In the Water Margin
Shi Xiu is the thirty-third hero of Liangshan, born under the star Tianhui (天慧星). He comes from Jiankang, trained with spear and staff from boyhood, and cannot pass an injustice without drawing a blade, which is why he is called the Fearless Third Son (拼命三郎). When the novel finds him he is stranded in Jizhou: his uncle died on a trading trip, and Shi Xiu sells firewood in the streets to live.
He wins the friendship of the jailer Yang Xiong by beating off a gang of thugs who are robbing him in public, and the two become sworn brothers. Yang Xiong's father-in-law sets Shi Xiu up in a butcher's shop. Shi Xiu then notices that Yang Xiong's wife, Pan Qiaoyun, is having an affair with a monk. When he warns his brother, she turns the story around and accuses Shi Xiu of molesting her, and Yang Xiong throws him out. Shi Xiu answers with proof written in blood. With Yang Xiong and the thief Shi Qian he sets out for Liangshan, and he becomes one of its sharpest scouts. He dies at Yuling Pass in the war against Fang La.
Key episodes
Cuiping Mountain. Shi Xiu kills the monk Pei Ruhai and his lookout, leaves the bodies in the street and lays their clothes before Yang Xiong. The brothers take Pan Qiaoyun to Cuiping Mountain, where the truth comes out and Yang Xiong kills her.
The white poplars. Before the attack on Zhu Family Village, Shi Xiu walks in disguised as a firewood seller. An old villager tells him the secret of its maze of lanes: turn wherever you see a white poplar, and you will never be lost.
The leap at Daming. Alone in Daming on the day Lu Junyi is to be beheaded, Shi Xiu leaps from a tavern window into the execution ground shouting that all of Liangshan is here, and cuts his way to Lu Junyi before both are taken.
