The Fox Wife

For all stories have an ending as well as a beginning. But a beginning is where you choose to plant your foot, and the ending is only the edge of one's own knowledge.

Whenever humans encounter something strange and novel, their first instinct is to kill it.

I exist as either a small canid with thick fur, pointed ears, and neat black feet, or a young woman. Neither are safe forms in a world run by men.

Sometimes our wishes come back in the darkest, most twisted ways, like a thorn that pierces and grows through your flesh. A tree that drinks blood and blots out the sun. The sin was mine; I had watered it with hatred and tears of rage, and it had grown to cast a monstrous shadow.

That’s how humans are, Bao thinks. We’re happy as long as we’re better off than others.

Revenge is a terrible dish to consume. It eats one from the inside out, no matter what they say about it being best served cold. As the Chinese saying goes, “When a gentleman takes his vengeance, ten years is not too late.”* But you and I know that chilled food inevitably leads to an upset stomach.

I stifled a snort. Sixty isn’t old to me. At sixty, humans are just beginning to understand that the weather will never obey them; that true love strikes at most twice in a lifetime; and that by saying yes in your youth, you may bind yourself unwisely to another’s cause. But that was beside the point.

I should have known better. What you bury eventually comes to light in some form or other. That’s just the way the world works.

I don’t believe in curses. Humans, however, are obsessed with patterns, ascribing meaning to randomness.

Dusk is the most dangerous time, according to Bao's nanny; the blurred gap between day and night when creatures who resemble humans appear. They exist on the very edge of society, at the tipping point of madness where dreams and nightmares come true.

The wind was blowing from the west, an autumn wind that smelled of damp yellow earth and rain. The grass bowed under heavy seed heads, and in the distance, gathering clouds were pierced by shafts of bright late sunshine. I’d stood at the top of a valley watching the dusty white road below as it wended its way across the wide sweep of the hills. Sun and rain together are what people call a day for a fox’s wedding, though that’s just folk superstition. We get married just the way you do, by choosing a lucky day that all parties agree on. In any case, I hadn’t been thinking of getting married at all.

Chinese traditionally consider shadows part of the soul. Harm done to a shadow, whether by pinning it to the ground or stepping on it, was considered spiritual damage to the person. Of course none of this really works. But the mind can certainly affect the body.

At one point, I’d clung to the pain as a reminder that my child had existed, but I was beginning to let her go. I wondered if that was a betrayal.

After alerting his landlord of his impending trip to Dalian, Bao visits his older brother. There's no real need to, but Bao dutifully updates him. These little check-ins, brief yet cordial, perpetuate the illusion that they're close. Bao learned long ago that frequency is a good substitute for intimacy.

Being stabbed, then visited by a demon in his dreams is bad enough, but the chaos continues into mid-morning, like a flower blossoming into ever more madness.

A sadly sinful side effect of foxes is that humans who indulge too much in our company become hopelessly addicted

I’m glad to see you again. I’ve fulfilled my promise to you.” “What promise did you make me?” She’s crying again. “I said I wouldn’t leave you until my last breath.

no, no, his ideal woman is small and resembles a Manchurian chipmunk.

I reflected sourly that the empire might not be falling if people like Wang stopped wasting candles while peasants were starving in the street, but humans are always like this. They don't realize that an uprising is coming until the watchtowers burn down.

Hope, of course, is the most painful thing in the universe. Clinging to a thin strand is the most agonizing way to live. I know this too well. No wonder my heart was racing.

...For all stories have an ending as well as a beginning. But a beginning is where you choose to plant your foot, and the ending is only the edge of one’s own knowledge

But a beginning is where you choose to plant your foot, and the ending is only the edge of one’s own knowledge.

I really can’t stand it when people decide things for me. Besides, I was tired of crouching behind the vase, so I made my appearance. The effect was ruined by stumbling over a potted plant, but still quite satisfactory.

Lots of men like to tell you they are bad. Often this is said with a wink and smile. Little lady

It's hard for some men to understand how a simple act, like walking down a dark street or drawing the attention of the wrong man, can be so fraught for women. I've given up trying to explain.

It's when you least expect it that sorrow returns, like a thief who steals joy.

That was a pity though. Thirty-two is in many ways a far better age than twenty-three.

At sixty, humans are just beginning to understand that the weather will never obey them; that true love strikes at most twice in a lifetime; and that by saying yes in your youth, you may bind yourself unwisely to another’s cause. But that was beside the point.

All living creatures change in response to others. Coming out of the grasslands and seeing new people had softened the cracked plane of my heart, though attachment creates vulnerabilities. That's why hermits and sages of old always retired to a cave on the mountain... though the ones I met were all very ill-tempered, unwashed old men.