Original Text
A butcher was returning home after selling his meat, and the day was already growing dark. Suddenly a wolf came running, and upon seeing the meat in the carrying pole, it seemed to drool with longing, as if its saliva stretched long. The butcher walked ahead, and the wolf followed behind, trailing him for several li. The butcher grew very frightened, and drawing his knife to threaten the wolf, the wolf retreated slightly; but when the butcher turned and continued on, the wolf followed him again. The butcher, at his wit's end, thought to himself that what the wolf desired was the meat, so it would be better to hang the meat temporarily on a tree and retrieve it at dawn the next day. He then hooked the meat with a hook, raised his foot to hang it on the tree, and showed the empty carrying pole to the wolf, whereupon the wolf finally stopped. The butcher then went straight home. The next morning, the butcher went to retrieve the meat, and from afar he saw a large object hanging from the tree, resembling a man who had hanged himself, which startled him greatly. Hesitantly, he approached and looked closely, and it turned out to be a dead wolf. Looking up carefully, he saw that the wolf held the meat in its mouth, and the meat hook had pierced through the wolf's upper jaw, just like a fish swallowing bait. At that time, wolf pelts were expensive, and he sold it for over ten taels of silver, making a tidy profit. To seek fish by climbing a tree—such a thing happened to the wolf, and it was truly laughable.
A butcher was returning home one evening, having sold all the meat from his load, leaving only bones. On the road he encountered two wolves, which followed him for a great distance. The butcher, greatly frightened, threw out a bone. One wolf, obtaining the bone, stopped, while the other wolf continued to follow; the butcher threw out another bone, and this wolf halted, but the former wolf then came up again. When all the bones were thrown away, the two wolves still followed side by side as before. The butcher was in dire straits, fearing an attack from both front and rear. He saw in the fields a wheat-threshing ground, where the owner had piled up a great heap of firewood and straw, covered like a small hill. The butcher ran over and leaned against the base of the haystack, setting down his meat load and grasping his knife. The wolves dared not approach, but stared at him with glaring eyes. After a while, one wolf went off directly; the other crouched before him like a dog, and after a long time, its eyes seemed to close, its expression quite leisurely. The butcher suddenly leaped up, struck the wolf's head with his knife, and after several more blows, killed it. Just as he was about to leave, turning his head, he saw behind the haystack another wolf boring into the pile, trying to dig a tunnel through to attack him from behind. The wolf's body was already half inside, with only its rump and tail still exposed. The butcher cut off its legs from behind, and killed this wolf as well. Only then did he realize that the first wolf had been feigning sleep to deceive him. The wolf was cunning indeed! Yet in an instant, both wolves were slain—how many tricks can beasts have? They only add to men's laughter!
A butcher, traveling by night, was pursued and cornered by a wolf. By the roadside stood a makeshift shelter left by a night plowman, so he rushed inside and hid himself. The wolf thrust its paw through the thatched covering, and the butcher instantly seized it, not allowing it to withdraw. Yet he had no means to kill the beast, possessing only a small knife less than an inch long. He then cut the skin beneath the wolf's paw and, using the method of blowing air into a pig, forced breath into the wolf's body. After blowing vigorously for some time, he found the wolf had grown still, so he bound the wound with a cord. Emerging, he saw the wolf's body had swelled to the size of an ox, its legs stiff and unbending, its mouth agape and unable to close; thus he carried it back on his back. Were it not for the butcher, how could such a stratagem have been devised?
All three of these incidents arose from the butcher's hand, thus the butcher's cruelty could also be put to use in slaying wolves.
Commentary
This chapter collects three intriguing tales about butchers and wolves. In the first, a wolf, driven by greed for meat hanging from a hook on a tree, ends up strangled to death on the very branch. In the second, two wolves attempt to outwit a man by cunningly attacking from front and rear, but the butcher sees through their scheme and kills them separately. In the third, a wolf thrusts its paw into a house, only to be slain by the butcher using his pig-blowing technique. In all three stories, the wolves meet bizarre, even darkly humorous ends, each death intimately tied to the butcher's trade.
Apart from the three tales in this chapter, "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" includes other stories themed around wolves, such as the appendix to "Earthquake," "Yu Jiang," "The Li Family," "The Shepherd Boy," "Dreaming of a Wolf," "The Cart Driver," and "Mao Dafu," among others, making wolves second only to foxes in number among animal tales, which shows how numerous wolves were in the hilly region of Zichuan County at that time and their great impact on daily life. Unfortunately, with urban development, the living environment for wolves has increasingly deteriorated, and the former glory of wolves is no more.