The king of T'o Huan was so excited at this news that he decided to go himself to find the maiden who could wear the slipper.
Shih Chieh hid when she heard that the king was coming, but, when he demanded to see her, she appeared dressed in the same gown of azure blue that she had worn at the festival, and wearing one golden slipper. She looked as beautiful as a goddess, and, when she slipped her slender foot into the lost slipper, it fitted perfectly, and the king bore her away to his kingdom to be his wife. Her stepmother was beside herself with rage and her stepsister wept for a week in annoyance. Before she left, Shih Chieh visited the garden to collect the fish's bones and bring them away with her to her new home.
During the first year of their new life, the king discovered the secret of the fish bones and greedily asked for such an endless number of jewels and jade pieces that the next year his requests went unanswered. Then the king buried the fish bones on the sea coast, together with one hundred bushels of pearls, enclosing them all in a golden parapet.
Several years later the king went back to this spot to unearth the pearls in order to distribute them among his soldiers, who had threatened to rebel. To his dismay, he found that the pearls and bones had all been washed away in the tide.
The Fox Turns a Somersault
South China
This is the story of a poor countryman who lived all alone in a little mud brick house with a thatched roof. He was very poor and, since he had no wife, he cooked for himself only one meal each day. A kindly fox had been watching him through the window for a long time and she felt very sorry for him. So, one day, when he was out, she stole into the house and changed herself into a woman. She cleaned up the place, cooked a meal for him, and then disappeared.
This went on for some time, until the farmer determined to watch and find out who his kind and unknown visitor was. So he crouched behind a water jar and waited with his gun beside him. Before long he thought he saw the pointed nose of a fox and, sure enough, a sleek fox slid through the hole in the wall into the room. He grabbed his gun and was just about to shoot the fox, when to his amazement, she turned a somersault, and landed on her feet in the form of a beautiful woman. The fox skin fell to the floor.
The farmer waited for her to move into the next room. Then he crept out and took the skin and hid it under the pig trough.
At the end of the day, when the kindly woman's good deeds were all done, she searched everywhere for her fox skin so that she might go back to the forest, but she couldn't find it. Then she knew that she would have to remain a woman and would become the farmer's wife.
They lived happily together for many years, until, one day, the farmer said jokingly to one of his children: 'Your mother is really a fox."
The little girls clung to their beautiful mother and cried out: "She is not a fox, she is our own darling mother."
His wife then demanded that he give the children proof of the terrible thing he had said, so he went over to the pig trough, and there was the fox skin just where he had hidden it.
He thought it would be a joke to show it to the children, but, as soon as his wife saw her old fox skin, she turned a somersault, slipped into the skin, ran out of the door into the forest, and they never saw her again.
The Tiger in Court
Southwest China
Once upon a time there lived an old woman more than seventy years old, who had an only son. One day he went up to the hills and was eaten by a tiger. His mother was so overwhelmed with grief that she couldn't bear to live without him. She ran and told her story to the magistrate of the district, who laughed and asked her how she thought the law could be brought to bear on a tiger. But the old woman would not be comforted, and at length the magistrate lost his temper and bade her begone. She took no notice of what he said. Then the magistrate, in compassion for her great age, promised her that he would have the tiger arrested. Even then she would not go until the warrant had actually been issued; so the magistrate, at a loss of what to do, asked his attendants which of them would undertake the job of capturing the tiger and arresting him.
One attendant, Li Neng, who happened to be gloriously drunk, stepped forward and said that he would; so the warrant was immediately issued and the old woman went away to her home.
When Li Neng got sober, he was sorry for what he had promised; but since he thought the whole thing was probably a mere trick of his master's to get rid of the old woman, he did not trouble himself much about it. He went to the court and handed in the warrant as if the arrest had been made.
"Not so," cried the magistrate, "you said you could arrest the tiger, and now I shall not let you off."
Li Neng was at his wits' end, and begged that he might be allowed to ask the help of the hunters of the district. This was granted; so collecting together these men, he spent days and nights among the hills in the hope of catching a tiger, and thus making a show of having fulfilled his duty. A month passed away, during which he received several hundred blows with the bamboo for not bringing in the tiger.
At length, in despair, he went to the Cheng-huang temple in the eastern suburb; he fell on his knees, and prayed for help. While he was kneeling in the temple a tiger walked in, and Li Neng, in a great fright, thought he was going to be eaten alive, but the tiger took no notice of anything, as he sat near the doorway.
Li Neng then cried out to the tiger: "O tiger, if thou didst slay that old woman's son, suffer me to bind thee with this cord." And, drawing a rope from his pocket, he threw it over the animal's neck. To his great surprise, the tiger, instead of pouncing on him, drooped his ears, allowed himself to be bound, and meekly followed Li Neng to the magistrate's office. The magistrate was alarmed to see a tiger standing before him, but he asked him: "Did you eat the old woman's son?" The tiger replied by nodding its head.
"That murderers should suffer death has always been the law," announced the magistrate. "Besides, this old woman had but one son, and by killing him you took from her the sole support of her declining years. If however you will, from now on, be as a son to her, your crime shall be pardoned."
The tiger again nodded assent and accordingly the magistrate gave orders that he should be released. The old woman was very angry, thinking that the tiger ought to have paid with its life for killing her son.
Next morning, to her great surprise, when she opened the door of her cottage, there lay a dead deer. The old woman, by selling the flesh and skin, was able to purchase food. From that day on there was always something waiting for her. Sometimes the tiger would even bring her money and valuables, so that she became