The light touch of my father’s hand against the back of my neck jolted me out of my mesmerized state. He had warned me about the power of the hulijing. My face hot and my heart hammering, I averted my eyes from the demon’s face and focused on her stance.
The merchant’s servants had been patrolling the courtyard every night this week with dogs to keep her away from her victim. But now the courtyard was empty. She stood still, hesitating, suspecting a trap.
“Tsiao-jung! Have you come for me?” The son’s feverish voice grew louder.
The lady turned and walked—no, glided, so smooth were her movements—towards the bedroom door.
Father jumped out from behind the rock and rushed at her with Swallow Tail.
She dodged out of the way as though she had eyes on the back of her head. Unable to stop, my father thrust the sword into the thick wooden door with a dull thunk. He pulled but could not free the weapon immediately.
The lady glanced at him, turned, and headed for the courtyard gate.
“Don’t just stand there, Liang!” Father called. “She’s getting away!”
I ran at her, dragging my clay pot filled with dog piss. It was my job to splash her with it so that she could not transform into her fox form and escape.
She turned to me and smiled. “You’re a very brave boy.” A scent, like jasmine blooming in spring rain, surrounded me. Her voice was like sweet, cold lotus paste, and I wanted to hear her talk forever. The clay pot dangled from my hand, forgotten.
“Now!” Father shouted. He had pulled the sword free.
I bit my lip in frustration. How could I become a demon hunter if I was so easily enticed? I lifted off the cover and emptied the clay pot at her retreating figure, but the insane thought that I shouldn’t dirty her white dress caused my hands to shake, and my aim was wide. Only a small amount of dog piss got onto her.
But it was enough. She howled, and the sound, like a dog’s but so much wilder, caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. She turned and snarled, showing two rows of sharp, white teeth, and I stumbled back.
I had doused her while she was in the midst of her transformation. Her face was thus frozen halfway between a woman’s and a fox’s, with a hairless snout and raised, triangular ears that twitched angrily. Her hands had turned into paws, tipped with sharp claws that she swiped at me.
She could no longer speak, but her eyes conveyed her venomous thoughts without trouble.
Father rushed by me, his sword raised for a killing blow. The hulijing turned around and slammed into the courtyard gate, smashing it open, and disappeared through the broken door.
Father chased after her without even a glance back at me. Ashamed, I followed.
The hulijing was swift of foot, and her silvery tail seemed to leave a glittering trail across the fields. But her incompletely transformed body maintained a human’s posture, incapable of running as fast as she could have on four legs.
Father and I saw her dodging into the abandoned temple about a li outside the village.
“Go around the temple,” Father said, trying to catch his breath. “I will go through the front door. If she tries to flee through the back door, you know what to do.”
The back of the temple was overgrown with weeds and the wall half-collapsed. As I came around, I saw a white flash darting through the rubble.
Determined to redeem myself in my father’s eyes, I swallowed my fear and ran after it without hesitation. After a few quick turns, I had the thing cornered in one of the monks’ cells.
I was about to pour the remaining dog piss on it when I realized that the animal was much smaller than the hulijing we had been chasing. It was a small white fox, about the size of a puppy.
I set the clay pot on the ground and lunged.
The fox squirmed under me. It was surprisingly strong for such a small animal. I struggled to hold it down. As we fought, the fur between my fingers seemed to become as slippery as skin, and the body elongated, expanded, grew. I had to use my whole body to wrestle it to the ground.
Suddenly, I realized that my hands and arms were wrapped around the nude body of a young girl about my age.
I cried out and jumped back. The girl stood up slowly, picked up a silk robe from behind a pile of straw, put it on, and gazed at me haughtily.
A growl came from the main hall some distance away, followed by the sound of a heavy sword crashing into a table. Then another growl, and the sound of my father’s curses.
The girl and I stared at each other. She was even prettier than the opera singer that I couldn’t stop thinking about last year.
“Why are you after us?” she asked. “We did nothing to you.”
“Your mother bewitched the merchant’s son,” I said. “We have to save him.”
“Bewitched? He’s the one who wouldn’t leave her alone.”
I was taken aback. “What are you talking about?”
“One night about a month ago, the merchant’s son stumbled upon my mother, caught in a chicken farmer’s trap. She had to transform into her human form to escape, and as soon as he saw her, he became infatuated.
“She liked her freedom and didn’t want anything to do with him. But once a man has set his heart on a hulijing, she cannot help hearing him no matter how far apart they are. All that moaning and crying he did drove her to distraction, and she had to go see him every night just to keep him quiet.”
This was not what I learned from Father.
“She lures innocent scholars and draws on their life essence to feed her evil magic! Look how sick the merchant’s son is!”
“He’s sick because that useless doctor gave him poison that was supposed to make him forget about my mother. My mother is the one who’s kept him alive with her nightly visits. And stop using the word lure. A man can fall in love with a hulijing just like he can with any human woman.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said the first thing that came to mind. “I just know it’s not the same.”
She smirked. “Not the same? I saw how you looked at me before I put on my robe.”
I blushed. “Brazen demon!” I picked up the clay pot. She remained where she was, a mocking smile on her face. Eventually, I put the pot back down.
The fight in the main hall grew noisier, and suddenly, there was a loud crash, followed by a triumphant shout from Father and a long, piercing scream from the woman.
There was no smirk on the girl’s face now, only rage turning slowly to shock. Her eyes had lost their lively luster; they looked dead.
Another grunt from Father. The scream ended abruptly.
“Liang! Liang! It’s over. Where are you?”
Tears rolled down the girl’s face.
“Search the temple,” my Father’s voice continued. “She may have pups here. We have to kill them too.”
The girl tensed.
“Liang, have you found anything?” The voice was coming closer.
“Nothing,” I said, locking eyes with her. “I didn’t find anything.”
She turned around and silently ran out of the cell. A moment later, I saw a small white fox jump over the broken back wall and disappear into the night.
It was Qingming, the Festival of the Dead. Father and I went to sweep Mother’s grave and to bring her food and drink to comfort her in the afterlife.
“I’d like to stay here for a while,” I said. Father nodded and left for home.
I whispered an apology to my mother, packed up the chicken we had brought for her, and walked the three li to the other side of the hill, to the abandoned temple.