Original Text
A hunter, lying in ambush in the mountains one night, spied a small man no more than two feet tall walking alone at the bottom of a ravine. After a while, another figure of similar stature appeared. The two met and inquired of each other where they were bound. The first small man said, "I am going to visit Scar-Eye Yang, for the other day I saw his complexion was poor, and it bodes ill fortune." The second man replied, "I too am about this very matter; your words are true." The hunter, knowing they were not human, let out a fierce shout, and the two small men vanished. That very night, the hunter captured a fox, and on its left eye there was a scar as large as a copper coin.
Commentary
The conversation between the two foxes reveals worldly wisdom, as they judge fortune and misfortune by complexion and demeanor, entirely indistinguishable from humans; only because the small figures were "about two feet tall" and "walked alone at the bottom of a ravine" did the hunter lying in ambush at night suspect they were not human, and when he "caught a fox that night," it confirmed his judgment. This tale of just over a hundred words is written with both conciseness and vividness, blending the ordinary with the uncanny.