The Fox Wife

Mr. Chen questions Shiro, and Bao grows uncomfortable with how liberally Shiro lies. When the Huang family enters, he takes special notice of the grandmother, who sits in a familiar way like a small animal. He recognizes her as Tagtaa.

When Snow enters the room, he instantly knows that she is the woman in Mr. Wang’s picture, the fox lady from the pleasure district. She introduces herself and declares that she has no relationship with Mr. Chen’s son. The bruises on her neck prove that her last interaction with Chen wasn’t amicable. Though Bao confirms that she’s telling the truth, Mr. Chen incarcerates her again. When the Huang family departs, Bao runs after Tagtaa, introduces himself, and terrifies Bohai.

Snow is imprisoned in a stone room and regrets coming forward. She falls asleep and is later woken by a servant. She steals the keys to her door from the servant and escapes again. She finds Mr. Chen confronting Lu for not telling him about the true relationship between Snow and his son. Lu makes excuses for not saying anything and lies by saying that Bektu wasn’t pressuring him, Bohai, and Chen and that they don’t have revolutionary ambitions. Mr. Chen grumbles about a new visitor meant to arrive that afternoon, a Russian financier who knows Snow, though Snow herself knows no Russian financier.

As Bao and Tagtaa reunite, Bohai is visibly uncomfortable with Bao’s presence. Tagtaa asks for Bao’s help to free Snow, as she believes her to be a good woman. They discuss foxes, how Bao made an offering earlier in the day, and how Tagtaa believes she met the black fox again. As Bohai ushers his grandmother away, Bao asks to call on her the next day. The Huang family leaves, and Bohai’s father announces that his concubine will give birth in the next day or so. Bao congratulates him.

Yuling arrives as her Russian husband’s alleged representative and attempts to retrieve Snow from Mr. Chen as a favor to Shiro. Mr. Chen refuses, and Snow steps into the room to confront him. Snow tries to make a deal with Mr. Chen, offering his heart’s desire in exchange for leaving the Huang family alone. He asks her if she had an intimate relationship with his son and whether there is the possibility of a child. She says no, and Mr. Chen denies that she’s fulfilled his heart’s desire. She asks that he honor their bargain.

Kuro enters. The humans—Lu specifically—are visibly overwhelmed by the influence of the three foxes in the room. When Mr. Chen tries to deny their bargain, Kuro steps in to defend Snow, choking Mr. Chen and claiming her as his wife. Lu knocks over a brasier, and fire soon engulfs the room. Snow, Kuro, and Shiro run away, leaving Yuling, Mr. Chen, and Lu behind. Snow and Shiro manage to escape by climbing the wall, but Kuro is unable to climb out after them. Shiro claims that Kuro will be able to manage on his own. They dash back to Oda’s house, where Shiro asks Snow to forget about Kuro and live her life with him.

In his dreams, Bao sees a white fox that warns him that everything is burning. When he wakes, he sees that the Chens’ mansion is on fire. He goes to the medicine shop and encounters Bohai. They go to the mansion together, and Bohai asks him if he is a person without a shadow. Bao promises that he won’t hurt him, but Bohai ejects himself from their shared rickshaw, stumbling into Kuro on the street. Bohai stabs Bao. When he tries to strike him a second time, Kuro protects him, and Bao believes that he’s met Tagtaa’s black fox.

Shiro announces that he plans to leave Dalian and go to Korea as Mr. Kim. Snow sneaks messages around the room to tell Kuro where she’ll be. She goes to the Huang medicine shop to bid farewell to Tagtaa. Tagtaa tells her about Bao’s return and how her love has been renewed for him after all these years. She asks after Snow’s mysterious husband, and Snow confirms that she fell for Kuro at first sight. She recalls how they were married and how they had to flee Luoyang during the fox purge. Tagtaa guesses that Snow is leaving. Bohai returns, covered in blood, along with Kuro and Bao, both injured.

Bao witnesses Snow reunite with Kuro. He overhears Kuro entreating a sobbing Snow to finish the thousand-year journey without him.

When Bao next wakes, Tagtaa apologizes for Bohai. He asks after Kuro, claiming that he saved him. He grows confused when he tells Tagtaa about meeting the black fox and quickly goes back to sleep.

Kuro recovers quickly from his injury, despite its seriousness. A doctor is brought in to take care of him, but Snow takes charge and explains proper hygiene techniques. Once they are alone, Kuro stops feigning sleep. He confirms that he cannot complete the thousand-year journey since he killed a man, specifically Jiang the hunter, with his own hunting knife. Snow entreats him to get better quickly, as he is meant to go back to Japan and return to Yukiko. Kuro states that he already has a wife.

As Kuro sleeps, Snow finds Bohai. She asks when he started seeing people with no shadows. He mentions that it coincided with his father’s concubine’s pregnancy and with meeting Shiro. Snow finds out that Lu killed Bektu, and Bohai reveals that Bektu had a photograph of him, Lu, and Chen with a banner that called for the end of the imperial family. Snow guesses that Shiro used Bohai’s anxieties about the upcoming birth of his half-sibling and the photograph to manipulate Bohai. She tells Bohai to live a proper life and visits Bao’s room.

When Bao wakes, he sees Snow. She tells him that Kuro will live, and Bao confirms that she is indeed the fox lady whom Mr. Wang has been searching for. He tells her that he will inform Mr. Wang that she has departed for Japan so that he will leave her alone, and he will have honored his promise to the girl at the pleasure house.

Snow offers to answer one question. Bao opts to ask what happened to his shadow. She assesses that he has excess yang in his body after someone removed too much yin—thus resulting in his lack of shadow. The excess yang is leaking from his mouth and ears, which is likely why he can hear lies. She leaves him, as she is not skilled enough to redress the balance in his body. For some reason, Bao is happy to have met her.

When Snow returns to Kuro’s side, she finds him feverish and clammy. She retrieves the two geese she’d initially traded with Mrs. Huang and feeds one to Kuro. They discuss Bao’s unstable energies; Kuro believes that Bao is half dead because he likely almost died during his childhood. Kuro resolves to use the life force of the second goose to help Bao. He consumes it and heads to his room, while Snow is left troubled by their renewed intimacy after two years of separation.

When Bao wakes, he believes that he sees a demon. Kuro stands over him, his face still bloody from eating the goose. Kuro takes on his fox form and puts his face on Bao’s to transfer the life force.

The next morning, Bao wakes to find that the pain in his lung has faded and that his wound has stopped bleeding. Bao finds Tagtaa outside by an elm tree, and she comments on how well he looks. She confirms that Bohai’s father’s concubine gave birth to a daughter and that Bohai has left for a private sanatorium to recover his mental health. She apologizes again for his behavior and worries that he may attack Bao again if he sees him. Bao, however, lifts his hand in the sun to prove that his shadow is darker than before. Tagtaa hopes that Bohai may recover if he sees Bao’s shadow. Bao does not correct her.

As Bohai is about to leave for the sanatorium, Snow is dispatched on an errand. She has a sudden sense that Kuro will disappear. When she returns, Shiro announces that he was poisoned by Yuling. He fears that it might be gu poison, though he suspects arsenic. Kuro is nowhere to be found, confirming Snow’s fear, and she dashes out to find Yuling at Oda’s. Yuling confronts Snow about her relationship with Shiro. Snow denies any affection for him and openly claims that she is married to Kuro. She persuades Yuling to come with her and enlists Bao to verify whether Yuling did, in fact, use gu poison on Shiro. Yuling eventually reveals that it wasn’t poison at all but rice flour.

Bao watches the confrontation between Yuling and Shiro, grasping the limits of a fox’s power. Tagtaa returns from searching for a doctor for Shiro, with Kuro in tow. Though uncomfortable, Bao tries to meet Kuro’s gaze, but Kuro has eyes only for Snow. Kuro announces that they must depart, and he and Snow say their goodbyes. Snow tells Bao to question Lu about Chen’s death before she leaves. Bao witnesses Yuling trapping Shiro, and they, too, depart from the medicine shop.

Two weeks later, Bao is still recovering and thinks of how he is now the same age that his father was when he died. He recalls visiting him before his death and how his father had told him that he always believed in his talent and thought it wasteful that he never used it. Later, Bao tells Tagtaa that he is returning to Mukden but promises to be back soon.

That autumn, Aisin Gioro Puyi is installed as the last Qing emperor. Kuro and Snow are sitting on a wall by what was previously the Goryeo kingdom. Snow remembers how, on the day their child died, she had gone to see her grandmother and Kuro had gone to hunt, leaving their daughter covered in the den as their parents had done with them. Snow realizes that both she and Kuro are at fault for what happened to their deceased child and learns to forgive Kuro. She asks him about the book he wrote, and he tells her that it is full of ghost stories, ones she realizes all feature a missing wife or child. They discuss Shiro’s fate and how Kuro knew of his affection for Snow. He says that if she had chosen to partner with Shiro, he would have wished for her happiness.

They agree to begin anew on the thousand-year journey and move to Korea as the herbalists Mr. and Mrs. Park. Snow bids farewell to the reader of her diary. She says that she will bury the diary and advises readers to make offerings to foxes if they wish for a visit one summer evening.