The Fox Girl Who Laughed at Everything / 婴宁

A lovesick scholar, a girl in a mountain valley who laughed at her own wedding, and the secret she finally cried out one night

From Liaozhai Zhiyi (聊斋志异 · Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio), Volume II

By Pu Songling (蒲松龄, 1640–1715) · Translated with annotations

[Hook] A young scholar fell in love with a girl at a festival because she dropped a flower and laughed that his eyes were "shining like a thief's." Months later, half-dead from longing, he found her in a remote mountain valley where she lived with an old woman and laughed at everything — sermons, scoldings, intimacy, even her own wedding. He married her anyway. Then one day, after one of her laughs caused a man to die, she stopped laughing forever — and told her husband she had been raised by a dead woman in the mountains.

The Story

The Festival

Wang Zifu (王子服, a fourteen-year-old prodigy from Luodian Village in Ju County) had passed the county-level civil exam at fourteen — early enough that his mother, a widow, still wouldn't let him wander into the open countryside alone. He had been betrothed once, to a Xiao girl, but she died before the wedding, so at sixteen he was still single and slightly sheltered.

On the Lantern Festival (上元 — the fifteenth night of the lunar new year, when young women were allowed out to walk under the lanterns, one of the very few times a year men got to look at unrelated women in public), his cousin Wu invited him out. They were barely past the village gate when a servant came to call Wu home. Wang stayed.

Then he saw her.

A young woman walking with her maid, a sprig of plum blossom held up between her fingers, smile so wide and open it looked like she had never been told to compose her face. Wang stared. He forgot, completely, that staring at unrelated women was the kind of thing that ruined a boy's reputation. She walked a few paces past him, glanced back at her maid, and said — loud enough for him to hear — "That boy's eyes are shining like a thief's."

She dropped the plum blossom on the ground and walked off, still laughing.

Wang picked up the flower. He went home with it. He hid it under his pillow. He stopped eating and stopped talking. Within days he was visibly wasting — what his mother and the local doctor took for a sudden severe illness. Talismans went up. Prescriptions came in. Nothing worked.

His cousin Wu came to visit, and Wang — fever-faded, half-delirious — confessed: it was a girl. From the festival. He couldn't think of anything else.

Wu laughed. "That's all? Why didn't you say so? If she's not engaged we'll go and ask. If she is, we'll throw enough silver at it to fix it. Just get well — leave it to me."

Wang's appetite came back the next day.

A few days later Wu returned and lied. He told Wang he had found her — that she was actually a cousin on the maternal side, a Mr. Qin's daughter, living in the mountains thirty li (about ten miles) southwest. "Yes, technically she's a close relative, but families do work around that. Don't worry."

Wang's face lit up. His mother and the doctor were delighted with the recovery. Wu went home — and never came back. He had made the whole thing up to buy time.

Wang, of course, didn't know that.

Walking into the Mountains

After several days of waiting, Wang gave up on Wu, put the plum blossom in his sleeve, and set out alone. South. Into the hills.

He didn't tell anyone he was going.

About thirty li in, the valleys folded in on themselves, the air turned green and cool, and the path narrowed to a footpath through the trees. No people. Only birds. Then, at the bottom of a small valley, he saw a cluster of thatched cottages — modest but elegant — and the northernmost one had green willows out front, peach and apricot blossoms behind the wall, bamboo running down one side, wild birds calling in the grove.

He didn't dare walk in. He sat on a flat stone across the lane and waited.

After a while, a young woman's voice from behind the wall — high and bright — called, "Xiao Rong!" (a maid's name). Wang sat up. A moment later a girl walked out of the eastern side of the courtyard, an apricot blossom in her hand, head bent as she fixed it into her hair. She looked up and saw him. She stopped fixing the flower, held it in her teeth, and walked back inside still laughing.

It was her. The girl from the lantern festival.

Wang sat on the stone all day. From dawn to dusk. He kept seeing her face peek around the wall — surprised, apparently, that he was still there. He couldn't think of an excuse to knock. He didn't know her family name. He sat there.

Finally an old woman came out with a cane. "Young man — what are you doing here? You've been there since dawn. Are you hungry?"

Wang scrambled up and bowed. "I'm here to visit a relative."

The old woman was a little deaf and didn't catch it. Wang said it again, louder.

"What's your relative's surname?"

Wang couldn't answer.

The old woman laughed. "Astonishing. You don't even know the name of the person you're visiting. I can see you're one of those bookish boys. Come in, eat something coarse with us. We have a spare cot. Tomorrow morning you can go home, find out the surname, and come back. No shame in it."

Wang followed her in. Inside the courtyard: white stone path, fallen red blossoms on the steps, a bean trellis covering the yard, walls polished like mirrors. They sat down. The old woman asked for his family background.

Then she asked, "Is your maternal grandfather's surname Wu?"

"Yes."

She gasped. "Then you're my nephew. Your mother is my younger sister. We lost touch years ago — I was poor, no sons, and the letters stopped. I had no idea you had grown up like this."

Wang couldn't help it — he asked her surname.

"Qin (秦). I never had children of my own. There's just one girl in this house — a daughter from another family I took in after her mother remarried. Sweet thing, but I never disciplined her. She doesn't know what worry means. She'll come out and meet you."

Yingning

A maid brought rice. The old woman ate, then called: "Bring Ning over."

From the next room, smothered laughter.

"Yingning (婴宁) — your cousin Wang is here."

The laughter outside the door got worse. The maid finally shoved her in. Yingning came through the door with her hand over her mouth, shaking with it. The old woman glared. "There's a guest. What are you doing?"

Yingning straightened her face. Wang bowed. The old woman said, "This is your cousin Wang. You two have never met. It's almost funny."

Yingning laughed again.

Wang, trying to be polite, asked her age. The old woman didn't hear it. Wang repeated himself. Yingning laughed so hard she couldn't look up.

"You see what I mean about no discipline," the old woman said. "She's sixteen. The mind of a small child."

Wang said, "I'm a year older."

The old woman fished a little. "Seventeen? Born under the Horse?"

"Yes."

"Married?"

"No."

"A boy your age, your looks — and no wife yet? Yingning has no fiancé either. Pity you two are technically cousins."

Wang said nothing and stared at Yingning. He couldn't take his eyes off her.

The maid leaned over and whispered to Yingning, "His eyes are still shining like a thief's. He hasn't changed."

Yingning laughed even harder, told the maid "Let's go check if the peach trees are open," covered her mouth, and walked out with small mincing steps. As soon as she was past the door, the laughter cracked open.

That night the old woman insisted Wang stay several days.

The Garden, the Tree, the Proposal

The next morning Wang wandered into the small garden behind the house. He heard something rustling overhead. He looked up. Yingning was sitting in a tree.

She saw him and laughed so hard she nearly fell out.

"Stop — you'll fall," he said.

She laughed harder. Then she actually did fall — landed on him as he caught her. He took her wrist, secretly, and squeezed it. She laughed again, leaning against the tree.

When she finally calmed down, he pulled the plum blossom from his sleeve and showed her.

"It's dry," she said. "Why keep it?"

"It's the one you dropped at the festival. I kept it because of that."

"Why?"

"Because I love you and could not forget."

She tilted her head. "That's a tiny thing. Family! What do you need to be stingy about? When you leave I'll have the old gardener bring you a whole armful of flowers — a huge bundle. He can carry them home for you."

"Are you joking?"

"How am I joking?"

"It isn't the flower I love. It's the person holding it."

"Well — we're family. Love is taken for granted. Why mention it?"

"I don't mean a family kind of love. I mean the kind between a husband and wife."

"Is there a difference?"

"They sleep together at night, on the same pillow."

She thought about that for a long time. Then she said, very seriously, "I'm not used to sleeping with people I don't know."

The maid arrived. Wang panicked and fled.

A few minutes later, at the old woman's table, the old woman asked Yingning where she had been. Yingning said, "In the garden, talking."

"Talking about what for so long?"

"Big cousin Wang wants me to sleep with him."

Wang nearly choked on his rice and shot her a desperate look across the table. She giggled and stopped. Mercifully, the old woman was hard of hearing and didn't catch it, but kept prodding. Wang covered with some unrelated answer and, when the old woman wasn't looking, hissed at Yingning, "You can't say things like that!"

She frowned. "Was it not the right thing to say?"

"It's something you say in private."

"In private from other people, sure. But not from my own mother. And sleeping together is a normal thing — why hide it?"

He gave up. He realized she genuinely didn't know.

Bringing Her Home

That afternoon Wang's family servants finally tracked him down. (Wang's mother had been frantic; she had eventually questioned Wu, who confessed his lie and pointed her southwest. After hunting through several villages they had found him.)

Wang told the old woman his mother had been worried. He asked if Yingning could come home with him.

The old woman, surprisingly, brightened. "I've wanted to send her for a long time. But I'm too old to travel. If you can take her to meet your aunt — wonderful. Let her stay there. Teach her some poetry. Teach her to serve a mother-in-law. Then your aunt can find her a good husband."

Yingning was called. She came in laughing.

"What is so funny that you can't stop?" the old woman said. "If you weren't always laughing you'd be a perfect girl." She tried to put on a stern face. "Your cousin is taking you with him. Go and pack."

The old woman fed the servants. She walked them out. When they reached the bend in the mountain pass, Wang looked back. The old woman was still standing at the door, watching them go.

At home, Wang's mother stared at the beautiful girl on her doorstep. "Who is this?"

"My aunt's daughter," Wang said.

"What aunt? I don't have an older sister. I never have."

Wang's mother asked Yingning directly. Yingning said calmly: "I wasn't born to her. My father's name was Qin. He died when I was an infant. I don't remember him."

Wang's mother said, "I did have a sister who married a Qin — but she died years ago. How can her daughter still exist?" She asked detailed questions about the woman's face — a mole here, a scar there. Every answer matched. She was bewildered. "It really is her — but she has been dead for years. How is this possible?"

Then Wang's cousin Wu walked in. Yingning slipped into the next room. Wu listened to the story and went quiet for a long time. Finally he said, "Is this girl's name Yingning?"

"Yes."

"Then I know." Wu turned to Wang's mother. "After Auntie Qin died, your sister's husband lived alone. A fox haunted him. He wasted away and died from it. The fox had a daughter named Yingning. She was a baby in swaddling clothes — the household all saw her. After your brother-in-law died, the fox still visited the empty house from time to time. Eventually a Daoist priest pasted a talisman on the wall, and the fox took the child and left. This must be her."

Wang's mother put her hand on her chest. From the next room came peals of laughter — Yingning had heard everything and was not at all upset.

"That girl is too innocent," Wang's mother muttered. Then, quietly, to Wu: "Could she be a ghost?"

Wu took a few servants and rode back to the mountain valley. They found the spot — but there were no cottages. No house. Only wild mountain flowers, swaying in the wind. The grave of Wang's mother's older sister was supposed to be nearby, but the markers had eroded away. They couldn't find it. Wu came back, shaking.

Wang's mother questioned Yingning gently. Yingning was untroubled. She didn't seem to care that her foster mother and her home had apparently vanished. She just laughed her usual laugh.

Wang's mother decided to test her. On a bright day, she watched the girl's shadow. It was a perfectly normal shadow — same length, same shape, no abnormality. (A ghost casts no shadow; foxes cast strange ones.) So not a ghost.

They held the wedding. On the wedding day, Yingning laughed so hard she couldn't bow at any of the ritual stations. They had to stop the formal ceremony. After the wedding, Wang worried she would blurt out marital intimacies in public, but she turned out to be quietly discreet about anything bedroom-related — the one thing she would not laugh about openly. Whenever Wang's mother was angry or worried, one laugh from Yingning would dissolve it. When maids made mistakes and feared a beating, they begged Yingning to ask Wang's mother into a conversation. Yingning would walk over, the maids would come confess — and they would always be forgiven.

She loved flowers. Within months, every wall, every step, every corner of the courtyard had a different flower planted in it. She sold her hairpins to buy rare seeds.

She was happy. The household was happy.

The Neighbor's Son

There was a wooden climbing trellis behind the house, heavy with muxiang roses, leaning over the wall into the next family's garden. Yingning climbed it constantly, picking flowers to put in her hair. Wang's mother scolded her, but she didn't stop.

One day the neighbor's son saw her up on the trellis, leaning over their wall. He froze. He stared. He was old enough to know what he was looking at and was instantly fixed on it.

Yingning didn't hide. She laughed at him.

The neighbor's son took the laugh as encouragement.

She gestured at the base of the wall — pointed, smiled, climbed down. Meet me there, he thought. She just told me where.

That night, he sneaked over. She was there. He grabbed her in the dark.

The instant he touched her, something deep inside her ripped at him like a thorn driving through his groin. He screamed. He fell.

A neighbor brought a lantern. What he was clutching wasn't a girl. It was an old hollow log lying against the foot of the wall. Inside the hollow was an enormous scorpion the size of a small crab. The neighbor's son had stuck himself onto it.

The neighbor sued. He accused Wang's family — and Yingning specifically — of witchcraft. The magistrate, however, knew Wang and respected him. He read the complaint, dismissed it as malicious, and would have caned the old neighbor for filing a false suit. Wang asked him to drop it. They went home.

Then Wang's mother spoke to Yingning. She didn't shout. She said quietly, "This is what foolishness costs. I warned you. You laugh at everything. If the magistrate had been the wrong kind of man, our women would have been hauled into court for cross-examination. How could my son walk down the street?"

Yingning's face went very still. She vowed she would never laugh again.

And she didn't.

Not when Wang's mother teased her. Not when the maids tried to make her smile. Not at festivals. Not at her own son later, when he was born. Whatever was in her that used to laugh had been switched off the night the scorpion killed the neighbor's son. She didn't look sad either. She just stopped.

The Ghost Mother

One night, in their room, Yingning began to cry.

Wang was alarmed. He had not seen her shed a single tear since he'd met her. He asked what was wrong.

She choked it out, slowly. "I haven't been with you long enough to risk telling you this. I was afraid of what you would think. But your mother is kind, and you are kind, and I think now it is safe to say.

"I am a fox's daughter. My real mother was a fox. When she had to leave, she gave me to a ghost — the woman you knew as the old auntie — to raise. The ghost raised me for more than ten years in the mountains. She gave me everything I had until the day I came down to you.

"I have no brothers. No one. There is only you.

"My ghost mother is buried alone in the mountains, no one to mourn her, no one to bring her to her husband's grave. Every night, she is wretched in the dark. If you could go and bring her bones down — and bury her with my father — then she could rest. The mothers of unwanted girls in this world would have one less reason to drown them in basins."

Wang said yes immediately. But he worried — the markers were gone, the cottages had vanished, how would they find the body?

Yingning said, "Don't worry. I'll show you."

They went the next day with a coffin in a wagon. Yingning walked through the wild grass and the tangled trees, pointed at one specific place, and said, "There." They dug. The body of the old woman was inside — still intact, skin still on the bone, the way ghost-things often are when they are kept by other ghost-things. Yingning bent over the body and wept for a long time. They brought it home in the coffin and buried it next to the Qin family grave, the husband she had never seen since the world declared her dead.

That night Wang dreamed the old woman came to him, bowed, and thanked him. He woke and told Yingning. She said, "I saw her too. I told her not to wake you."

Wang said: "Why didn't you ask her to stay?"

Yingning said, "She's a ghost. There are too many living people in this house. The yang is too strong. A ghost can't linger here long."

He asked about Xiao Rong, the maid.

"She's a fox too. The cleverest one. My fox-mother left her to look after me. She brought me food. I was grateful. I asked her once and Mother said she had been married off."

After that, every Hanshi Festival (寒食 — the spring grave-sweeping day), Wang and Yingning went together to the Qin grave to mourn. The next year Yingning gave birth to a son. The boy was unafraid of strangers and would laugh into the face of anyone who picked him up.

He had his mother's laugh. He had it before she lost hers.

The Historian of the Strange Remarks

异史氏曰：

Watching her giggling away, you would think she had no heart and no mind. Then look at the trick under the wall — who could be sharper? And when she finally turned, in grief and longing, for her ghost mother, the laughter folded into weeping. My Yingning, I think, was hiding inside her laughter all along.

I have heard there is a herb on the mountains called xiaoyihu — "laugh-already-then-what" — and anyone who smells it cannot stop laughing. If a man could plant one in his bedroom, it would put the hehuan flower (the silk tree, which is said to dissolve grief) to shame; it would humble all the "understanding flowers" of the old poems too — those women whose laughter is performed, who only mimic feeling. Yingning's was the real thing.

Translator's Reflection

Pu Songling wrote about a hundred fox girls in Liaozhai. Most of them are dangerous. They drain men, or seduce scholars, or take revenge on bad husbands. Yingning is the strange one. She doesn't seduce anybody. She doesn't drain anybody. She doesn't even know what seducing is. She just laughs.

What got me on the second reading is that Pu Songling sets up Yingning's laughter as the opposite of everything proper Confucian girlhood is supposed to be — silent, demure, eyes down, no opinions, no jokes — and then, in one paragraph, he kills the laughter forever. A neighbor's son sees her up on a wall, his desire snaps something open, she "laughs" him into a corner, and he dies on a scorpion. After that one scolding from her mother-in-law, Yingning never laughs again. She doesn't argue. She doesn't cry. She just stops. She becomes the proper Qing dynasty daughter-in-law everyone wanted. And the story tells you, in a sentence and a half, that something has died.

I had to sit with that for a while. Pu Songling doesn't moralize about it. He doesn't say what a shame, what was lost. He just lets it happen and moves on. Most of the older translations I've seen treat the scorpion scene as the climax — wild fox girl punishes a sexual predator, justice served, comedy ending. I don't think that's what's happening. The scorpion is a fox-spirit defense reflex. The girl herself doesn't know it's there until it's done. And the cost of finding out is that she has to become small enough to fit into a human household.

The bit that wrecked me on a third reading is the very last line. Pu Songling slips in a sentence at the end that says: Yingning gave birth to a son. The boy laughed in the face of strangers. He had a great deal of his mother in him. The mother who has not laughed in a year. The mother whose laughter had to be killed. And here it is again, in a baby that doesn't know yet what laughter costs.

Pu Songling closes with his usual "the Historian of the Strange remarks" coda, comparing Yingning to a mythical herb called xiaoyihu (笑矣乎 — "laugh-already-then-what") that makes anyone who smells it unable to stop laughing. He suggests planting it in the bedroom. That a man could marry the laughter itself, and forget all his worries. I read that as half a joke. The other half is grief — the kind of grief that doesn't even get to be sad out loud.

Next tale: a Tang dynasty scholar carries a letter for a dragon princess into the bottom of a lake — and the uncle who reads the letter goes to war. → [Coming soon]