Xiao Feng's Fan

Xiao Feng's Fan is a personal possession whose theft becomes one strand in the conspiracy against Xiao Feng. Madam Ma's later account identifies Quan Guanqing as the person who arranged for Elder Chen to steal it, separating the theft from Bai Shijing's other role in the plot and resolving a suspicion that had troubled Xiao Feng.

The Fan in the Conspiracy

The fan's significance emerges when Xiao Feng asks Madam Ma whether Bai Shijing stole it. Her answer is no: Bai, whom she describes as remaining loyal to Xiao Feng in this matter, did not take it. Quan Guanqing persuaded Elder Chen to enter Xiao Feng's home and steal the fan after Xiao Feng had left.

That distinction helps Xiao Feng understand why Quan Guanqing had been the leading conspirator against him while Bai Shijing was the person exposed as a traitor. The fan thus serves not merely as a missing possession but as a clue to the division of labor within the scheme: Quan Guanqing set the theft in motion, Elder Chen carried it out, and Bai's involvement in the broader conflict did not make him the thief.

What the Theft Reveals

Madam Ma's disclosure comes as she explains how she enlisted people to bring about Xiao Feng's downfall. She says Quan Guanqing acted after she approached him, and that he assured her he would handle the matter. Her account places the theft within the larger effort to undermine Xiao Feng, rather than presenting it as an unrelated act of appropriation.

The fan's evidentiary value is therefore indirect but precise. Its disappearance points back to Xiao Feng's home and to the period after he departed; the later explanation names the person who persuaded the actual entrant to take it. By distinguishing instigation from execution, the revelation closes one particular gap in Xiao Feng's understanding of the conspiracy without making Bai Shijing responsible for this act.

Narrative Significance

The fan functions as a material trace of a plot that otherwise depends on concealed alliances and incomplete disclosures. Its absence acquires meaning only when Xiao Feng asks about it and Madam Ma supplies the chain of responsibility. In that account, the object connects Quan Guanqing's political maneuvering to a concrete act at Xiao Feng's home, making the conspiracy legible through the fate of an ordinary possession.