the children home, they were placed with other families. Ruan marked each daughter’s shoulder with the character Duan so they might recognize their parentage later; the matching marks, and the matching gold locks, establish A'Zhu’s blood tie to the prince.

A'Zhu learns the truth by overhearing Duan and Ruan with A'Zi. She understands that Duan is her father and that she and Xiao Feng are both people raised apart from their birth parents. She does not tell Xiao Feng before his appointment with Duan. Instead, she disguises herself first as Xiao Feng to cancel the meeting and then as Duan to meet him in his place. She has already recognized that if Xiao Feng kills the South-Stabilizing Prince, the Duan family will not leave him unchallenged; her intervention is meant to protect the man she loves as well as the father she has only just identified.

Rescue and Reckoning

At Little Mirror Lake, Xiao Feng encounters Duan among the fighting around Duan Yanqing and the others. When Duan Yanqing’s iron cane is about to strike Duan, Xiao Feng pulls him clear. His immediate reason is not forgiveness: he fears that if a stranger kills Duan, the grievances he has carried will become impossible to settle. He subsequently tells Duan that he acted out of self-interest, then asks whether Duan remembers a grave mistake that left a child without knowledge of its parents. Duan admits that he has long been troubled by such a matter and recognizes the suffering it caused.

Xiao Feng presses him further, accusing him of harming his foster parents, Qiao Sanhuai and his wife, and murdering his benevolent master, Venerable Xuan Ku. Duan acknowledges that he had tried to conceal the matter and had become increasingly entangled in its consequences. He does not deny Xiao Feng’s charge. When Duan offers his life, Xiao Feng is moved by his directness and heroic bearing, but cannot set aside the deaths he attributes to him. He declares that, as a son and disciple, he must avenge five people—his birth parents, foster parents, and first benevolent master—and will strike Duan five times, after which the old enmity will be considered settled whether Duan lives or dies.

The promised reckoning becomes the point at which concealed kinship destroys the possibility of an ordinary resolution. Xiao Feng’s first full-force palm lands on the person he believes to be Duan. In the storm, he realizes that the figure is A'Zhu: her disguise has hidden her identity, and the blow he meant for her father has gravely injured her. She explains that she exchanged places with Duan because she wanted to spare Xiao Feng from killing her father and then facing the Duan family’s retaliation. The revelation recasts the rescue, the appointment, and the attack at once: Xiao Feng has saved the father he sought to punish, only to strike down the daughter who intervened for both of them.

Consequences and Significance

As she lies dying, A'Zhu shows Xiao Feng the red Duan mark on her shoulder and tells him that A'Zi bears the same mark. She explains that the daughters were given away with these marks so their parents could recognize them, and that she had discovered the truth only after seeing A'Zi’s mark. Her account confirms that Duan is her father and that the two sisters share the same parentage. It also makes clear that Xiao Feng’s intended victim and the woman who received his blow are linked by a bond neither he nor A'Zhu had understood when his pursuit began.

A'Zhu asks Xiao Feng to watch over A'Zi, fearing that her younger sister may go astray, and returns in her final words to the imagined journey beyond Yanmen Pass. Xiao Feng promises that A'Zi can join them as her elder sister’s sister and his sister-in-law, but the promised life with A'Zhu is no longer possible. Their relationship ends not with the vengeance Xiao Feng planned but with the death of the person who tried to prevent it. The tragedy turns on the difference between kinship by birth and obligation formed through love: Duan’s hidden fatherhood changes the meaning of Xiao Feng’s revenge, while A'Zhu’s sacrifice cannot undo the losses that revenge has already set in motion.