Perhaps you know this story: Late one evening, a beautiful woman comes knocking on an unsuspecting scholar’s door.

“Who is it?” the young man asks, peering out into the neglected garden where flowers and shrubs bend into strange shapes in the moonlight.

“Let me in.” She has a bewitching smile and a jar of his favorite rice wine.

And he does, hesitant at first because he’s supposed to be studying for the Imperial examinations. Why is she alone outside this remote country villa, and why do her eyes gleam strangely in the rain-wet darkness? But he tells himself it’s all right; she’s likely a prostitute sent by his friends as a joke. They drink the wine, one thing leads to another, and despite her blushes and his untouched pile of books, he has one of the most enjoyable evenings he can recall.

Except he can’t really remember it. The details are misted in lamplight and laughter. But he must see her again; he seizes her hands (such long-fingered, sharp-nailed hands) and won’t let her go.

“My home is over there,” she says, pointing at a curious little hill. “If you follow the road, it’s the fourth house from the top.”

The next night, he sets out after his old servant has gone to bed. If he paid attention, he’d see that the road peters out until it’s barely a trail through overgrown grass, but he doesn’t notice, so besotted is he. There are many curious houses along the way, all with darkened windows like empty sockets. Fine mansions, little hovels. Each with the name of a family prominently written on its lintel. The fourth house from the top of the hill is an imposing mansion; the name on its gate is Hu.*

Again and again he visits her, neglecting his studies while a pile of unopened letters accumulates from his angry parents. His skin shrivels like a withered leaf, his tonsils swell, and his spine curves. Finally, the worried old servant brings in a monk to exorcize evil spirits. When the spell is broken, the scholar howls and weeps in humiliated fury, tearing his clothes with trembling hands. A raiding party is made up of local peasants who swear there are no houses or grand estates on that crooked little hill. Only a long-abandoned graveyard. The fourth grave from the top is constructed, as Chinese graves are, like a little house half sunk into the hill. Using hoes and spades, they break into it to discover that it has become a fox’s den.

*Fox.