One day he was taking a walk in the open country when someone in the woods called him by his name.  Recognizing the fox-woman's voice, he hurried over to greet her, but she would not meet him face to face.  "I cannot face you anymore because I have changed back into a fox."  The scholar demanded to know what had happened.  Sobbing, the fox-woman explained, "It is common practice for a fox trying to achieve immortality to draw vital forces from humans.  Recently a Taoist priest suddenly came out of nowhere and began hunting foxes to provide him with vital forces.  When he caught a fox-woman, he would chant incantations until she became paralyzed and totally at his mercy.  If the fox-woman happened to be accomplished enough to hold back her vital energy, he would have her cooked in a steamer and made into jerky.  I tried to avoid him by hiding in the small gourd, but he got me at last.  Afraid to be thrown into the cooker, I offered him my inner pill of immortality and was spared my life in return.  But the loss of the pill has made me degenerate into a fox, and I will practice for two or three hundred years to regain human form.  The sky and earth will last forever, but there is not telling when we will ever see each other again.  Touched by your devotion, I have waited here to bid you farewell.  Please take care and stop missing me."

The young scholar was indignant.  "Why didn't you sue the Taoist priest to the heavenly gods?"  "Many fox-women did," was the answer.  "The gods argued that since every one of us had gained her vital energy by exploiting men, she was getting what she deserved when she lost it to the Taoist.  I have now realized that ill-gotten gains can only bring one disaster.  From now on I will practice meditation exclusively and never resort to my old ways again."  Some years later a Taoist priest was struck dead by a thunderbolt.  People suspected him to be a fox-hunter who, having committed his full share of crimes, was at last put to death by heaven.  While the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind, a man takes aim at the bird with his catapult.