Clinging to a thick vine with its claws, the fiery red fox climbed to the level of the cave where Granddad was hiding. She wore a crafty smile and squinted in the bright sunlight. The circles around her eyes were jet black, and thick golden eyelashes sprang from her eyelids. It was the mother fox. Granddad saw two rows of dark teats, swollen with milk for the cubs she had lost. The large, fleshy red fox clung to the purple vine, her bushy tail sweeping alluringly back and forth, like a rogue melon, like an evil flame that can make even iron will waver.
Granddad felt a sudden weariness in the hand holding the cleaver. His fingers grew stiff, sore, and numb. The source of his problem lay in the fox's expression. She should have been baring her teeth in a savage snarl, instead of wagging her tail seductively and smiling sweetly. The sight stupefied Granddad and turned his fingers numb. The gently swaying vine was only a couple of feet away from the mouth of the cave. The fireball overhead shone down on the leaves of the underbrush, transforming them into shards of gold foil. All he had to do was reach out and chop through the vine to send the fox plunging into the valley below, but he couldn't lift his hand. The enchantment of the fox was boundless, the heft of his cleaver immeasurable. Legends of foxes surged into his mind, and he wondered when he had amassed so much fox lore. With no pistol at hand, he felt his courage wane. Back in those days when he'd sat astride his black steed, weapon in hand, he had feared nothing.
High-pitched trills from the fox accompanied the wagging of her tail, imitating the sound of a weeping woman. Granddad couldn't understand why he hesitated, why he was suddenly impotent. Aren't you still the bandit Yu Zhan'ao, who killed without batting an eye? He clutched the crumbling handle of his knife and hunkered down to await the attack from the fox as it swung back and forth on the vine. His heart was thumping, and spurts of icy blood rushed to his skull, suffusing the area in front of his eyes with the color of ice and water. Prickly pains attacked his temples. Apparently, the fox had seen through his plan of action. She was still swinging, but the arc was lessening. Now Granddad would have to lean way out to hack at her. The look on her face was more and more that of a lustful woman. It was a look with which he was very familiar. Granddad sensed that in an instant the fox could transform herself into a woman in white mourning clothes. So he thrust himself forward, grabbed the vine with one hand, and with the other aimed at the fox's head.
The fox swooped down. Granddad lunged after it, and nearly fell out of the cave. But he managed to strike the fox on the head with his rusty knife. Then, just as he was drawing his body back into the cave, he heard a scream above him. A hot, fetid smell descended with the scream, enveloping his body. A large fox bore down on his back, its paws wrapped tightly around his chest and abdomen, its taut, bushy tail fanning the air excitedly. The coarse fur pricked painfully into Granddad's thighs. At the same time he felt the fox's hot breath on his neck, which hunched inward by reflex. Goose bumps covered his legs, as something dug excruciatingly into the nape of his neck. The fox was biting him. Only then did he comprehend the treachery of foxes in Hokkaido, Japan.
It was now impossible for him to retreat back into his cave. Even if he somehow managed to fight his way back in, the fox he'd injured slightly could climb in after him, and then the male and the female would attack, one in front, one in back, and Granddad would be a dead Granddad. He analyzed the situation with lightning speed. If he was willing to risk his life, there was a slim chance he'd survive. The male fox's razor-sharp teeth tore into him, and he could feel them touching bone. Crouching down quickly and letting the pitted cleaver and scissors fall to the valley floor, he grabbed a vine with both hands and, with the male fox clinging to his back, swung out and hung in the air.
Bright red beads of blood oozed from the wounds on the female fox's head. This Granddad saw as he leaped out of the cave. Hot blood from his neck ran onto his shoulders and flowed down to his abdomen and buttocks. The fox's teeth seem to be embedded in the fissures of his bones. Bone pain is seven or eight times worse than pain in the muscles; that was a conclusion he'd drawn from his experiences in China. And the teeth of a live animal are more terrible than shrapnel. The pain unleashed by the former is filled with the vibrancy of life; that of the latter is heavy with death. Granddad had hoped to rely on this death-defying leap to fling the male fox off his back, but its unyielding claws shattered those hopes. Like magnets or barbed hooks, they clung to Granddad's shoulders and waist. Its mouth and teeth had fused with his neck. The injured mother fox made things even more difficult for him, since she was not hurt badly enough to fall off the vine. Climbing forward another half meter or so to focus her attack, she bit into his foot. Even though the soles of his feet were so hard and calloused they were not bothered by brambles or thorns, he was, after all, only human, flesh and blood, and her sharp teeth were too much for him. He howled in pain as tears of agony clouded his vision.
Granddad shook himself hard. The foxes shook with him, but their teeth remained clamped into his flesh; if anything, they dug in even deeper. Let go, Granddad! Falling would be better than living like this. But he held the vine in a death grip. Never, in the long life of that vine, had it withstood such force. It creaked and twisted, as if groaning. Its roots were on the gentle slope of the mountain above the cave, where purple flowers were in full bloom amid red and yellow leaves that had fallen from high above. It was there that Granddad had discovered the crisp, sweet, juicy mountain radishes, which he'd added to his menu. It was also there that he'd discovered the serpentine fox path, which he'd followed – using vines to get to the melons – all the way to the foxes’ lair, where he'd killed the cubs and flung them out of the cave. Granddad, if you'd known that you'd be suspended in the air, racked with pain, you wouldn't have killed those cubs and taken over the cave, would you? His ashen face was the color of steel. He said nothing.
The vine swung back and forth, sending dirt from above the cave raining down. The sun shone brightly, making the stream on the west side of the cave glisten as it snaked down to the trees in the valley. The village beyond the valley twirled on the beach, on which tens of thousands of ocean waves shimmered and broke, one rolling hard behind the other, never resting. The music of the ocean filtered into Granddad's ears, ten thousand galloping horses one minute, light dancing melodies the next. He clutched his vine tightly, determined not to let go.
The vines sent warnings to man and fox alike; man and fox kept twisting them about. They began to snap angrily. The mouth of the cave slowly rose in the air. Granddad held on for dear life. The precipice moved upward, as the lush, green valley rushed up to meet him. The cool, refreshing air of the forest and the smell of rotting leaves formed a soft cushion that cradled Granddad's belly. The long purple vines danced in the air. He could feel, he could sense, that the fox at his feet had broken loose from her vine, and as she fell she turned a graceful somersault, like a heavenly fire. Ocean waves tumbled onto the beach, curving like a horse's mane.
As he fell, Granddad had no thoughts of dying. He said that after his rope had broken in three attempts at suicide in the forest one year, he knew he would not die. He had a premonition that his final resting place would be back in Northeast Gaomi Township, on the other side of the ocean. And since he'd rid himself of the fear of death, falling became a rare opportunity to experience joy. His body seemed to flatten out, his consciousness turning transparently thin. His heart stopped beating, his blood ceased its flow, and the pit of his stomach was slightly red and warm, like a charcoal brazier. Granddad sensed the wind peeling the male fox away from him – first its legs, then its mouth. That mouth seemed to have taken away something from his neck, but it seemed to have left something as well. His burden was abruptly lifted, and Granddad smoothly turned three hundred and sixty degrees in the air. That revolution gave him a chance to look at the male fox and at its pointy, savage face. Its fur was greenish yellow, except for the belly, which was white as snow. Naturally, he could see that it would make a fine pelt, something he could make into a leather vest. The treetops rose faster and faster – pagoda-shaped snow pines, birches with white bark, and oaks with yellow leaves fluttering like butterflies. He tumbled into their outstretched canopies.