Xu Zheng (simplified: 徐铮, traditional: 徐錚, pinyin: Xú Zhēng, jyutping: ceoi4 zang1) is the only disciple of Ma Xingkong, Escort Chief of the Feima Armed Escort, and later the husband of Ma’s daughter Ma Chunhua in Jin Yong’s Side Story of the Flying Fox. Ma has treated him like his own son since he was a boy (SIDE ch. 3). Six or seven years older than his shimei, he is thick-browed and wide-eyed, his face covered in small purple sores, rough in manner but quick on his feet; he has a thunderclap temper, a straight nature and never disobeys his shifu (SIDE ch. 1).
Biography
At Shang Family Fort
Xu is escorting silver with Ma Xingkong and Ma Chunhua when a downpour drives the party into Shang Family Fort in Wuding County, Shandong. The imperial guard He Sihao leers at Ma Chunhua and mocks Xu, and when Ma orders him to sit down, Xu slips away and challenges He to a private fight in the training hall of the young master, Shang Baozhen. Using Cha Fist he breaks He’s nose and wrests away his dao, but Shang Baozhen declares the bout drawn. Xu is furious until Ma explains that Shang has spared him the grudge of an imperial guard, and scolds him for fighting too cautiously. Sent back to thank Shang, Xu lets slip a verse of his school’s teaching and then dismisses Shang’s display of tantui as showy and useless; Ma tells him he has been fooled (SIDE ch. 1).
When the bandit chief Yan Ji snaps the Feima banner and treads on it, Xu attacks at once and is knocked down by one of Yan’s strange punches, coughing blood. Later, when Tian Guinong toys with Ma Chunhua, Xu kicks at his back; Tian catches his ankle and swings him round so that a golden dart Shang Baozhen had thrown at Tian lodges in Xu’s right leg (SIDE ch. 1).
During the months the party stays at the fort, Xu spars with Ma Chunhua in Tongbi Connected Fist while Ma teaches Shang Baozhen. When Shang slips Eight Trigrams School palm moves into the practice and bloodies his nose, Xu storms off (SIDE ch. 3). Ma, who has overheard Old Madam Shang’s designs on his daughter, betroths Ma Chunhua to Xu, and he is overjoyed. The next morning he sees her come back with Shang Baozhen, demands to know where she has been, and when she refuses to say, attacks Shang in the corridor (SIDE ch. 3). While Fuk’anggan courts Ma Chunhua in the garden that evening, Fuk’anggan has Gu Banruo of the Shaolin School keep Xu occupied (SIDE ch. 3).
The iron hall
Xu is among those shut inside the iron hall when Old Madam Shang sets it on fire. Worried for Ma Chunhua outside, he prises up a floor brick to dig a way out and finds only iron beneath. Wang Jianjie beckons him, with Ma Xingkong and Yin Zhongxiang of the Tianlong School, to join an attack on Zhao Banshan so that Hu Fei can be given up to Old Madam Shang. As the heat rises he tries in vain to force his head through the dog hole (SIDE ch. 4).
Once Hu Fei breaks the door open, Xu goes looking for Ma Chunhua and finds her in Fuk’anggan’s arms under a poplar. He rushes at Fuk’anggan with his dao; Ma Chunhua stands in his way and bares her neck, telling him she can never be his wife. He accuses her of carrying on with Hu Fei as well, and she slaps him. Hu Fei takes his dao from him, and Xu leaves weeping and crying out to his shifu, who has just died in the fire (SIDE ch. 4).
The Feima Armed Escort
Soon after Ma Xingkong’s death, Xu and Ma Chunhua marry and take over the Feima Armed Escort. His skill and name fall far short of his shifu’s and his bluntness closes doors, so over three or four years the business dwindles; each time it is Ma Chunhua who makes good his mistakes (SIDE ch. 12). Escorting a mere 9,000 taels to Baoding, with their four-year-old twin sons along, the couple are harried by riders who mock Xu as unworthy of his shifu and of his wife. Xu refuses to turn back, asking whether his shifu’s name is to be lost through a worthless disciple. An old man armed with a thunder-clap bar (雷震挡) disarms him and is about to put out his eye when the disguised Hu Fei intervenes; Xu, suspecting the stranger’s interest in his wife, turns on his rescuer as well (SIDE ch. 12).
Death
Chased by four riders towards the stone house where Ma Chunhua has taken refuge, Xu is met by Shang Baozhen, who gives him a dao and fights him barehanded, then kills him with a Eight Trigrams Palm blow to the chest. Dying, Xu tells Hu Fei that the twins are not his: Ma Chunhua was already carrying them before the wedding (SIDE ch. 12). Qin Naizhi later explains that the riders were men of Fuk’anggan’s household sent south to look in on Ma Chunhua, and that Shang Baozhen had come with them. Xu is buried in the woods in an unmarked grave beside Shang Baozhen’s, and Hu Fei reflects that he knew the boys were not his own and bore it in silence to the end (SIDE ch. 13).
Hu Fei later accuses Fuk’anggan of having sent men to kill Xu. Dying, Ma Chunhua asks to be buried beside her shige, “He was pitiful … he loved me since we were small, but I did not love him” (SIDE ch. 19).
Relationships
- Ma Xingkong (Shifu): Raised him from boyhood; Xu never disobeys him (SIDE ch. 1, 3).
- Ma Chunhua (Shimei, later wife): He loved her from childhood; she married him after her father’s death while carrying Fuk’anggan’s children (SIDE ch. 12, 19).
- Shang Baozhen (Rival and killer): They fight twice at the fort, and Shang kills him years later (SIDE ch. 3, 12).
- Fuk’anggan (Rival): Xu attacks him on finding him with Ma Chunhua (SIDE ch. 4).
- Hu Fei: Saves his life on the road to Baoding and hears his last words (SIDE ch. 12).
- He Sihao (Opponent): The imperial guard he beats at Shang Family Fort (SIDE ch. 1).
Martial arts
Xu fights with Cha Fist (查拳), a Shaolin style his shifu taught him, and with Tongbi Connected Fist (通臂连拳); he is strong and firm in his stance but, by Ma’s account, too timid against an unknown opponent (SIDE ch. 1, 3). He carries a dao and throws steel darts (SIDE ch. 12). Every one of the riders on the Baoding road, Ma Chunhua admits, far outclasses him (SIDE ch. 12).