The Ink Fox
A poor scholar in an abandoned house hears grinding in the night and sees a small ink-black fox licking his inkstone. His writing flourishes — yet what the fox rewards is not talent, but sincerity.
In Wuzhong there lived a poor scholar named Shen Yan, book-loving but destitute, who rented an abandoned house north of the city. It had once belonged to a retired Hanlin academician who died without heirs; the roof had caved and the walls crumbled, and most people feared its gloom — only Shen, for the low rent, took it.
In the house was left a stone inkstone, black as lacquer, cool to the touch. Shen loved it and practiced at it morning and night without cease. One night, reading hard by lamplight, he heard a grinding on the desk, a soft rasping. Lifting the lamp, he saw a small fox, ink-black all over, its eyes bright as points of lacquer, crouched on the inkstone, licking the ink. Unafraid at the sight of him, it leapt down at its leisure and passed through the wall and was gone.
Shen thought it strange, yet took it for no evil spirit. From then on he left half a well of ink on the stone each night, and the fox came each night to lick it. Within a month Shen found his writing greatly advanced, his brush moving as if divinely helped; meanings once impenetrable opened to him overnight. When neighbors asked the reason, Shen only smiled and gave no answer.
That autumn's examination, Shen placed on the secondary list. The night before the results were posted, the fox suddenly stood upright by the desk, bowed, and said: “What is stored in your inkstone is not ink, but the lifelong unfinished literary spirit of the former Hanlin master. I have guarded it thirty years, and none could answer to it. Now that you have met it with sincerity, the spirit has found its master, and my debt is discharged.” So saying, it dissolved into smoke, leaving only a thread of ink-fragrance on the stone that lingered all day.
Shen later rose to be a provincial education commissioner and held high office, yet that old inkstone never left the front of his desk his whole life. When someone offered to trade a fine Duanxi stone for it, Shen declined: “This stone taught me that it is not ink that writes, but sincerity.”
The Chronicler of the Strange says: The world seeks good writing mostly in cleverness, rarely in sincerity. What the ink fox rewarded was not Shen's talent, but his heart. To take an abandoned house for its low rent and yet love its worn old stone, to leave half a well of ink each night without tiring — this is sincerity. Where sincerity reaches, even stubborn stone can be moved; how much more a fox? Talent is like a river, easily drawn dry; sincerity is like an ancient well, deeper the more you draw. Let those who write reflect on it.