Edition note: An independent English rewriting of the Chinese argument, shaped for English-language readers.
Hu Yidao and Miao Renfeng meet at Tangguantun as hereditary enemies. Miao believes the Hu family killed his father. They begin a duel that lasts for days. Almost immediately, each discovers that the opponent does not match the story inherited with his surname.
Miao sees that Hu's saber is direct and honorable, that he refuses unfair advantage and stops when circumstance requires. Hu recognizes a man whose word can be trusted. They fight with lethal seriousness, then eat, drink, and speak without defenses. When Hu's wife goes into labor, Miao pauses the contest. Admiration does not cancel the duel; the duel does not make admiration false.
Hu repeatedly tries to transmit the history that would dissolve their feud. A messenger is intercepted through Tian Guinong's interference. The two men resume fighting before the explanation arrives. A shallow cut from a poisoned blade kills Hu. The sentence that might have changed the encounter remains unsaid.
Hu's wife then gives her newborn son to the man before whom her husband has just fallen. She understands that the poison, not Miao's intention, caused the death, and judges that this supposed enemy is one of the few people still worthy of trust. It is her last decision before suicide, and the judgment proves correct: Miao does not harm the child.
Yet the infant is carried away by the servant Ping A-si, who teaches him the honest version available to a witness: your father died while fighting Miao Renfeng. Ping does not know the blade was poisoned or who arranged it. Truth fragments again, and the misunderstanding enters a new generation.
For several days the two fighters achieve what four families had failed to do for 130 years. They look at the person before them rather than reading him through the ancestral account. It does not save them. Recognition is not magic; it needs time, words, and conditions in which those words can arrive. Tian Guinong acts while the two kindred spirits sit drinking together.
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。
唐官屯那一场，打了好几天。
一边是苗人凤，外号金面佛，打遍天下无敌手。一边是胡一刀。两个人是世仇：苗人凤认定自己的父亲死在胡家手上。
第一天动手，两个人就发现对方跟自己想的不一样。
苗人凤发现，这个姓胡的不是传说里那个阴险的人。他的刀法极正，出手极硬，遇上便宜不占，看见对方有难处会停下来。胡一刀发现，这个要杀自己的人不是仗势欺人的那一类，是个把话说到就做到的人。
两个人一天比一天更佩服对方，而他们碰面的理由是要杀对方。
书里那几天写得很好。
胡一刀的夫人临产，就在那间屋子里。打到中途，孩子要生了，苗人凤停了手。胡夫人给苗人凤煮东西吃，苗人凤吃了；胡一刀跟他喝酒，两个人聊自己的家世、自己的师承、自己这些年在江湖上的事。喝完酒接着打。
打的时候两个人都下死手，因为那是真打。
停下来的时候两个人都不设防，因为那是真的佩服。
这两件事在他们身上不冲突。
胡一刀这几天一直在想办法把真相告诉对方。他专门派了人去说明当年是怎么回事。
那个人没有把话带到。
田归农在中间做了手脚。
于是这两个人接着打。打到最后一天，胡一刀被划了一道小口子。
那道口子按理不至于要命。刀上有毒，是田归农事先涂上去的。
胡一刀死了。
他死的时候，那件他要说的事情还没有说出口。
接下来的一段是这本书里最难写的一段，金庸写得很静。
胡夫人抱着刚出生的孩子，走到苗人凤面前，把孩子交给他。
她这么做，是因为她知道丈夫是怎么死的，也知道这件事跟眼前这个人无关；她还知道，这世上她信得过的人已经没有几个了，而这个刚刚跟她丈夫打了几天的人，是其中一个。
托付完，她自尽了。
这个女人一生做的最后一个判断，是把儿子交给杀夫的仇人。她这个判断是对的——苗人凤后来确实没有害那个孩子。
田归农想害那个婴儿。救下他的是平阿四，一个仆人。
再往后是十几年。
平阿四把孩子养大，取名胡斐。他教这个孩子的第一件事是：你父亲是苗人凤杀的。
这句话在他那里是实情。他亲眼看见胡一刀是在跟苗人凤比武的时候受伤死的。他不知道刀上有毒，也不知道毒是谁下的。
于是这个误会又往下传了一代。
书里那几天，两个本来该互相成全的人碰上了。他们各自认出了对方，那几天里他们做到了这一百三十年里没有一个人做到过的事：他们没有照着那本账去看眼前的人。
这件事没有救得了他们。
一个人死了，一个女人死了，一个孩子被抱走，一句该说的话没有说出口，一个新的误会当场种下。
那把下了毒的兵器，是田归农碰过的。他做这件事的时候，那两个人正坐在一起喝酒。
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。