Hu Fei (simplified: 胡斐, traditional: 胡斐, pinyin: Hú Fěi, jyutping: wu4 fei2), known as the Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain (雪山飞狐, Xuěshān Fēihú), is the son of Hu Yidao, the Liaodong daxia, and Madam Hu. Through his father he descends from the Flying Fox, the Hu bodyguard of the Storming King Li Zicheng. He is the protagonist of Side Story of the Flying Fox, which covers his youth, and of Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain, set when he is twenty-seven.
Biography
Early life
Hu Fei was born at the Ping’an Inn, in a small town near Cangzhou. Within days his father died after the duel with Miao Renfeng, and his mother took her own life after entrusting him to Miao.
In the confusion, the bonesetter Yan Ji, later the monk Baoshu, took the baby while stealing the family’s iron box, and smothered him under a quilt. Ping Asi, the inn’s kitchen boy, clubbed Yan Ji and fled with the child. The fist and blade manual came away with him, less its first two pages, which stayed in Yan Ji’s hand. Tian Guinong caught the boy, cut off his arm and kicked him into the river, but Ping Asi kept hold of the infant, and a passing boat rescued them both. Miao Renfeng, finding blood and a cap by the river, believed the child murdered.
Ping Asi raised him, calling him Ping Fei; Hu Fei called him Fourth Uncle Ping. Ping first took the boy to his mother’s cousin Du Ximeng on Jade Brush Peak. When Du, coveting his father’s martial arts manual, searched the orphan’s keepsakes, Ping fled with the boy and the manual, leaving the keepsakes behind.
In Side Story of the Flying Fox
Hu Fei taught himself from the incomplete manual and made little headway. At the Shang Family Fort, as a boy of twelve or thirteen, he saw Ping Asi recover the two missing pages from Yan Ji. There he also met Zhao Banshan of the Red Flower Society, who gave him some principles of taiji. After the fire at the fort, Zhao, moved by the boy’s selfless chivalry, swore brotherhood with him.
Years later, in Foshan, Hu Fei took up the cause of Zhong Asi, a vegetable farmer whose family the local tyrant Feng Tiannan had destroyed, and pursued Feng across the country. Yuan Ziyi, who turned out to be Feng’s daughter and a Buddhist nun, repeatedly stood in his way.
When Tian Guinong blinded Miao Renfeng with poison hidden in a letter, Hu Fei guarded Miao and his daughter. Miao, who could neither see him nor knew his name, called him one of the only two friends of his life. Hu Fei went in search of a cure, found Cheng Lingsu, and she healed Miao’s eyes. Miao then showed Hu Fei the memorial tablets of Hu Yidao and his wife and admitted that he had mistakenly wounded a good friend. Hu Fei swore to take revenge once Miao could see again, and walked away without striking.
Hu Fei and Cheng Lingsu swore to be brother and sister. At the Grand Assembly of Zhangmen under Heaven, convened by Fuk’anggan, Hu Fei snatched the Tianlong School’s treasured dao from Tian Guinong. He killed Feng Tiannan by throwing it after him as he fled. Soon afterwards he was struck by three deadly poisons in a trap laid by Shi Wanchen. Cheng Lingsu sucked the poison from his hand and died of it herself. Yuan Ziyi, bound by a vow to her shifu, left him. At his father’s grave near Cangzhou, Hu Fei met Nan Lan and uncovered the Cold Moon Treasured Dao, which Miao Renfeng had buried there.
In Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain
Hu Fei challenged Manor Master Du to settle an old account on Jade Brush Peak on the fifteenth day of the third month. He wanted to know why Du had wronged an orphan, and to recover his mother’s keepsakes. Ping Asi, meanwhile, threw the manor’s food off the peak and destroyed the rope that was the only way down.
On the peak Hu Fei met Miao Ruolan. While hiding in the manor from Commander Sai’s imperial guards, he slipped into a curtained bed. There he found Ruolan, whom Tian Qingwen had stripped to her underclothes and hidden there. When Du Ximeng and Commander Sai trapped Miao Renfeng, Hu Fei rescued him. Miao, however, saw his daughter half-dressed in the bed Hu Fei had just left, and took him for a seducer.
Guided by his father’s letter, Hu Fei led Ruolan to the treasure cave. He sealed the greedy treasure-seekers inside with their plunder and pledged himself to Ruolan with his mother’s keepsakes, which Du had at last returned. Miao then led him up an icy cliff path and fought him on a crumbling ledge. Hu Fei gained the upper hand by exploiting the same flaw his mother had spotted in Miao’s swordplay, but had promised Ruolan never to harm her father. The novel ends before he decides whether to strike.
Personality
Hu Fei is chivalrous and quick to take up the cause of the weak, even at great cost, as with Zhong Asi. He is playful by nature and keeps his word, whether to protect Miao’s daughter or never to harm her father. He admires Miao Renfeng even while holding him responsible for his parents’ deaths.
Martial arts
Hu Fei learnt the Hu Family Bladeworks from his father’s fist and blade manual, which also taught him the Four Symbols Step, a basic footwork he used to evade an Eight Trigrams palm fighter. Zhao Banshan gave him principles of taiji, and Miao Renfeng taught him to cut late and slowly rather than fast. He uses the purely defensive Spring Silkworm Palm on the cliff against Miao. In Side Story of the Flying Fox he also fights in the style of a Hua boxing school of the Western Peak, while posing as one of its members. He receives the Cold Moon Treasured Dao at the end of Side Story of the Flying Fox.
Relationships
- Hu Yidao and Madam Hu: his parents, who died when he was days old.
- Ping Asi: the inn’s kitchen boy who saved him and raised him; Hu Fei calls him Fourth Uncle Ping.
- Miao Renfeng: the man who fatally wounded his father, whom Hu Fei still admires; his opponent in the novel’s final duel.
- Miao Ruolan: Miao Renfeng’s daughter, to whom he pledges himself in Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain.
- Yuan Ziyi: Feng Tiannan’s daughter, a Buddhist nun, whom he loves in Side Story of the Flying Fox; her vow parts them.
- Cheng Lingsu: his sworn sister, who gives her life to save him.
- Zhao Banshan: his sworn brother, of the Red Flower Society.