Angry at fate, Zhao Yi couldn't utter a word. Upon reaching town all broke out into laughs and shouts of "Old Zhao the fibber" and other such abuse, and even I, your narrator couldn't help but chime in with "Old Zhao the reckless liar! In this pure and peaceful world if there's any such fox spirit or ghost it's only Zhao the Elder, the lying ghost!" And to this very day those caught in lies are still called "Ghost Zhao" and "Wild Zhao", refering of course to this fox business. There is this poem for proof:

When Zhao arrived home, all of his fellows were already there waiting for the promised feast. He could do nothing but take some of his wife's clothes and coats and pawn them, and with the little money thus obtained he bought the wine for his guests to drink. Even the village elders were invited and everyone ate away, gnawing and chewing to their hearts' content. And when it came time to leave somebody said: "Since we've troubled Brother Zhao for a feast, after today, should anyone ask, we'll all put out the word that there was a fox spirit out there after all!" Zhao Yi boiled over with rage, and from this point on never again brought up the matter.

Now to digress in our story, the old male fox which has been depicted being shot was born of an old white vixen. Nobody can reckon her exact age and she is vastly capable of transformations. She changed from her own form into that of a beauty, now in maturity called Holy Auntie, who makes her home in a cave beneath Goosegate Mountain. The twin peaks, east and west, of this mountain rise suddenly, high enough to touch the sky. Migrating geese in their formations always fly between the summits, hence the name. This Holy Auntie had two fox offspring, named Hu Chu and Hu Mei; they were brother and sister. Now, most of your five hundred-year-old fox spirits are surnamed Bai or Kang, but your thousand-year-old foxes are usually named Zhao or Zhang; still, most if them usually go by the alias of Hu. On the night when hunter Zhao shot his strange prey, Holy Auntie was with her daughter Mei under the moon, teaching her the mysteries of chanting. Suddenly they saw Chu, limping, wounded in his left leg and trembling with each step, howling as he returned. When he got near the cave he fell to earth, rolled over and let loose a wild scream. The old mother approached for a look, realizing that her son had been shot by an arrow in the left leg. She hurriedly attempted to pull it out but its head was buried too deeply, and her efforts resulted only in more pain, the shaft entirely unmoving. Holy Auntie thought of a plan.

"Bear the pain, son!" she first cried out. She then took a deep breath and held it, clenched the arrow's shaft tightly between her teeth, and used her hands to press down forcefully on the surrounding flesh. Then, with a loud "pop" the shaft was out of his haunch, snatched up and thrown onto the ground; the fox then lost consciousness. Now this arrow had struck right in the hamstring muscle, and the tendon was severed. Struggling back as he did for a such long distance with no thought of the mortal danger of his wound, how did he not die?

Holy Auntie shed her vixen tears and called upon her daughter Mei to help carry him to his earthen bed and lay him there; after about two hours he awakened. This old vixen knew several kinds of herbal medicine and used heated fluids to irrigate the wound, but it was no use. After two days she saw that her son was nearing death. Truly grieving, she then remembered that, in the District of Yizhou there lived an Imperial Physician surnamed Yan, respectfully known as Yan Sandian. This man had skills that could return the dead to life! If she could only beg some of his drugs, what then would there be to worry about? So she ordered Mei to care for her brother, and herself pretending to be a sick old beggar and carrying a cloth bundle on a bamboo stick with a hundred rings she set off for Chengdu. Because of this decision, this old vixen would soon learn many new skills for almost no price at all! And an unlimited number of events would be set into motion. It's really like this:

Now, to see how Imperial Physician Yan uses his medicines and whether or not the young fox is saved, please read on....

End, Chapt 3 Ping Yao Zhuan, Nathan Sturman, translator.

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