Original Text
In the land of Chu, there was a merchant who traveled afar to conduct his business. His wife lived alone at home, and one night she dreamed of engaging in intimate relations with a strange man. Startled awake, she reached out and felt a small man lying beside her. Observing his demeanor, she found him unlike ordinary men and realized she had encountered a fox spirit. After a moment, the man leaped from the bed and vanished without opening the door. The next evening, the merchant's wife invited an old woman who cooked for them to sleep with her. She also had a ten-year-old son, who usually slept in another bed, and she called him to join them. Late that night, after the old woman and the boy had fallen asleep, the fox spirit slipped in again. The merchant's wife began to murmur in her sleep, and the old woman, hearing this, cried out, causing the fox spirit to hastily depart. From then on, the merchant's wife became dazed and listless, as if her soul had been lost. When night fell, she dared not extinguish the candle and warned her son never to fall into deep slumber. One night, deep into the hours, the son and the old woman, leaning against the wall, dozed off. When they awoke, the merchant's wife was gone. At first, they thought she had gone to relieve herself, but after a long wait with no return, they grew alarmed. The old woman, too frightened to search, stayed put, while the son took a lamp and went looking. He found his mother lying naked in another room; when he approached to help her, she showed no shame or resistance. After this, the merchant's wife went mad, singing, shouting, weeping, and cursing by day, and by night she loathed sleeping with others, sending her son to another bed and dismissing the old woman. Whenever the son heard his mother laughing or talking at night, he would light a lamp to check, only to be scolded by her. Yet he paid no heed, and people marveled at his boldness. But by day, the boy played without restraint, imitating a mason by piling bricks and stones against the windows, ignoring all pleas to stop. If anyone removed a stone, he would throw himself on the ground, wailing and throwing a tantrum, so no one dared cross him. After a few days, he had sealed both windows so tightly that not a ray of light could enter. Once the walls were built, he mixed mud to fill the cracks, toiling tirelessly without complaint. When that was done, he took a kitchen knife and sharpened it with a grating sound, day in and day out. All who saw him despised his mischief and regarded him as less than human.
One night, the merchant's son secretly concealed a kitchen knife in his bosom and covered the lamp with a gourd. When his mother began to murmur in her sleep, he promptly removed the gourd to reveal the light, blocked the doorway, and shouted loudly. After a while, seeing nothing unusual, he left the door, pretending to go out to relieve himself while making a clamor. Suddenly, a creature shaped like a civet cat darted toward the crack of the door. The son swiftly swung his knife, but only managed to sever a section of its tail, about two inches long, still dripping with blood. Earlier, when he had brightened the lamp and risen, his mother had scolded him, but he acted as if he did not hear. Now, realizing he had not struck the creature's vital spot, he went to bed in great vexation. Yet he thought that although he had not immediately slain the fox spirit, he could take comfort that perhaps it would not dare return. At daybreak, the son saw the trail of blood on the ground leading over the low wall, and followed it all the way into the He family's garden. That night, the fox spirit indeed did not come again, and the son rejoiced in his heart. But his mother still lay dazed on the bed, as if dead.
Not long after, the merchant returned and came to the bedside to inquire about his wife's illness. But his wife cursed him bitterly, treating him as if he were a mortal enemy. The son recounted to his father in detail the cause of his mother's madness. Greatly alarmed, the father immediately summoned a physician to prescribe medicine, only to have his wife dash the herbal decoction to the ground with unceasing abuse. So the family secretly mixed the medicine into warm water and gave it to her, and after some days she gradually calmed down, much to the joy of both father and son. One night, after the two had awakened from sleep, they found the woman had vanished again, and they later discovered her in another room. From then on, she grew frantic once more, refusing to share a chamber with her husband. Come evening, she would run alone into a different room. When the family tried to support her, she only shrieked and cursed more fiercely. The husband, at his wit's end, locked all the doors, but whenever his wife attempted to flee, the doors would open of their own accord. Deeply troubled, he summoned exorcists to drive away the evil, employing every method available, yet not a single one proved effective.
One evening at dusk, the merchant's son stealthily crept into the He family garden, hiding among the grass and thickets, intending to spy on where the fox spirit might be. Shortly after the moon had risen, he suddenly heard voices speaking. He quietly parted the grass with his hand to peer out and saw two people arriving there to drink wine, with a long-bearded servant standing beside them holding a wine pot, his garments of a deep brown hue. Their speech was low and murmured, too faint to be clearly discerned. After they had drunk for a while, he heard one of them say, "Tomorrow we can fetch another jar of white wine." Ere long, both departed, leaving only the long-bearded man behind, who removed his clothes and lay down upon a large stone. The merchant's son looked closely and saw that the creature's limbs were all like a man's, but a tail trailed behind him. He wished to return home, yet feared the fox spirit might detect him, and so he lay crouched in the grass all night long. Before dawn broke, he again heard the two men from before returning, one after the other, murmuring and muttering as they walked into the bamboo grove. Only then did he rise and go home. His father asked him where he had been, and he replied, "I slept at my uncle's house."
One day, the merchant's son happened to accompany his father to the market, where he saw a fox tail hanging in a hat shop and begged his father to buy it for him. His father paid him no heed, so he tugged at his father's robe, whining and throwing a tantrum. Unable to bear his son's excessive disappointment, the father relented and purchased it. While his father was conducting business in a market stall, the son played and frolicked by his side, and when his father's attention was elsewhere, he stealthily filched some money, bought white liquor with it, and stashed it in the corridor of the shop. The son had an uncle living in the city, who had long made his living as a hunter. After setting down the liquor, the boy ran to his uncle's house. His uncle was away from home, so his aunt inquired about his mother's health; he replied, "She has improved a little in these past few days. But because a rat gnawed through her clothes, she has been weeping and scolding without cease, so the family sent me to beg for some poison used to hunt wild beasts." His aunt rummaged through a wooden chest, took out a bit more than a qian of poison, wrapped it up, and handed it to him. He thought the poison too meager but did not voice his complaint. Just then, his aunt prepared to make soup cakes for him, and seeing no one else in the room, he opened the packet himself and secretly grabbed a large handful of poison, hiding it in his bosom. Then he ran to tell his aunt not to light the fire, saying, "My father is waiting for me at the market; there is no time to eat." With that, he left directly, quietly placing the poison into the bottle of liquor he had bought. He then roamed about the market until evening before returning home. When his father asked where he had been, he falsely claimed he had been at his uncle's house. From that day on, he loitered about the market every day.
One day, the merchant's son suddenly noticed that the long-bearded man was also mingling among the crowd. After carefully scrutinizing and confirming his identity, he quietly followed behind him. He slowly approached the man and struck up a conversation, asking where he lived. The man replied, "I live in the North Village." The man also asked about his own dwelling, and the merchant's son falsely claimed, "I live in a cave." The long-bearded man found it strange that he would live in a cave. The merchant's son laughed and said, "My ancestors have all lived in caves; were you not originally the same?" The man grew even more startled and asked about his surname. The merchant's son said, "I am of the Hu family. I once saw you somewhere in the company of two young men; have you forgotten?" The man stared at him for a long time, still half in doubt. The merchant's son then gently lifted a corner of his garment, revealing a bit of his fake fox tail, and said, "We live among the crowd, but this thing cannot be shed; it is truly vexing." The man asked, "What business do you have in the marketplace?" The merchant's son said, "My father sent me to buy wine." The man said he had also come to fetch wine. The merchant's son asked, "Have you obtained it yet?" The man replied, "Most of our kind are very poor, so we often resort to theft." The merchant's son said, "This task is indeed hard, full of fear and anxiety." The man said, "Under the master's orders, one has no choice but to do it." The merchant's son then took the opportunity to ask, "Who is your master?" The man replied, "The two brothers you once saw. One is having an affair with the wife of the Northern City Wang family, and the other is staying at a merchant's house in the East Village. That merchant's son is truly formidable; my master had his tail cut off by him, and it took ten days to heal, but now he has gone again." After saying this, the man was about to take his leave, saying, "Do not delay my affairs." The merchant's son said, "Stealing wine is truly difficult; it is easier to buy it. I have some wine I bought earlier stored under the shop's eaves, and I would like to offer it to you. I still have extra money in my pocket, so I need not worry about buying more." The man felt embarrassed, saying he had no way to repay the kindness, but the merchant's son said, "We are of the same kind; why fuss over such a trifle? When you have free time, I will drink heartily with you!" So they went together to the market's eaves, where he took out the bottle of poisoned wine and handed it to the man, then returned home.
That very night, the mother slept peacefully and no longer wandered outside. Knowing that something unusual must have befallen the fox spirits, he then detailed the situation to his father. The two went together to the garden to investigate, where they saw two foxes lying dead on the pavilion, and a third dead among the grass, its mouth still wet with flowing blood. The wine bottle was also there; when lifted and shaken, the wine within was not yet finished. The father, startled and delighted, asked his son, "Why did you not tell me earlier?" The son replied, "These creatures are most cunning; had I revealed the slightest hint, they would have known at once." The father praised him joyfully, saying, "My son's strategy against the foxes is as resourceful as Chen Ping of the Han dynasty!" So the father and son carried the dead foxes back home together. One fox had half its tail severed, with a clear scar from a blade. From then on, the merchant's household enjoyed peace. But his wife grew terribly frail; her mind gradually cleared, yet she developed a coughing ailment, spitting up several pints of phlegm at a time, and soon after, she died.
The wife of the Wang family in the northern city had long been plagued by a fox spirit. When inquiries were made at her home, the fox had vanished, and her illness was cured. The merchant therefore regarded his son as a prodigy and had him trained in the arts of horsemanship and archery. After the merchant's son grew up, he rose to the rank of commander-in-chief.
Commentary
In the corpus of classical Chinese literary tales, works depicting children are often scarce, yet within "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" such chapters abound, for instance "Gong Mengbi," "Lingjiao," "Zhang Cheng," "Zhu'er," and "Xiliu," among which "Jia'er" stands as an outstanding representative.
To protect his mother from the fox's bewitchment, Jia Er exhausted every means: some were no different from an ordinary man, such as "holding a torch to illuminate every corner" and "immediately setting a fire"; others displayed the unique wisdom and behavior of a child, like "daily imitating a mason, stacking bricks and stones on the window" and "mixing mud to seal the holes in the wall, toiling all day without fear of hardship"; still others were beyond even the capability of most adults, for instance, he "loudly pretended to need to urinate" and gravely wounded the fox; at dusk, he stealthily infiltrated the fox's lair to scout, and fearing discovery, he "lay in ambush all night," thus obtaining precious intelligence about the enemy; and later, he disguised himself as a fox, ventured alone into their midst, and with drugged wine annihilated them all, displaying great wisdom and courage, his character traits vividly distinct. As Dan Minglun commented: "His calm and measured actions, neither rash nor arrogant, meticulous yet unwilling to reveal himself lightly—even a mature adult would find this difficult, let alone a mere child!"