Revenge and Its Cost in A Song to Drown Rivers
Introduction: A Fire That Consumes the Avenger
In A Song to Drown Rivers, Ann Liang builds a story around a deceptively simple proposition: that hatred, sharpened into a weapon of revenge, can destroy an enemy kingdom. But the novel’s deeper argument is that the same blade turns back on its wielder. Xishi’s quest for vengeance against the Wu kingdom for her sister’s death does not end in triumph — it ends with her own drowning, ordered by the very king she helped place on the throne. The thematic claim is clear: revenge exacts a debt from the avenger that far exceeds any justice gained. The cost includes not only Xishi’s life but also her identity, her capacity for love, and her faith in the cause she served.
The Origin of Revenge: Susu’s Death
The seed of Xishi’s vengeance is planted in a single, traumatic moment from her childhood. In Chapter Four, she relives the night Wu soldiers stormed her home. Her younger sister, Susu, breaks free from their hiding place in a closet and is killed before Xishi’s eyes. The soldier’s face reveals nothing — no hesitation, no remorse — only “the gleam of violence.” Xishi is physically unable to intervene because a recurring heart condition seizes her at the critical moment, leaving her helpless. That helplessness hardens into a vow: revenge becomes the organizing principle of her life.
This origin is important because it establishes revenge as both a personal wound and a political act. Xishi does not seek justice through formal channels; the war between Yue and Wu has already shown her that kingdoms and kings do not protect girls like Susu. Her revenge will be intimate, carried out with her own hands, using her own beauty as a weapon. The veil she wears at the start of the novel hides her face, but it also foreshadows the deeper concealment of her true self behind the persona she will adopt for her mission.
The Mission of Revenge: Becoming a Weapon
When Fanli, advisor to King Goujian, arrives at Xishi’s home to recruit her as a spy bride for King Fuchai of Wu, she is torn. The mission offers exactly what she craves — access to the man who rules the kingdom that killed her sister — but it demands everything in return. Xishi negotiates provisions for her parents, leaves behind a jade pendant as a farewell token, and begins her transformation at Riversong Cottage.
The training sequence reveals the first layer of cost: Xishi must suppress her authentic self. She learns court etiquette, eating rituals, and the art of pleasing a man she is taught to despise. Fanli warns her that a single mistake can be fatal. The mission requires her to become a flawless performance of femininity — charming, submissive, desirable — while nursing a secret hatred. This split between inner truth and outer mask is the beginning of her erosion as a person. She is no longer Xishi from Zhuji; she is a tool shaped by her handlers for a single purpose.
The Execution of Revenge: Killing Fuchai
The climax of Xishi’s revenge arrives in Chapter Twenty-Three, when the Wu palace has fallen and King Fuchai learns the truth. The Yue emissary publicly thanks her for her service, and Fuchai watches the woman he loved transform into his destroyer. He asks her to kill him with his own sword — a final act of intimacy and violence.
Xishi does what she came to do, but the emotional cost is devastating. In the moment before she drives the blade through his heart, she is flooded with contradictory memories: Susu’s death and the burning village, but also Fuchai’s laughter, his tenderness, the way he placed the best pieces of meat in her bowl. She admits to herself that she did not want to lose him. Her hatred, which had been absolute in theory, becomes complicated in practice. She kills him anyway, but the act does not feel like victory. Instead, she finds herself weeping, pressing her palms to his chest “as if I could stanch the bleeding.”
This scene exposes the central contradiction of revenge: it requires the avenger to dehumanize the target, but human connection is rarely so simple. Xishi has lived beside Fuchai for years, shared his bed, heard his secrets. The cost of her mission is not just the time she spent away from home — it is the genuine bond that grew during that time, a bond she must now betray with her own hands.
The Cost of Revenge: Xishi’s Death
The most direct cost of Xishi’s revenge is her life. In Chapter Twenty-Four, she returns to her village expecting a hero’s welcome. Instead, Zhengdan’s mother confronts her with a devastating accusation: war benefits kings, not common people. The words plant a seed of doubt that grows as Xishi waits by the river for Fanli. She does not know that King Goujian has already ordered her death — a man wearing his insignia attacks her, binds her with stones, and drowns her in the same river where she first encountered Fanli.
The drowning is the ultimate cost: Xishi dies not by enemy hands but by the order of the king she helped restore to power. Wu Zixu’s dying words — “When the hares have all been caught, the hunting dogs are cooked” — prove prophetic. Xishi was useful as a weapon against Wu, but once the war is won, she becomes a liability. Her knowledge of the court, her intimacy with Fuchai, and her popularity with the people make her dangerous to Goujian’s new rule. Revenge, in this framework, is not a closed loop. It is a transaction between powerful men, and Xishi is the currency they spend and discard.
The Aftermath: Haunting and Grief
Chapter Twenty-Five offers a final reckoning with the cost of revenge. Fanli arrives too late to save Xishi. He finds her corpse, grieves for three days, and confronts Goujian, breaking the king’s arm and resigning his position. Xishi’s ghost haunts Goujian with nightmares of drowning, refusing to let him forget what he did. But even in death, Xishi’s revenge is restrained: she warns Fanli against killing the king, choosing instead a form of eternal witness.
This ghostly presence adds complexity to the theme. Xishi’s revenge does not end with her death — it transforms into a patient, inexorable haunting. She cannot harm Goujian physically, but she can fill his dreams with terror, ensuring that “all those who had died for him… [will] not leave him in peace.” The cost is now shared: Goujian will never be free of what he did. But Xishi, too, remains trapped in the underworld, waiting by the Yellow Springs until Fanli’s soul arrives for their reunion. Her revenge has cost her the living world, her future, and her chance at a peaceful afterlife — though the reunion with Fanli offers a bittersweet redemption.
Character and Symbol Connections
- Xishi: Her arc is the embodiment of the theme. She begins as a protective sister, becomes a calculated spy, and ends as a ghost who chooses haunting over killing. Each stage reveals a new cost.
- Fanli: He represents the strategic apparatus of revenge. He orchestrates the mission but cannot prevent its tragic outcome. His grief in Chapter Twenty-Five — carrying Xishi’s corpse, digging her grave — shows that the cost extends to those who love the avenger.
- King Fuchai: He is both target and victim. His love for Xishi is genuine, and his death forces her to confront the human cost of her mission.
- King Goujian: The ultimate beneficiary of Xishi’s revenge, he is also the one who orders her death. His betrayal completes the thematic arc: revenge serves the powerful, not the agents who carry it out.
- Zhengdan and her mother: They represent the voice of the common people, questioning the value of revenge when it only serves kings.
- Wu Zixu: His warning about cooked hunting dogs foreshadows Xishi’s fate and articulates the cynical logic at the heart of the theme.
- The veil : Symbolizes the hidden self. Xishi wears it to conceal her beauty and later conceals her true identity as a spy.
- The jade pendant: Represents the ties Xishi cuts with her family and her past. It is a farewell to her former self.
- The guqin: Could symbolize the cultural performance required of Xishi — the art of appearing harmless while harboring destructive intent.
- The string-of-fate bracelets: Suggest the inescapable bonds between characters. Xishi and Fuchai are bound by their relationship, even as she works to destroy him.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does Xishi’s heart condition function as a symbol of the cost of revenge?
The heart condition that seizes Xishi during Susu’s death returns at moments of extreme stress, such as when she watches Fanli being stabbed by Wu Zixu. It symbolizes the physical toll that revenge exacts — her body rebels against the pain and trauma she must endure. Unlike a conventional weapon that only harms the target, revenge wounds the avenger from within.
2. Why does Xishi kill Fuchai even though she has developed feelings for him?
Xishi kills Fuchai because her identity has been built around the mission. To spare him would mean admitting that her years of sacrifice, her training, and the deaths of those who supported her were for a lie. The act is tragic because it requires her to betray her own emotional reality — she kills a man she has come to care for, proving that revenge does not permit nuance.
3. How does Wu Zixu’s dying prophecy connect to Xishi’s fate?
Wu Zixu says, “When the hares have all been caught, the hunting dogs are cooked.” This means that once the enemy is defeated, the tools used to achieve victory are discarded. Xishi is the hunting dog in this metaphor: after she helps Yue conquer Wu, King Goujian orders her death. The prophecy reveals that revenge is a game of power in which the avenger is ultimately expendable.
4. What role does Zhengdan’s mother play in challenging the theme of righteous revenge?
Zhengdan’s mother tells Xishi that war benefits kings, not common people. She reframes revenge as a tool of the ruling class, not a noble pursuit. Her words force Xishi to question whether the destruction she caused — the death of Fuchai, the fall of Wu, and ultimately her own death — served any purpose beyond allowing Goujian to sit on a throne.
5. Does Xishi achieve justice or merely perpetuate a cycle of violence?
Xishi achieves the destruction of Fuchai and the Wu kingdom, but this victory does not bring peace. She dies by the order of her own king, and even in death she continues to haunt Goujian, perpetuating the cycle. The novel suggests that revenge never truly ends — it transforms into haunting, guilt, or new conflicts. Justice, if it exists in the novel, is found not in vengeance but in the reunion of Xishi and Fanli beyond death, a small, private redemption within a larger tragedy.