FOX-FAIRY JIAONUO
PU SONGLING / STRANGE TALES FROM MAKE-DO STUDIO /
TRANSALTED BY DENIS C. & VICTOR H. MAIR
1989 FOREIGN LANGUE PRESS BEIJING

           Scholar Kong Xueli, a decendant of Confucius, was poised in a mannor and accomplished in poetry. A close friend who servedas magistrate of Tiantai District (In Zhejiang province) summoned him by letter. Kong arrived only to find that the magistrate had just died. This left him down-and-out and without the means to return, so he put up in Potala Monastery, where he was employed copying sutras for the monks.
           The residence of one Master Shan lay a hundred-some steps to the west of the monastery. Master Shan, the scion of a gentry family, had moved to the country with his reduced household, leaving the residents vacant, afterbeing involved in a lawsuit which had brought on the decline of his fortunes.
           One day while walking through the swirling eddies of heavy snowfall, Scholar Kong happened to pass by the gate. A young man, quite striking in manner, was issuing from the gate when he saw Scholar Kong, and hurried over to greet him.
           Having expressed concern for Kong's health in a few words, he begged to have the honor of reciving him as a visitor. Delighted at the young man's refreshing charm, Kong followed him in with alacrity. The rooms were hardly spacious, but brocade draperies hung everywhere. A number of paintings and works of calligraphy by ancient masters were on the walls. On the desk lay a volume bearing the title "Random Notes from the Land of Langhuam."[*1] A quick glance through showed it to be full of things never seen in other books.
           Because the young man occupied the Shan residence, Kong assumed him to be the master of the house and did not inquire about his family's social standing. The young man questioned Kong at lenght about the life he led and was moved to pity by what he heard. He suggested setting up a private schoolhouse and finding some pupils.
           Kong sighed and said, "Who would vouch for a wanderer like me?"
           "I would like to study under you, if you still find some redeeming value in a worthless nag like myself."
           Delighted as he was, Kong could not presume to act as the young man's tutor, so he asked that they be bound by friendship instead.
           Kong went on to ask: "Why has your house been boarded up all this time?"
           "This is the Shan manor," replied the young man. "The owner moved to the country and left this place empty quite some time ago. I belong to the Huangfu clan, which has its ancestral home in Shaanxi. I am using this as a temporary resting place because my family dwelling was destroyed by wildfire." Only then did Scholar Kong realize that his friend was not one of the Shans.
           That evening the two of then conversed merrily, after which they shared the young man's sleeping mat. Just before dawn, a servant boy lit a charcoal fire in the room. The young man got up first and went into the inner quaters, while Kong sat huddled under the covers. The servant came in to say that the old genteman was coming. Kong got up in surprise.
           A silver-headed old man entered and graciously thanked Kong, saying: "You have been kind enough not to spurn my thick-headed son, and you have even offered him the benefit of your teaching. My boy is just now learning to scribble. Don't treat him as an equal just because you are friends."
           Saying this, he presented Kong with a gown, a mink cap, and a pair each of shoes and stockings. He watched until Kong finshed washing his face and combing his hair, then called for wine and victuals to be set out before him. The furnishings of the room and the host's clothing were of unfamiliar materials that dazzled the eyes with their lustre. After several rounds of wine the old man rose, took his leave and walked out leaning on his cane.
           At the end of the meal the young gentlemen brought out his exercises, all of which were written in classic style. There was not one example of up-to-date examination writing [*2] among them.
           When Kong questioned him on this he answered with a laugh: "I am not out to climb the ladder of success."
           As evening approached, he filled the winecups again and said, "Let's enjoy ourselves to the full tonight: starting tomarrow there will be more of this."
           He called the servant boy: "See whether the old gentleman is in bed yet. If he is, call Xiangnu in here, and keep it quit."
           The boy left, then returned with an embroidered bag containing a four-string lute a biwa - Foxtrot. In a moment a maid entered, looking as stunning as could be in her colorful adorments. The young gentleman told he to play the piece called "Goddesses of the River Xiang." Strumming the strings with an ivory pick, she played an intense and passionate melody to a rhythm unlike anything Kong had ever heard. Then she was ordered to serve wine in huge beakers. Only when the third watch came did they call it a night.
           The next day they rose early to study together. The young gentleman was exceptionally bright, with the ability to memorize a passage simply by running his eyes over it. After two or three months his command of the ink brush was throughly remarkable. They agreed to drink together once every five days and did not fail to summon Xiangnu to each bout. One night Kong, feeling his desire kindled by the mellowness of the wine, let his eyes linger on her. The young gentleman grasped what was on his mind immediately and said, "This maid was brought up as one of our family by my father. Seeing you forelore and wifeless, I have turned the matter over in my mind day and night. Sooner or later I should arrange a beatufil mate for you."
           "If you would be so kind, let it be someone like Xiangnu," Blurted Kong.
           The young gentleman answered laughingly: "You certainly bear out the old saying that "the inexperienced are easily excited." If this is your idea of beauty, your wishes are indeed easily satisfied."
           A half-year had passed when one day, Kong wanted to go rambleing about the evirons of the city, but when he reached the gate he found that its double leaves had been bolted from the outside.
           When asked about it, the young gentleman told him: "The master of the house fears that socializing will distract me from my studies so he is turning away all guests."
           This was readily accepted by Kong. That was at the height of the summer season - a time of sweltering heat - so they set up their studio in a pavilion in the garden. Soon afterwards a peach-sized swelling appeared on Kongs chest. After one night, it grew to the size of a bowl and made him cry out in anguish. The young gentleman looked after him constanly, neglecting to eat and sleep.
           In a few days the pain from the boil became increasingly grievous, so that eating and drinking were now out of the question. The old gentleman, too, came out for a look and heaved a great sigh at what he saw.
           "The night before last I was worring about my tutor's affliction", said the young gentleman.
           "It occured to me that sister Jiaonuo could cure it, so I sent someone to grannys place to bring her."
           Father and son rushed into the inner quarters. In a short while they ushered in a girl to have a look at the scholar. She was around thirteen or fourteen years of age, her eyes were coy pools darting with briliance and her slender-willow frame figured forth lovliness in its every attitude. When he glimpsed her charms, the scholar abruptly left off his moaning and his spirts revived.
           Then the young gentleman spoke: "This is my good friend. We are closer than if we had been born of the same parents. Try your best to treat him sister."
           At this the girl dispensed with her look of bashfulness and walked toward the bed to make the examination, trailing her long sleeves through the air. As she probed with her fingers, Kong was aware of a fragrance that surpassed orchids.
           "No wonder he has this affliction," said the girl laughingly. "His pulse is unsteady. The illness is critical, but it can be cured. However, this area of tissue is already moribound. Our only choice is to remove the skin and cut away the flesh."
           Whereupon she removed a bracelet from her arm, placed it on the afflicted spot and pressed down gradually. The boil bulged more then an inch out of the braclet, and the base of the swelling was completly contained within. No longer was it as wide in diameter as a bowl. Then the girl lifted the front of her gossamer gown with one hand and unfasted a knife with a razor thin blade which hung at her waist. Holding the braclet and grasping the knife firmly, she cut gently along the base.
           Purple blood spilled out in gouts, staining the bed mat. But the scholar, in his craving for proximity to her soft loveliness, was not only unaware of the pain but even apprehensive lest the operation end to soon and put a stop to their nearness.
           Before long a lump of putrefied flesh, resembleing a gall cut from a tree, was sliced away. The girl then called for water, which she used to cleanse the incision. She expelled a red lozenge the size of a crossbow pellet from her mouth and placed it on the raw flesh, then pressed downward and rolled it around the wound. When it had made one circuit, the scholar felt heat darting like flame. When the lozenge had rolled around the second time, the spot pulsated with a comfortable itching sensation. At the end of the third circut a refreshing coolness flooded through his body and penetrated to the very marrow of his bones.
           The girl put the lozenge back into her throat, annouced "He's cured!" and walked away with rapid steps.
           The scholar leapted up and ran to thank her, as if he had never been stricken with the serious malady.
           After that her glorious countenance hovered before his minds eye: his painful yearing was not disspelled. From this time on he neglected his books and sat in fond vapidity. Nothing futher could engadge his attenion.
           The young gentleman, who had seen into the root of his unease, said "I did some judicious looking, and I've settled on the perfect mate for you.
           "Who?" asked the scholar.
           "She is also a member of my family."
           The scholar absorbed in himself in considering this for quite some time, but he firmly said, "No need." Turning his face to the wall he recited:
           These streams seem nothing since I've crossed
           the vastness of the sea;
           None other than Witch Mountain mists
           are truly clouds to me. [Notation *3]

           The young gentleman knew what he was getting at and said, "My father has the highest reguard for your great abilites and has long wished to attache himself to you through marriage. But I have only this one younger sister: she is too tender in years. I do have a cousin named "A song" who is eighteen years old and by no means of course mild. If you don't believe me, wait in the front chamber. Cousin Song takes a stroll through the garden every day, so you can get a look at her."
           The scholar did as he was told. Sure enough, he saw Jiaonuo come by in the company of another beatiful girl, whose jet eyebrows arched like moth attennae and whose lotus feet strode along in upturned phoenix slippers. She was every bit a match for Jiaonuo. The delighted scholar asked the young gentleman to help tie the knot.
           On the next day the young gentleman came out to the garden and congratulated him saying: "Its all arranged."
           The roomes around a side courtyard were then made ready, and the scholar's wedding ceremony was preformed. That evening the placeresounded to the beating of drums and blarring of horns till the air rolled with dust. Now that the fairy maid of his dreams was about to share his canopy and quilt, he suspected that the place of Vast Coldness, where dwelt the goddess of the moon, was not necesarily beyond the clouds. After they had drunk together from the paired goblet of matrimony, they reveled deeply in the joy that answered to their longing.
           One night the young gentleman said to the scholar: "I can never forget the kindness you have showed by instructing me.
           But recently young master Shan returned, following the resoulution of his lawsuit, and now he insist on taking up residence here again. I think I'll leave this place and go west. things being as they are, it will be difficult for us to remain together: You must know how the sorrow of parting tugs at my heart." The scholar wished to leave with him but the young gentleman urged him to return to his home district. The scholar shrank back from the difficulty of doing so.
           "Don't worry," said the young gentleman. "I'll see you off at once."
           Before long, the old gentalman led out Mistress Song and presented the scholar with one hundred taels of gold. The young gentleman clasped the couple with both arms and cautioned them to close their eyes, and keep them closed. They went driftingly airborne, aware only of the wind rushing in their ears.
           "We've arrived," said the young gentleman after a long while. They opened their eyes and found that they had indeed come to the scholar's old neighborhood. It was plain by now that the young gentle was no ordinary mortal. The scholoar knocked delightedly on the door of his house. When his mother came out she could not believe her eyes. Then she met the scholar's beautiful wife, and the three of them rejoiced together. When they thought to turn and look behind them, the young gentleman was already gone.
           Mistress Song proved filial to her mother-in-law. She was renowned for her ravishing good looks and wifely virtue.
           Afterwards the scholar took the doctorate of letters and was assigned the judgeship at Yenan.(In Shaanxi)
           He took his household with him and went to assume his post, but his mother remained behind because of the distance invloved. Mistress Song gave birth to a son, whom they named Xiaohuan.
           Then the scholar gave offence to the censor, which resulted in the loss of his postion. Because there were some unresolved problems relating to his dismissal, he was unable to return home. It happened that he was hunting in the wilds outside the city when he came upon a handsome young man sitting on a black colt, who kept glancing at him.
           A careful look told him that this was the young gentleman of the Huangfu family. The young gentalman drew back on the reins and pulledup a three horse team hitched to his chariot, overcome by the mixture of sorrow and gladness that welled up within him. He asked the scholar to follow along to the village, where the shade cast by many trees cut off the sun and sky and created a dense twilight.
           The door leading into the house had bronze bosses and studs in the style of a landowners mansion. In response to the scholar's questions the young gentleman said the his younger sister had gotten married and his mother had passed away. The scholar expressed heart felt condolances. After staying the night he left, then returned with his wife.
           Jiaonuo also showed up. She hugged the scholar's son, dandled him in her arms and poked fun at him, saying, "Look how my cousin has diluted our bloodline!"
           The scholar bowed down to thank her for past kindness. "Brother-in-law, you are an exalted personage now," she answered with a laugh.
           "Your wound is long healed: haven't you forgotten the pain by now?" Master Wu, the younger sister's husband, also came to pay his respects, then departed after a two-night stay.
           One day the young gentleman came to the scholar with a troubled expression on his face and said, "Heaven is about to inflict grave calamity upon us. Can you find it in yourself to save us?"
           The scholar had no knowledge of what he had to deal with, nevertheless, he beleived himself equal to the attempte. The young gentleman hurried out and summoned his whole family into the hall, where they lined up to make obeisance to him. The dismayed scholar anxiously asked for an explaination.
           "I am a fox spirit, not a human being," said the young gentleman. "We are now faced with a cataclysm of thunder and lighting. If you consent to take the risk of rescuing us, my family has hope of surviving. Otherwise, please take your child and leave; we will not involve you."
           The scholar vowed to live or die with them. The young gentleman had him stand with sword in hand at the gate and warned him: "When the lightning strikes, do not move!"
           The scholar took his assighned postion. Soon the storm-clouds as dusky black as basalt turned day into night. Turning to look at the house where he had been staying, he saw that the gate was no longer there. Instead, there stood a great mound rearing upwards, pierced by a gaping mouth of a huge cave. He was standing in astonished dread when -"CRACK"- the air was split by a peal of thunder that shook the very mountains. Demented winds driving torrents of rain uprooted ancient trees.
           The scholar was blinded and deafened, but planted his feet and stood firm. Suddenly a sharp-beaked, taloned monster appeared out of the wind-whipped convolutions of smoky black cloud.
           It dragged a person out of the cave, then rose directly with the dense vapor. In one flashing glimpse that the scholoar caught of the person's shoes and cloths, he was struck by the thought that this was Jiaonuo. He leapt into the air and thrust with his sword, bringing the monster down to the ground. At that instant the sky tore open with a crashing thunder. The scholar fell over and expired. In a short time the sky cleared, and Jiaonuo regained conciousness.
           Seeing the scholar dead beside her she sobbed, "What is life to me if master Kong dies for me?"
           Mistress Song, too, came out, and they carried him back together. Jiaonuo made mistress Song hold up his head and her brother pry apart his jaws with a metal hairclasp, while she herself pulled his mouth open by pinching his cheeks. She used her tounge to put the red exlir-lozenge in his mouth, and then, placing her lips against his, she blew it futher in. When the red lozenge had been blown into his throat he begin to make a gurgling sound. In a while he came to himself. Seeing all his relatives before him made him realize that he had now awaked from a dream.
           Once they had gotten over the shock of these events, everyone in the house rejoiced in their renewed togetherness. But the scholar decided that he could not stay long in such a cave, so he proposed that the others return with him to his home district. The hall echoed with exclamations of approval: only Jiaonuo was unhappy.
           The scholar suggested that she and master Wu go along, but she worried that her in-laws would not want to be separated from their young son. They discussed the matter most of the day without result. Just then a servent of the Wu family arrived, sweating profusely and gasping for breath. Everyone loosed a barrage of astonished questions. It turned out that calamity had struck Master Wu's house on the same day, and that the entire family had perished. Jiaonuo stamped her feet in grief and cried ceaselessly, while everyone tried to console her.
           And so the plan to return together was agreed upon. The scholar went into the city for serval days to attend to his affairs, then returned and stayed up into the night hurriedly packing for the trip. When they reached scholar's home, he set up rooms for the young gentleman in an unfrequented garden, which he alway locked from the outside. The bolt was only removed when he and Mistress Song arrived for a visit. The scholar played chess, wined and dined, and conversed with the young gentleman and his sister as if they belonged to one family. The child Xiaohuan grew up to be splendedly good looking, but there was something vulpine about him. People who saw him rambled about the city knew he was a fox spirit's child.
           The Chronicler of the tale comments: "I envy Scholar Kong not because he found a ravishing wife but because he found a bosom friend. Looking at the face of such a friend can make one forget hunger; listening to his voice can bring a smile. Simply having such a good friend and visiting him sometimes for meal and conversation brings greater "communion between souls" than does loves "sweet disorder in the dress."


1 A collection of fairy tales by Yi Schizhen of the Yuan dynasty (1206-1341) Its first artical on the list bears the title
"The Blessed Land of Langhuan"

2 Better known as eight-legged (or eight-paragraphed) essay, a style of writing perscribed for civil examinations during the Ming and Qing dynastys (1368-1911)

3 Lines of a poem by the Tang poet, Yuan Zhen (779-831), lamenting his deceased wife.

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