Xiao Zhonghui (simplified: 萧中慧, traditional: 蕭中慧, pinyin: Xiāo Zhōnghuì, jyutping: siu1 zung1 wai6) is the eighteen-year-old daughter of Xiao Banhe, the daxia of Jinyang, and a skilled fighter with twin dao. She slips away from home to seize the Mandarin Duck Blades for her father, learns the Wedded Blades Style with Yuan Guannan, and discovers that she is in fact the daughter of the hero Yang Bochong.
Biography
Leaving Jinyang
When her father learns that the blades have resurfaced and plans to seize them on the road to the capital, Xiao Zhonghui begs to take part, and is refused each time. Her mother, Madam Yang, can be talked round, but she has never dared defy her First Mother, Madam Yuan. In the end she leaves a note for all three, takes a horse in the night and rides out of Jinyang.1
On the road, the Four Xias of Taiyue try to take her horse. She disarms Gai Yiming, knocks Chang Changfeng’s tombstone from his hands, corrects Xiaoyaozi’s aim at her acupoints and carries him off by the nape of his neck.2 Moved by the other three’s offer to die with their sworn brother, she spares them all, and when she learns they want a birthday gift for her father, gives them her golden hairpin.1
The inn and the graveyard
At the Fen’an Inn in Guanshui, she tries fenjiu for the first time and overhears the escorts of Zhou Weixin mention the Mandarin Duck Blades, and resolves to take them herself.1 She pays for an old blind man’s room, and is struck by the young scholar Yuan Guannan, who asks to borrow money from her. When Lin Yulong leaps from a window with an infant, she takes him for a child-snatcher, chases him to a graveyard and wounds his leg with Dividing Flowers Brushing Willows, only to be attacked by the child’s mother, Ren Feiyan.3 Learning that they are husband and wife, she takes the child and slips away.4
The blades
She returns the child to the Lins as they hold Zhou Weixin at dao-point, cuts the blades’ bundle from his back and rides off on his horse, but the blind man, Zhuo Tianxiong, hidden beneath the horse, seals her acupoints and takes the blades.5 After Yuan Guannan drives Zhuo away, he frees her with a thrown stone. She lies still as though dead, and when he bends over her, she snatches the short Yang blade and runs to the Purple Bamboo Convent.6
There, facing Zhuo’s return, she learns the first twelve moves of the Wedded Blades Style from Ren Feiyan. She refuses to leave when Yuan offers to hold Zhuo off alone, and their instinct to protect each other turns into the style’s first move. Together they wound Zhuo and drive him away, and she asks Yuan to find her at Xiao Banhe’s residence before fleeing in embarrassment.7
The birthday
Back home, she gives herself away by reciting the style’s verses at the mirror. At the birthday, she learns the remaining moves and is betrothed to Yuan, until he recognises Madam Yuan as his mother. Believing him her brother, she runs from the hall into Zhuo Tianxiong, who seizes her.8 Brought back as a hostage, she cries out “Father!” when Xiao Banhe denies her to save her. Once freed, she slaps Zhou Weixin and takes back the short Yang blade, fights beside Yuan to save the two madams, and loses the tip of her blade to Zhuo’s steel whip.9
At the Zhongtiao Mountains, Xiao Banhe reveals that her father was Yang Bochong, the Great Xia of Three Xiang, and that she was two when he first saw her. Free to marry Yuan after all, she becomes Yang Zhonghui.10
Martial arts abilities
Trained by her father since childhood, she fights with a short dao in her right hand and a long one in her left. Her binding technique tears Gai Yiming’s piercer from his grip, and she knows the acupoints well enough to correct Xiaoyaozi.2 Against Ren Feiyan she defends with Turning Lion.3 Her skill outstrips her experience: Zhuo Tianxiong and the Lins both catch her off guard, and she admits she has few tricks of her own.
Behind the scenes
Portrayals
See also
- Mandarin Duck Blades characters
- Yuan Guannan — Xiao Zhonghui’s betrothed
- Xiao Banhe — Xiao Zhonghui’s guardian
- Yang Bochong — Xiao Zhonghui’s father
- Zhuo Tianxiong — Xiao Zhonghui’s main opponent
- Wedded Blades Style — Xiao Zhonghui’s signature martial art
- Mandarin Duck Blades — The legendary weapons
Follow a route
- Read: Continue with Mandarin Duck Blades or browse the translation archive.
- Explore: Follow the novel’s character index and the Jin Yong reference guide.
- Understand: Read wuxia and jianghu for character, partnership, and martial-world context.
- Watch: Follow wuxia adaptations from source novels to screen versions.
- Write: Study story elements in wuxia fiction for character relationships, partnership, and conflict.
External links
- The Mandarin Duck Blades — Novel article
- Baidu Baike - 萧中慧 — Related character information