Zhou Hu, a servant in the Zhou household of Xian County, lived with
a fox-woman like a happily married couple for over twenty years. The fox-woman
once told him, “I have practiced the art of immortality for more than four
hundred years. I was indebted to you in my past life and must pay you back
during this lifetime. Unless the debt is completely cleared, I won’t be
able to go to heaven. Once the time allotted to us is used up, I will have
to leave.” One day she looked unusually happy, then shed tears sadly. “The
nineteenth of this month will be our parting day,” she told Zhou. “I have
found you a wife. You can settle the marriage by sending her family some
money.” She gave him a few pieces of silver to buy a betrothal gift. After
that she became unusually amorous toward him and spent every minute of
the day and night in his company.
On the morning of the fifteenth the fox-woman got up to bid
Zhou Hu good-bye. Surprised, he asked her why she should leaved before
schedule. Tearfully, she explained, “The number of days we can spend together
is fixed, impossible for me to add or detract, but when they shall be spent
is somewhat flexible. By saving three days I make the chance for us to
meet again.”
A few years later she actually returned to spend three days
with him in a happy reunion. When she took leave this time, her voice was
choked with tears, “So long forever!”
“This fox-woman conducted herself with room to spare,” someone
commented. “Such appreciation of one’s good fortune is to be emulated.”
Another disagreed: “After the three-day reunion the fox woman still had
to leave, so what was the point of delaying the inevitable? After four
hundred years’ practice for immortality, she still found it hard to cut
her tie with the mundane world. It won’t do one any good to follow her
example.”
It seems neither of these comments are incorrect, as each of
them has made a good point. |
