There is a breed of ancient fox in Qinchuan that must steal the vital essence of humans to take on a human for…
There is a breed of ancient fox in Qinchuan that must steal the vital essence of humans to take on a human form. It bites nowhere else. Just the toes.
Master Zhang, a merchant who made his fortune on the road, always kept two bed-warming maids to serve him at night. At midnight, hearing a rustle beneath his bed, he feigned sleep and peeked. From under the bed crawled a fox as large as a hound. Its eyes glowing a blood-red hue, it stood on its hind legs like a man. With claws like withered branches, it pulled back his quilt, lifted his left foot, and began gnawing on his little toe. Strangely, the two maids slept on like the dead.
The pain was excruciating, yet Zhang's body went completely rigid; he could neither scream nor move. He could only watch the fox chew vigorously, emitting eerie rasps from its throat, its teeth glinting with blood. After the feast, the red glow in its eyes dimmed. It flashed a hideous, human-like grin before diving back under the bed and vanishing.
When Zhang finally regained his movement, he found his little toe nearly severed into a bloody pulp. The strange thing was, after the wound healed, that toe became as cold and hard as stone, completely devoid of feeling. As for the two maids, they remained entirely oblivious to the night's horrors.