Edition note: An independent English rewriting of the Chinese argument, shaped for English-language readers.
Wei Xiaobao has one rule: he will not betray anyone who has treated him well. It is not a doctrine inherited from a school or a family. He grows up in a Yangzhou brothel, listening to storytellers, gamblers, and quarrels in the street. He cannot read, has no lineage, and does not know who his father is. The little moral world he possesses is something he assembled for himself.
He keeps the rule with surprising courage. The emperor gives him trust and rank; the Heaven and Earth Society gives him a master and brothers who would die for him. Each side demands the destruction of the other. Wei lies, improvises, and repeatedly risks execution rather than hand either one over. When both finally force him to choose, he stages the annihilation of his household and disappears with his family. He saves the only position he can still defend: being neither side's instrument.
But the rule has only one sentence. It governs those who have been good to him. It says nothing about bribery, theft, poisoning, killing, or the people who do not belong to his circle. That silence matters most with A-Ke. She rejects him plainly and repeatedly. He wants her anyway, drugs her at Lijing House, and has sex with her while she is unconscious. His personal code remains technically unbroken because, inside it, she is not a person to whom he owes anything. She is something he wants.
Later Zheng Keshuang offers A-Ke as collateral to save his own life. Her answer is exact: I am not yours, so how can you pledge me? She says this to the man she loves, only to end the novel as one of Wei Xiaobao's seven wives. Jin Yong does not hide the contradiction or repair it for us.
Wei's self-made rule is real. It lets a boy with no ancestry refuse both court and secret society. Yet it also reveals the difference between having a rule of one's own and making room for other people to have theirs. His final escape preserves him and those he calls his own. It does not reach everyone.
Based on the Sanlian Bookstore edition of Jin Yong's The Deer and the Cauldron.
版本说明：中文原作；简体与繁体同页切换。
韦小宝这一生守着一条规矩：对我好的人，我不害。
这条规矩他守得很实。康熙给了他富贵和信任，天地会给了他师父和一群把命交给他的兄弟；两边一直在打，两边都要他表态，他一次也没有出卖过任何一边。这不是没有代价——他为这件事说过无数谎，冒过好几次杀头的险，最后把所有的官职家业都扔了。
他这条规矩的来路也清楚。他是扬州丽春院一个妓女的儿子，从小在那个院子里听说书、听赌钱、听打架；他学到的全部道理，是茶馆里说书先生嘴里那点江湖义气。他不识字，不会武功，没有师承，没有出身，没有人替他安排过任何一条路。他这套东西是自己在市井里捡的。
在这本书里，这条规矩是稀罕东西。全书里的人几乎都在为一样更大的东西活着：复国、忠君、教主的千秋万载、平西王的江山。只有他那条规矩是他自己的，不是从任何一处领来的。
这本书也把这条规矩的边界写得很清楚。
这条规矩里只有一句话，没有第二句。它管的是"对我好的人"，管不到别人。所以同一个人可以既不出卖朋友，又行贿、受贿、说谎、杀人、抢功、下毒；这些事情在他那条规矩里根本不构成问题，因为那些人不在里面。
可以拿一件小事做量尺。他在扬州见到自己的母亲，问她自己的父亲是谁；母亲想了半天，报了一串来过院子的客人，汉人、满人、蒙古人、回人、藏人都有，谁也说不准。他听完并不难过，只关心里面有没有外国人。他这一生对"我是谁的儿子"这件事，从来没有上过心。
这本书里其他人，几乎每一个都被这个问题定住了：郑克塽是郑成功的孙子，康熙是顺治的儿子，阿珂是陈圆圆的女儿，沐剑屏是沐王府的小郡主。只有他谁的儿子都不是，也就没有一份跟着姓氏来的差事。
最能看清这条边界的是阿珂。
阿珂是陈圆圆和李自成的女儿，九难的徒弟，长得极美。她喜欢的是郑克塽。她从头到尾厌恶韦小宝，几次三番动过杀他的心；这些在书里写得明明白白，不含糊。
韦小宝喜欢她。为了她，他跟郑克塽争了一路，也确实有过一次退让——在扬州，他一度觉得没指望了，下令把人放了，让她跟郑克塽做夫妻去。
后来他没有守住这个念头。丽春院那一夜，他用迷药把她放倒，趁她昏迷的时候占了她。
这件事书里写了，没有遮掩，也没有替他辩解，事后也没有让他后悔过一次。
做这件事的时候，他那条规矩一个字都没有被违反。阿珂不在那个范围里面。她是他想要的东西。
再往后是通吃岛。陈近南死在郑克塽手上，韦小宝要杀他，郑克塽为了保命脱口而出：我把阿珂抵押给你。
阿珂当场跟他翻了脸，说了一句：我又不是你的，你怎么能押我。
这句话是她自己说的，说给她爱了很久的那个男人听。说完之后，书里让她成了韦小宝的七个老婆之一。
这一段和前面那条规矩摆在一起，就是这个人的完整样子。他确实有自己的一套东西，也确实照着做了；那套东西里没有别人。
还有一处不对称值得看。
他这条规矩几乎不要他付什么。他两边不出卖，两边就都留着他；朋友保住了，富贵也保住了，最后他还带着七个老婆和一屋子金银全身而退。书里其他人为各自那套东西付出的，是命。
同样是不肯背弃自己认下的东西，有人赔了一条命，有人赔了一趟搬家。
结局那一段写得很冷。
康熙要逼他表态，用的办法是在圣旨里写明韦小宝杀了陈近南——这句话一出去，天地会就要跟他反目，他除了投到朝廷这一边再没有第二条路。差不多同时，顾炎武那几位来找他，劝他率众起义反清。
两边都摆好了，就等他站队。
他的办法是：把自己的家宅弄成一副被人灭门的样子，带着母亲、老婆、孩子，悄悄去了大理，从此不问世事。
康熙不信他死了，派人查过好几次，没有查到。
这是全书最后一件事。一个人被两套东西同时逼到墙角，他既不投降也不反抗，他消失了。
这一步保住了他自己，也只保住了他自己。
注：本文所据为金庸《鹿鼎记》三联书店版。人物、情节与引述均出自该版本。