Xue MuHua’s Staged Death and Estate Confrontation

Xue MuHua’s Staged Death and Estate Confrontation turns a desperate search for medical care into a dangerous misunderstanding: the visitors believe Divine Physician Xue is dead, his sworn brothers mistake them for his killers, and the traps around his supposed funeral threaten everyone who approaches. The discovery that Xue is alive beneath his own residence reverses the apparent death and allows the injured party to be examined, although Xue cannot cure the frost poison afflicting Bao BuTong and Feng BoE.

The apparent funeral

XuanNan and his companions reach Xue’s remote residence after a delayed journey over rugged mountain paths. Outside the large houses and medicine garden, XuanNan sees white lanterns announcing Xue MuHua’s death at fifty-five, mourning cloth, and a paper streamer used to summon the spirit of the dead. He takes the display as confirmation that the physician has died before he could treat the group’s wounded, and the news of losing an old friend weighs heavily on him. Deng BaiChuan and GongYe Gan, arriving behind him, react with astonishment as well.

The visitors wait for more than an hour, but no servant appears with tea. Xu Zhu offers to help boil water and enters the residence with GongYe Gan. The large house has five halls, yet they find no one inside, not even the old servant. GongYe Gan suspects that Xue has staged his death and asks to inspect the coffin. Rather than touch it barehanded, he wraps a shirt around his hands before lifting it; its weight makes him conclude that it cannot hold a corpse.

A trap in the mourning hall

Feng BoE carefully begins to raise the coffin lid with his blade, wary that poison might escape. Bao BuTong tests the danger by tossing two chickens across the coffin. They reach the memorial tablet, take only a few steps, and die; their feathers then come loose in the wind. The violent effect warns the group away from the coffin and exposes the funeral display as part of a lethal defense, not a safe place to investigate.

XuanNan looks inside from above and sees that the coffin is packed with rocks. In their midst is a large bowl of clear water, which he identifies as the poison. He wonders why Xue would lay such a trap, briefly suspecting a grievance against the Murong family. Bao BuTong rejects that possibility: Murong Fu has never met Xue, and the party would not have come seeking treatment if Xue were their enemy. XuanNan acknowledges that he has guessed wrongly. The suspicion nevertheless reflects the risk surrounding the visit: the Murong family’s reputation for returning an opponent’s own methods against him has made it enemies, and those enemies may attribute their own losses to the family.

With darkness around them and food and water in the house unsafe to use, the group decides to seek supplies elsewhere and avoid the surrounding area. Before they can leave, colored lights flare in the west and spread across the sky. GongYe Gan recognizes them not as a celebration but as the signal for a surprise attack. The visitors’ search for a hidden physician has become a confrontation with an armed group approaching the estate.

The attackers and the mistaken accusation

Deng BaiChuan assigns his companions to defend the hall and asks XuanNan to stand aside, since the Shaolin party need not take part in a conflict with the Murong family’s enemies. When the newcomers appear, one man is painted and dressed as an opera performer; Deng BaiChuan recognizes him as the actor who had played the Tang Emperor and Plum Consort. Feng BoE rushes out and attacks him before the visitors can establish who either side is. A black-bearded man retaliates with a wooden board, and the confusion quickly gives way to fighting.

The newcomers call out for their “fifth brother” and demand to know who has killed him. From their cries and their familiarity with Xue, XuanNan and Deng BaiChuan infer that they are the physician’s sworn brothers. Deng BaiChuan tries to explain that the party came for treatment, but the middle-aged woman cuts him off, accusing the visitors of killing Xue after he refused to help them. She releases a fragrant substance that disorients Deng BaiChuan; even so, he manages to strike back, and both combatants fall from the exchange.

XuanNan intervenes to limit further casualties. Armed with his staff, he subdues three experts among the opposing group in quick succession, including a scholar and the man wielding a chessboard. When the carpenter fighting Feng BoE and Bao BuTong is close to defeat, the chessboard-wielder proposes that they stop, but the question of what happened to Xue remains unresolved. The contest is therefore driven not just by opposing force, but by an accusation founded on the false funeral that has not yet been explained.

The hidden entrance

After the fighting, the carpenter begins inspecting the residence with a set square and candlestick. He checks the hall’s corners and beams, then examines Xue’s fake coffin, concluding that his martial uncle will see through the attempted concealment. He continues into the rear garden, where repeated pounding in a stone mortar makes a dwarf cassia tree shift. As it moves aside, it reveals a large stone slab with an iron ring.

The ring proves dangerous to pull: GongYe Gan realizes that a flint is connected to it and that pulling it would ignite a fuse leading to concealed explosives. The carpenter prevents the mistake, and the group wets the fuse by urinating into the mortar, averting the blast. The episode turns the household’s ordinary garden fittings into part of a carefully concealed defense, while the carpenter’s measured examination—not brute force—uncovers the entrance without setting off the trap.

The carpenter then turns a nearby stone mortar in a precise sequence, and the slab moves aside to uncover a hole. Before anyone descends, a voice from underground curses the Old Freak of XingXiu and declares that the searcher has finally found him. The voice is Xue’s. His sworn brothers cheer that their fifth brother is alive, and Xue emerges from the opening: the man whose funeral they believed they had witnessed is the physician they had come to find.

Reunion, treatment, and limits

Xue is surprised to see XuanNan and the other strangers with his sworn brothers. XuanNan calls them friends. His response marks a change in his relationship with the Murong retainers: although Shaolin had treated the Murong family as its enemy over Master XuanBei’s death, the journey and the group’s cooperation have persuaded him that Deng BaiChuan and GongYe Gan may be telling the truth that Murong Fu did not kill XuanBei. GongYe Gan acknowledges the change with a nod.

Xue leads the way underground, personally entering the dangerous passage first. He operates the mechanism to close the stone slab and return the cassia tree to its former position. After stooping through the stone steps and a natural tunnel, the group reaches a spacious cavern where more than twenty members of Xue’s family—men, women, young, and old—are gathered by a torch. The secret refuge explains why the residence appeared deserted and why Xue’s supposed death was part of a concealment rather than a genuine funeral.

Xue immediately examines the injured. He recognizes that XuanTong has attained enlightenment and died, and says this is a joyous as well as gratifying passing. He also clarifies that the middle-aged woman’s flower pollen has only made Deng BaiChuan drunk and disoriented, not poisoned him, and that he will recover. Her injuries and those of the opera performer are within his ability to treat. But after examining Bao BuTong and Feng BoE, Xue cannot identify a remedy for the frost poison in their bodies. He is astonished that such profound internal power belongs to a young disciple of the Old Freak of XingXiu, yet admits he is powerless against the poison. The reunion resolves the false report of Xue’s death and makes treatment possible, but it does not remove the central medical danger that brought the visitors to his door.