Jiao Da had once saved the lives of the ancestors of the Jia family. He had risked his life countless times to protect his masters, even willingly drinking horse urine himself. Because of this, Jiao Da grew arrogant within the Jia mansion, often disparaging other servants.

He publicly cursed Jia Rong and his peers, accusing them of daily petty thievery and the Jia family of engaging in illicit affairs within the family (referring to '扒灰养小叔子'). When the other servants heard these 'words of utter darkness and impropriety' (有天没日的话), they were so terrified that their souls almost left their bodies, and they quickly bound him.