The Fox Wife

Ah Yan tells Bao that Jiang died during a hunting trip, killed by his own hunting knife. Since nothing was stolen, bandits were ruled out. Ah Yan believes that she might have caused his death by telling the strange woman about him. Bao reassures her and asks for her sister’s name, which she confirms is Feng. Bao journeys home, and as he thinks about the meaning of the girls’ names, he is reminded of Tagtaa. He had romantic feelings for her when they were children. He remembers when she prayed at their makeshift fox altar for a good partner in the arranged marriage that her parents were planning for her.

When Snow prompts him, Shiro explains how he and the other men know Bektu, as he used to do freelance work for Oda’s photography studio. Shiro tries to cajole Snow into staying the night with him, but they are interrupted by Bohai. Snow hides and overhears Bohai anxiously tell Shiro that he’s seen a man without a shadow. Shiro convinces him to go hunting for the man and says that he has a detective in mind to investigate people without shadows.

As they leave, Snow uses the opportunity to escape. Bohai returns, somewhat drunk, before she can. He confronts her, demanding to know her real identity. She tells him that she is, in fact, the investigator Shiro mentioned. Convinced, Bohai allows her to escort him back to his room. Snow ponders over the Huang family's alleged curse. They arrive in Moji and are greeted by another fox, Kuro.

Bao dreams of being in a winter forest. He fears that he’ll find Jiang, the dead hunter, or a wooden box with the tiny fox. The next day, he informs Gu of Chunhua’s real name. He feels unsatisfied with the results of his investigation since he still does not know why Feng died. At home, he receives a letter from Mr. Wang, who wishes to hire him. Bao reflects on how he’s failed to meet up to his mother’s high standards. He recalls a meeting with his older brother, who worried for him and had been a comparatively exemplary son. He remembers Tagtaa speaking of how her mother hadn’t bound her feet in order to marry her to one of her kinsmen in Inner Mongolia. Instead of offering to marry her, he remained silent. He believed that nothing could change reality; she was too far below his station for them to marry.

Snow is upset to see Kuro, whom Shiro presents to everyone as Kurosaki. She is shocked to see that his face is scarred—a fatal trait for foxes who wish to remain elusive. They travel to his home, the house of his mentor, and settle in. As Tagtaa readies herself for sleep, Snow tells her a story about the grasslands. Tagtaa tells her of her failed arranged marriage proposal in Inner Mongolia and how the man she was meant to marry had been needlessly cruel. She tells her of the friend she’d had as a child whom she had once loved and the man who had saved her as an even younger child in the grasslands. After Tagtaa goes to sleep for the night, Snow climbs the garden wall and leaves to meet with Chen.

Bao meets Mr. Wang, who insists that his wife-to-be—the woman whom Bao knows escaped from her locked room a month prior—is possessed by a fox. Mr. Wang wants Bao to find her and provides him with a rare photograph by Bektu Nikan. Bao notes how unwell Mr. Wang seems, almost as if he is in withdrawal from using an addictive substance. He asks if Mr. Wang knows of Chunhua, but Mr. Wang denies it. Mr. Wang does mention a group of rich men’s sons who were at his party.

Bao puzzles over the interview as he returns to Mukden and recalls a time when he had to investigate a so-called fox medium. He had felt watched in the medium’s sanctuary. While he detected some lies—for instance, she wasn’t, in fact, possessed by a fox—she’d told him the truth that he would see Tagtaa again one day. Once home, he feels bitter. He seems to have spent his whole life searching for a similar experience to Tagtaa’s with the black fox.

Snow finds Chen by the front gate. He asks her if the reason she refused his offer to look after his aunt was because she was Shiro’s investigator. Snow realizes that his aunt is Mr. Wang’s first wife. As they talk, Chen reveals how they met Bektu and how he regrets the meeting. When Snow asks for details, he invites her back to his room; she insists that they continue discussing behind a bush.

Chen insinuates that she’s offering sexual relations. However, Snow is planning to tie him up and extract information. Kuro appears, and Chen flees to his room. The next day, Shiro ropes in Snow for a visit to a wealthy investor. He makes her wear a traditional kimono to pass her off as his cousin. As the housekeeper helps her dress, Snow asks about Kuro and discovers that he’s working as a novelist and has published a highly praised book of ghost stories.

Bao recalls how he became a detective after failing the imperial exams. Tagtaa had left for Inner Mongolia when she turned 14. Causing a great scene, Bao ran after Tagtaa’s cart and only managed to see her waving at him in her pink blouse. Over the years, Bao had looked for her, but he did not know her formal Chinese name. From then on, he was attracted to women wearing pink. This is how he came to accept his arranged marriage to his wife; the woman the matchmaker chose was wearing a pink blouse when he saw her from afar, and he simply agreed to marry her. When she lay dying, his wife tried to arrange a concubine for him, but Bao promised not to fall in love with another woman.

In the present, Bao wonders if Mr. Wang’s obsession with his escaped wife-to-be can be equated with his own search for Tagtaa. He resolves to look further into Bektu Nikan since Mr. Wang’s wife-to-be asked after him.

Snow, Shiro, Bohai, and Chen leave to meet with Takeda, an investor. Alone in the rickshaw with Shiro, Snow asks about Shiro’s true intentions. Shiro reveals that he is duping Bohai and Chen into thinking that the funds they are accruing are for their revolution when, in fact, he plans to keep the money for himself. Shiro asks why Snow wants revenge against Bektu, but she tells him nothing.

Snow recalls arriving in Wu Village and meeting a young girl who’d told her how her child came to die because of Bektu. After burying her child, she searched from village to village for information on him, only to be told that he’d died. A year later, she happened to overhear how he was still alive and set off to Mukden to find him.

At Takeda’s mansion, Shiro tells Snow to keep Takeda occupied and in good humor. Snow does so by impressing him with her eating ability. She asks him questions about an incident he’d witnessed at Mr. Wang’s villa involving Bektu and a student who’d caused a commotion. Snow asks that he send her a detailed explanation of the incident at Kuro’s house.

Bao tries to organize his notes on the fox lady, Bektu Nikan, and the likelihood that the fox lady is Mr. Wang’s escaped wife-to-be. He recalls a case where a client had inherited a house from a distant uncle in which a tapping noise could always be heard. Having opened the wall, they found a room behind it with a desiccated corpse. Bao later found out through an old bricklayer that the former owner had locked up his third wife for adultery and most likely bricked her prison cell.

Bao uses the picture of Mr. Wang’s wife-to-be to ask if people have seen her. He discovers that she’d asked a rickshaw driver to bring her to the pleasure district—where he knows Bektu had lodgings nearby.

Snow takes the rickshaw back to Kuro’s with Chen instead of Shiro. She questions him about their plans for Takeda’s investment in a sugar factory and then asks for the details of his encounter with Bektu and why he regrets meeting him. Chen explains that Bektu took a photograph of their group, allegedly commemorating their friendship. At the house, Snow finds Tagtaa with Kuro discussing the differences between hujing (fox spirits) and huxian (fox transcendentals). She tells him about the time she was saved by a black fox as a child and how he reminds her of the man who saved her. She asks about the wound on his eye, and he explains how he received it from an incident with a hunting knife.

When their discussion comes to an end, Snow tries to leave before being discovered, but Shiro captures her. He admonishes her for her persistent interest in Kuro and then bites her on the neck. Snow runs away, only dimly remembering that he mentioned having news that she would want to hear.

Bao arrives at Bektu’s last known lodgings in the pleasure district, but the house is shuttered. A woman on the street tells him that Bektu left a month prior. An elegant-looking man had come to visit two days before his departure, which coincided with the disappearance of the pork butcher’s wife. Though the wife did not die, she lives listlessly.

Bao recalls how he once tried to give Tagtaa a clipping of his mother’s beloved plum tree, only to miss and carve out a jagged twig instead. Tagtaa insisted that he give it to his mother and ask for forgiveness for damaging her tree.

In the present, Bao goes to interrogate the cook at the pleasure house from which Mr. Wang’s wife-to-be came, knowing that servants are typically more willing to part with information. A little girl comes out of the pleasure house and brings him to the cook. The cook doesn’t recognize the woman in Mr. Wang’s photo, but the young girl does. She calls her the “fox lady.”

Snow is furious at the bitemark on her neck. Tagtaa returns to her room and tells Snow how speaking with Kuro feels like speaking with a god. She believes that the man who saved her as a child might have been Kuro’s grandfather. Snow knows that Kuro has a soft spot for children, and he is likely the fox who helped her 60 years ago.

Tagtaa tells her the rest of her story about her failed arranged marriage. When she returned home, Bao was already gone, and she married the owner of the medicine shop as his fourth wife. Since she was then only 17, she quickly befriended her nine-year-old stepson. She learned of the curse and grew frightened of becoming pregnant, as her stepson would die if she gave birth to a son. She hoped for a girl even if it meant that the child would die too, as the family already had a daughter through another wife.

After giving birth to a son—Bohai’s father—Tagtaa was confined to a room for a month, per tradition. Her stepson came to visit and promised to make a toy for the baby. While reaching for the bamboo needed for the toy, the boy fell from a bridge and died. Bohai is now the one in a precarious position: His father is expecting another child from his concubine, and as the firstborn son, he may die if the child is a boy.

Tagtaa and Snow go for a walk and get lost in the forest. When a wispy light approaches, Snow grows suspicious.

Bao bargains with the little girl for more information. After he pays her, she tells him that the fox lady arrived without a pimp and asked to see the pleasure house owner of her own volition. She was sent to Mr. Wang’s villa, and Mr. Wang contacted the pleasure house to buy her contract—only for the woman to run away. The girl saw the woman a second time when she came to return the clothes she’d borrowed from the house. The girl had questioned the woman about why she left Mr. Wang since he was rich. The woman admitted to having been married before and warned the girl not to follow handsome men. After eating a final, gorging meal, the woman departed for Dalian. The girl worries about the fox lady. She asks Bao to let her go if he ever finds her. Bao returns home, puzzled as to the nature of the fox lady.