Scholar Dong

The scholar Dong, who styled himself Xiasi, lived in the western border region of Qingzhou, Shandong Province.

One winter evening, he got ready his bed, stirred up the fire and was just about to put the lid on the lamp when his friend came to invite him for a drink. He locked the door and went over to his friend’s.

Among the guests at the dinner was a doctor who was a master at divining a person’s health by taking his pulse. He felt the pulse of all present. When he had done so, he said to Wang Jiusi and Dong Xiasi, “I’ve met a lot of people, but none of them have pulses as strange as yours. One of you has a rich man’s pulse but omens of poverty, while the other has a longevity pulse but omens of early death. That’s something I cannot understand. You, Mr. Dong, your pulse is most extraordinary.” Astonished, everybody asked him for further explanations, but the doctor said, “That’s the best I can do with my level of healing. I can’t make guesses. I just hope that you two will take care.” Dong and Wang were quite shocked when they first heard what the doctor said. Then, since the doctor’s words were neither here nor there, they just put the thought aside and did not take it seriously.

When he returned home at midnight, Dong saw the door was unlocked and wondered about it. In his drowsiness, he thought he must have forgotten to lock it in his hurry to leave. After entering the bedroom, before he lit the fire, he put his hand under the quilt to see if it was warm. To his surprise, his fingers touched very fine skin. There was someone lying there. He withdrew his hand and lit the lamp. There lying before him was a beautiful young woman, pretty as an angel from heaven. Elated, he frivolously proceeded to move his hand to the lower part of the body but what he touched was a long, furry tail. Scared out of his wits, he tried to run away, but the maiden woke up, stretched out her hand and caught hold of Dong’s arm. “Where are you going?” she asked. This frightened Dong even more. Quivering all over, he pleaded with the angel to have pity on him and let him go. The beauty smiled and said, “What have you seen to make you think I am an angel?” Dong said, “It’s the tail and not the head that frightens me.” She laughed again and said, “You’ve made a mistake. Where is there a tail?” So saying, she pulled over Dong’s hand and forced him to feel again. What he felt were legs as soft as flesh and a tail bone that was flat. The beauty smiled and said, “You see? Here you are drunk, and you can’t see straight, and yet you slander me like that!” Dong, who was infatuated by her beauty in the first place, now felt more confused and reproved himself for making such a mistake. However, her unexplained arrival remained a puzzle to him. The maiden said, “Don’t you remember the girl with the light brown hair who used to live east of your house? It’s been ten years since we moved away. I hadn’t grown up then, and you were just a boy with long hair.” Dong seemed to wake up suddenly. “So you’re A Suo of the Zhou Family?” he exclaimed, and the girl said, “Yes, indeed!” Dong said, “Now that you mention it, I seem to remember. We haven’t seen each other for ten years, and you’ve grown so beautiful and slender! But why have you suddenly come here?” The girl said, “I was married to a fool for four or five years. Then my parents-in-law died one shortly after the other, and finally, I was left a widow just like Zhuo Wenjun. (Note： Zhuo Wenjun was a famous woman during the Han Dynasty whose romance is very well-known among the Chinese.) I was the only one left in the family, with no one to depend on. The only person I could remember from childhood was you, so that’s why I came to seek you. It was already dark when I came in. Someone had come to invite you for a drink, so I quietly hid myself in this room and waited for your return. I waited for so long that my feet became cold as ice and I was having gooseflesh all over. That’s why I borrowed your quilt to warm myself. Please don’t be so suspicious.” Delighted, Dong took off his clothes and slept with her, feeling very pleased.

This went on for more than a month. Dong became weak and lost more and more weight. Other family members thought it was strange and asked him what was causing it. He would always say he didn’t know. However, as time went by, he grew increasingly pale. Worried, he went again to the master pulse-taker to seek a cure. The doctor felt his pulse and said, “Yours is a devilish pulse. My prognosis that you would die early has proven correct. No medicine can cure you of this illness.” Dong wept bitterly and refused to leave. The doctor had no alternative but to apply acupuncture treatment to his hands and his navel, give him some medicine, and admonish him, saying, “If you have another woman, you must break your relationship with determination.” Dong now realised the danger facing him. After he got home, the woman, smiling all over, teased him, but he put on a serious face and said to her, “Don’t harass me anymore; I shall die soon!” Having said that, he hurriedly went away without looking at her once. The girl, feeling ashamed and furious, said angrily, “So you want to live!” That night, Dong took his medicine and went to bed alone, but as soon as he closed his eyes, he dreamed he was making love with the girl. He woke up with a start, only to find that the bed was already wet with his emission. More frightened than ever, Dong moved himself into the inner courtyard. His wife and children lit a fire and kept vigil over him by his bed. Dong continued having those dreams, but when he peeped through the crack in the door of the room, the girl had disappeared. A few days later, Dong coughed a lot of blood and died.

Meanwhile, in his study, Wang Jiusi saw a woman come in. Lured by her beauty, he made love with her. When he asked her where she had come from, she said, “I’m Dong Xiasi’s neighbor. We used to be lovers. Who should think that he would be lured away by a fox-fairy and end up dead. These fox-fairies are very devilish, scholars should be particularly on guard against them.” On hearing this, Wang admired her even more. The two became very close. Within several days, Wang was in a constant daze and reduced to mere bones, having lost so much weight. One night, he dreamed of Dong telling him, “Your lover is a fox. She has already sent me to my death, now she wants to do the same to my friend. Ive already filed a suit against her with the authorities down in Hell. I’m going to get my revenge yet. And don’t you forget to burn incense outside your bedroom on the night of the seventh.”

When Wang woke up, he thought it was very strange. He said to the woman, “I’m seriously ill, I’m afraid I won’t live long. Someone has advised me not to make love again.” To that, the woman said, “If you are fated to have a long life, you will live even if you make love; if you are fated to be short-lived, you will die even if you don’t make love.” She then laughed and teased him provocatively without stop. Unable to withstand the temptation, Wang indulged in sex with her again. When it was over, he was full of remorse, but he just couldn’t reject her.

That night, though, he lit some incense and stuck it on the door. When the woman came along, she pulled it off and threw it on the ground. During the night, Dong visited Wang again in his dream and rebuked him for not doing as he had been advised. So, on the second night, Wang told his folks quietly on the side to burn the incense again after he had gone to bed. The woman, lying in bed, suddenly started. “You’re burning incense again?” she asked, and Wang said, “I don’t know.” The woman hurried out of bed, found the incense stick, broke it in two and put it out. When she returned to the room, she asked Wang, “Who told you to do this?” Wang replied, “Maybe it’s my folks who are so worried about my illness that they took the advice of a sorcerer and burned incense to drive away evil spirits.” The woman became uneasy and downcast. When the incense died out, members of the family silently lit it again. The woman then gave a long sigh and said, “You are a lucky one. I should not have killed Dong Xiasi and come to you. It certainly was a mistake on my part. I shall go to Hell and argue it out with Dong. If you cherish our love, don’t spoil the body I leave behind.” Having said that, she got out of bed, faltered, and fell to the ground, dead. Wang fit the candle and looked. It was a fox. For fear it would revive, he called his folks in to skin it and hang it up.

Wang was still very ill. The fox came back one day and said to him, “I made an appeal to the judge in Hell. The judge said, Dong acted out of lust, death is what he deserves. As for me, he simply reproached me for seducing people. He confiscated my longevity pill which I had spent so much time making and let me return to life. Now, where is my body?” Wang said, “My folks, not knowing what to do with it, skinned it.” The fox said sadly, “I’ve killed so many people that it’s not too early for me to die now. But you are so hard-hearted !” And she left, feeling very bitter. Wang was so ill he almost died. He did not regain his health for some six months.