Recorded Across Generations.
For Those Who Come After.
A fox with fish fins, and it cries its own name. Its coming is an omen of death. No one feels it at first, only that they tire and sicken easily, and the young crops go limp in the fields. It never bites a soul, yet wherever it settles, the life is quietly drawn out of every living thing. The slowness is the terror of it: by the time anyone understands, it is already too late. It knows it is hunted. Draw close and it slips into the water, gone on those fins with nothing left to follow. You know it is near, know it is draining the years from your life, and still you cannot lay a hand on it. Men eat its heart for that power over life. But the strange thing is this: of all who have eaten it, not one has ever gained it. What they get instead is another thing entirely, a body made for both water and land. You dive deep without drowning, cross the ocean without tiring, walk ashore as normal. You get a body no one can catch or hold.
状如狐，生鱼鳍，鸣声自呼其名。它现身之地，便是死兆。起初无人察觉，只觉近来人易倦、易病，田里的苗也蔫了。它从不咬人，可凡它盘踞之处，一切活物的元气都被悄悄抽走。抽得极慢，正因其慢，才最可怕：待到有人惊觉，早已太迟。 它有狐之狡黠，深知遭人围猎。人一逼近，它便遁入水中，凭那对鱼鳍潜行远遁，无迹可寻。你明知它就在近旁，日日夺你阳寿，却偏偏抓它不着。 世人猎它、食其心，皆为那夺命之能。可怪就怪在：凡食其心者，从未有一人得着这份能耐。他们所得的，是另一样东西：一副游走两界之躯。你能潜入深海而不溺，横渡大洋而不倦，亦能安然登岸，履地如常。 你换得一具谁也追不上、困不住的身躯。
棲 耿山 Mount Geng
有獸焉，其狀如狐而魚翼，其名曰朱獳，其鳴自訆，見則其國有恐。