Wang Er was a man of Longzhou. His home was at Pao Valley in the Black Pine Forest. His family had hunted and shot for a living for generations, and that was how he was known.
Once, chasing a deer with a party of others, he came to a deep cliff and lost the way. While he stood there hesitating, a woman came towards him across the water: young, beautiful, and with not a stitch of clothing on her. She looked at Wang and smiled.
Wang had spent his whole life walking the mountains and sleeping in the open. He was accustomed to prodigies. He knew she was not human, and he showed no fear at all. He shouted at her:
“Are you a ghost, or a sprite?”
The woman only smiled again and did not answer. After a long while she asked him: “And what manner of man are you?”
By now Wang felt a certain awe. He cupped his hands and said: “I am a hunter from below this mountain. Today I was after a tiger and lost the trail, and I have come down into this place. Whether I live or die will be settled within the minute. Lady, I beg you to pity me.”
“Come with me,” said the woman. “I will show you the road home.”
So he followed her. They climbed a peak of sheer and jagged rock. They waded winding water that came above the knee. The path was rough stone and his legs would not serve; the woman wore no shoes and went as though flying.
They came to a cave, and inside it a great stone chamber — deep, still, like the lodging of a hermit, and with no smell of cooking smoke about it. The sleeping quarters were especially clean and fine.
Wang saw that there was no one else there, and made a jesting advance. She came to him willingly. At night they shared the couch; by day she would go out and find fruit to feed him.
After more than a month, Wang thought of his mother, who had no one to keep her. Weeping, he told the woman his reason.
“I want to go home for a while,” he said. “Later I will come looking for you again.”
She agreed. She walked with him out to the high road, and there they parted.
Wang was moved by the love in it, and another day he went back to find her. He ventured to speak to her, and asked her to come home with him. She made not the least demurral. Hand in hand they came to his house.
Wang’s wife, a Zhao, had already borne him three children. This woman bore him two sons, and she and Zhao lived together in great harmony. When outsiders came to the door she would start in alarm and withdraw out of sight. Sometimes she would go off alone into the hills and be gone a month. She never once ate cooked food. Wang let her come and go as she pleased.
Twenty years later she was still there.
