Edition note: An independent English rewriting of the Chinese argument, shaped for English-language readers.
Li Zicheng has four trusted guards, surnamed Hu, Miao, Fan, and Tian. When his forces collapse, three break out to seek reinforcements while the Hu guard—nicknamed the Flying Fox—remains. They return to find their ruler gone and Hu serving in Wu Sangui's camp. The conclusion seems immediate: he betrayed them. They kill him.
Everything they saw was real. Hu wore the enemy's clothing and stood among the enemy's men. What they could not see was his purpose: he had entered the camp undercover, waiting for a chance to restore Li Zicheng. Three loyal people, acting on accurate observation, murdered a fourth loyal person.
The mistake becomes an inheritance. Hu descendants carry the name of traitor; the other families carry a blood debt they believe was righteous. Each generation opens a family account already completed by the previous one. No fresh verification seems necessary because the past arrives as ancestry rather than a claim.
More than a century later Hu Yidao knows the truth and tries to end the feud. His first attempt fails because the descendants are fighting over Li Zicheng's treasure. Tian Guinong later actively preserves the misunderstanding, because the treasure requires information held across the four families. As long as they remain enemies, no one else can assemble it and his manipulation retains value.
The design is almost perfect: an object usable only through cooperation is divided among people trained to kill one another. Yet no single villain maintained the hatred for all 130 years. Tian Guinong arrives late. The enduring mechanism is the ledger itself—names, injuries, duties, and explanations copied down as family fact.
On Jade Brush Peak the account is finally read aloud in fragments. Only then do the descendants learn that the four surnames began on the same side. The cruelest fact is temporal: the first person to know the complete truth was also the first person killed by the error. Everyone after him inherits certainty more easily than knowledge.
Based on the Sanlian Bookstore edition of Jin Yong's Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain; later revisions differ in some details.
版本说明：中文原作；简体与繁体同页切换。
李自成身边有四名卫士，一个姓胡，一个姓苗，一个姓范，一个姓田。军中把这四个人连着叫：胡苗范田。
这四个人跟着闯王出生入死，救过他很多次命，是心腹。四个人里武功最好、最能干的是姓胡的那一个，军中给他起的外号叫飞天狐狸。
后来吴三桂引清兵入了关，闯王兵败。
那一天的分派是这样的：苗、范、田三个人突围出去搬救兵，姓胡的留下来护驾。
三个人回来的时候，闯王不见了。
而那个留下护驾的人，成了吴三桂手下的人。
三个人当场就明白了：这个人卖了主子。他们杀了他。
他们看见的是真的。那个人确实在吴三桂军中，确实穿着那边的衣服，确实没有跟闯王在一起。三个忠心的人，凭着眼睛看到的东西，杀了第四个忠心的人。
真相是他潜伏在吴三桂军里，等着一个能帮闯王翻身的时机。
这件事从此往下传。
胡家的后人背着一个卖国的名声，苗范田三家背着一桩杀错人的血债——只是他们不知道杀错了，他们以为杀对了。四家的后人互相追杀，一代接一代，杀了一百多年。
每一代人接过来的时候，那个误会已经是一件现成的东西了。它不再需要有人去确认，它就是家里那本账上写着的。
到了第四代。
胡一刀手上有证据，他知道这件事从头到尾是怎么回事。他要把话说清楚。
他找到那三家的后人，可是那三家的人正为闯王留下的那批财宝打成一团。事情没有说成，那几个人在一个冰洞里葬送了性命。
他把这件事的经过写下来，封在那个洞里。
然后他带着妻子退隐了。
这是一百三十年里第一次有人想把这件事结掉，结不成的原因不是没人肯听，是所有人都在忙着抢东西。
到苗人凤这一辈，账还在。
苗人凤认定自己父亲是胡一刀杀的。这一条在他那边不是仇恨，是事实——家里就是这么记的，他从小听到大。
胡一刀知道这是误会。他去唐官屯之前就打定主意要把真相告诉对方，还专门派了人去说。
那个人没有把话带到。中间做手脚的是田归农。
田归农要的是那批财宝，而这四家人只要还在互相杀，那批财宝的秘密就不会凑齐。他不需要谁死，他需要这个误会继续活着。
这本书里那批财宝，一直到最后都没有被谁拿到手。
它的样子在书里写得很清楚：一把刀，刀鞘上刻着奉天倡义，字里填着朱砂；这把刀是一张指路的东西，要配上别的东西才能用。四家人各执一份，谁也凑不齐，谁也不肯给。
一件东西必须由四个人合起来才能用，而这四个人被安排成了世仇。这个局面维持了一百三十年。
维持它的不是某一个坏人。头一百年里，田归农还没有出生。
维持它的是那本账。账上写着谁欠谁，写着为什么要杀，写着这件事从哪一辈开始。每一代人打开这本账的时候，看到的都是白纸黑字。
那天在玉笔峰的屋子里，这本账被一段一段念了出来。
念完之后，屋里的人才知道那四个姓氏原本是一伙的。
这一百三十年里，最先知道真相的那个人，是被杀的那一个。
注：本文所据为金庸《雪山飞狐》三联书店版。人物、情节与引述均出自该版本；新修版在若干处另有改动，与本文所论不涉之处不另作说明。