The best part was always the name. There was a special kind of intimacy to claiming something so tied to a man’s sense of self, of sliding it over my tongue and between my teeth, swallowing it, owning it. In my younger days, it was a kind of addiction, that first crunch of biting into a man’s identity.
Even with Xú Yuánlǎng, his name was the part of his soul that first caught my attention. The way it flowed from my lips like a river over smooth stone, the fluidness with which it washed over my ears. I whispered it to empty bedchambers and into the delicate skin of my less memorable victims. Xú Yuánlǎng. Xú Yuánlǎng. It was foolish. I had plenty of other men to bewitch, men who would be far less trouble to entice, but still, I dreamed of sinking my teeth into Xú Yuánlǎng’s chest and stealing those syllables for myself. I wrote the characters on my arms and legs, over and over, until my body became so tangled with the thought of him that I feared washing away the ink, because in its absence, there would be only pale flesh and chest-numbing loneliness. Soon, the craving defeated all better sense. I had to eat his soul once and for all.
It was during my seven-hundredth summer that I began to reconsider that plan. By that time, I’d already spent months watching him in secret, and I knew him to be different from every other man I’d previously seduced and consumed. The others had been no more than hungry eyes and rough, grabbing hands, but Xú Yuánlǎng’s fingers were thin and fragile as bamboo rods. He spoke softly, even to the villagers who mocked his watercolor paintings, and moved with a gentle grace that some foolishly called weakness. Soon, he was more than just a pretty name. I had never yearned so intensely for something—not for his soul, but him. Some days, I journeyed to market just to watch him glide, ethereal, from one stall to the next, his hand skimming over the skins of persimmons as he passed. I imagined how that hand would feel ghosting over my own body, how he would honor its curves and valleys instead of using me as a tool for his own pleasure, the way so many others had before him.
“Don’t be so naive,” said my older sister. “He will be no different from the rest.”
I scowled. “How can you know that? You have not traveled to the land of mortals for some time. You have not observed him the way I have.”
“And is observation a substitute for conversation? You haven’t spoken one word to him. Can a man not pretend to be one person, only for him to hide another personality behind closed doors?”
“You have always seen the worst in humans.”
“And it is unbecoming for a húli jīng to fall ensnared by her own prey. It would do you well to stay in fox form for a few decades, to allow this man to grow old and die as men tend to do. Better that than discovering the bitter truth, and wasting away from disappointment.”
“He is not what you think. He will be gentler with me than anyone ever has. I am tired of being brutalized in the moments before feeding, of enduring the objectification of lesser men just to fill my growling belly.”
The tip of one of her nine tails flicked in annoyance. “The truly good men hide in the cracks of humble families, the corners of modest villages. They spend their time working.” She smiled wryly. “Not flaunting their watercolor art to those without the money to buy a single drop of paint.”
I said nothing.
“Remember this, sister: Men like Xú Yuánlǎng are meant for eating. Not for loving.”
###
I did not return home to the Celestial Realm until many months after my sister’s warning. I liked to think it was because I was angry at her harsh words, but in actuality, it was because I feared they were right.
Upon landing once more in the Mortal Realm, my intention had been to promptly quash her baseless claims by introducing myself to my beloved once and for all. I just had to find the right time to do it. Like a shadow, I followed him through market crowds and dirt-dusted alleyways, slipped through his window and loomed over his sleeping form in bed. Preparing to seduce him, I stripped off my silk hànfú, remembering how the other men had fallen to their knees when I came to them naked, though I secretly hoped Xú Yuánlǎng’s eyes would settle on my face rather than my body. I memorized every line and groove of his features, trying to build the courage to trace the delicate curve of his jaw with my hand, to wake him and finally hear his honey-voice asking for my name.
But every time my fingers came close to brushing against his porcelain-smooth skin, my sister’s words echoed in my head. What if she was right? By speaking to him, was I shattering a sparkling glass exterior, only to reveal a person far more lackluster than his image? If he was no different from the others… if he, too, thought me worth only what my body could offer him… then was there no mortal who would ever believe me worth something more? At the thought, I nearly shrank back to fox form, my hopes withering.
###
The night the villageman arrived, I was in Xú Yuánlǎng’s bedroom, stuck in my usual state of fearful hesitation. My ears pricked at the soft click of a door unlocking near the front of the house. I inhaled sharply. Xú Yuánlǎng rolled onto his side, sound asleep. Cloaking myself in invisibility, I glided into the vestibule, my heart pounding.
There, standing before the door with a now-broken lock, clutching a knife so tightly his knuckles were white, was a man with an expression as though he’d just eaten rotten plums. I recognized him from the market. He had once begged Xú Yuánlǎng to teach him watercolor technique, but as he had no money to compensate the master for his time, Xú Yuánlǎng turned him away with an unbothered flick of his wrist. Ever since that day, this man had spat on my beloved’s paintings with a vengeful glint in his eye.
My knees shook as he stalked towards the bedroom, his knife curved like the fang of a deadly beast. My sister would surely have told me to flee. Interfering would only lead to trouble, and no man was worth risking my life over. But this was Xú Yuánlǎng. I could not just sit idly while someone carved their revenge into his body.
I allowed my edges to solidify in the physical world. “Who are you? Why have you come here?”
The man’s gaze jumped to me. Alarm registered on his features, though as his eyes traced over the delicate curves of my body, the shock slowly shifted to greed. My skin prickled uncomfortably. He sheathed the knife.
“I am… a friend of Xú Yuánlǎng. And who might you be?”
“His wife,” I lied. “My husband is asleep. He does not take kindly to those who wake him, even his friends. Perhaps visit another time.”
The man’s hand tightened around the hilt of his weapon. My mouth went dry. I knew he would not leave because of my words alone. No, he needed an additional incentive. I sighed, all too aware of the lustful gleam in his eye. Oh, how I hated this part… and this man would be anything but gentle… but it had to be done. For Xú Yuánlǎng.
I exhaled slowly, breathing my aroma into the cramped vestibule. It wafted through the space quickly, an overpowering perfume carrying hints of jasmine and honeysuckle. His pupils dilated. Slack-jawed, he drew towards me, his eyes slipping hungrily over my body. I forced a smile.
The stone floor was ice-cold against my back, and his hands were even rougher than I’d predicted. I tried to imagine Xú Yuánlǎng’s face above me instead of the villageman’s, but that was worse, for it reminded me that this could be exactly how my beloved might act towards me, too. Why, when I thought of the real Xú Yuánlǎng, did he never mirror the version of him in my head, the one whose eyes saw beyond my body and hands moved with gentle admiration? I wished suddenly that I could cleave them into two different men, the Xú Yuánlǎng from real life and the one of whom I dreamed. Perhaps these versions of him were already separate. Perhaps my pain came from the fact that I’d confused the two as one.
The villageman’s soul brightened, its edges taking shape. I nearly cried from relief, ready to leave this whole affair behind me. My teeth plunged into his broad chest, and I chewed fast, barely even noticing the sweet taste of his name sliding over my tongue and down my throat. His muscles went taut, then loose all at once. Dead. Pushing his corpse off me, I rose, wiping the blood from my mouth.
Xú Yuánlǎng stood at the entrance of the vestibule, staring at me.
I dropped my hand instinctively, revealing unintentionally the red staining my lips like decorative paint. When had he awoken? How could I have not noticed his footsteps? I should have crossed my arms over my bare chest, or felt some kind of embarrassment for being discovered while so indecent, instead of while draped appealingly over him in bed. But I felt nothing. I explored his face, curious to finally observe him head-on, only to discover that from this angle, his eyes were the dull brown of overripe walnuts.
He scanned the dead man’s body, then my nakedness, before finally settling his gaze on my scarlet-coated lips. He opened his mouth—to speak, or to scream, I was not sure. Both. Neither. In that moment, we were infinite: him, about to utter a thousand different questions into existence, me, trying in vain to see past every false version of him my mind had invented. It would never be enough. Whoever the Xú Yuánlǎng was who stood before me, he could not compare to the man I’d invented in the past months. Nobody could. That was the price of dreaming.
“Please,” I said, before he could begin. “Don’t speak.”
Breaking his bewildered gaze, I turned, hesitating only briefly before striding out the door and into the pastel beginnings of dawn. In my mind, I imagined my version of Xú Yuánlǎng, the one who treated his lessers with kindness and kissed me softly. This was the man I would keep for myself, untouched by reality.
“Xú Yuánlǎng,” I whispered to myself. It really was the most perfect name.
Behind me, the house blended into the horizon, a watercolor streak across a canvas of pink. I never returned.
