A certain Mr. Che had a household of middling means but was given to drink; by night he could not sleep without draining three great cups, and so a wine-flask always stood at his bedside. One night, waking and turning over, he felt as if someone lay beside him, and thought it was his coverlet slipping off. But feeling it, he touched something soft and furry, like a cat and larger; when he lit the candle he found it was a fox, fast asleep in a drunken slumber. He looked at his flask and found it empty. "This is a drinking companion for me," he laughed. Not wishing to rouse it, he drew the cover over it, laid his arm about it, and slept with it, keeping a light burning to watch what would happen. At midnight the fox stretched itself with a yawn, and Che laughed. "Did you sleep well?" he asked, and, lifting the cover, saw a handsome man in a scholar's cap. The fox rose and bowed at the bedside, thanking him for not killing it. "I have a passion for wine," said Che, "and the world calls me a sot; but you are my Bao Shu. If you do not distrust me, you shall be my good friend of the wine vat." He drew the fox up on the couch to sleep again, saying, "Come often, and do not be suspicious." The fox agreed. When Che woke, the fox was gone. So he prepared a choice flask of wine and waited for it.
In the evening it came, and they sat knee to knee, drinking merrily. The fox had a great capacity and was full of jest, so that they regretted not having met before. "I am ever troubling your good wine," said the fox; "how am I to repay your kindness?" "A flask of wine is a small pleasure," said Che; "say no more of it." "Still," said the fox, "you are a poor scholar, and money for drink is hard to come by. I must think of some way to raise your wine-bill." The next night it came and told him, "On the roadside, seven li to the southeast, some gold has been dropped; go early and take it." Che went at dawn and found two ounces of gold, and bought good dishes to go with his night's drinking. The fox told him again, "There is buried treasure behind your courtyard; you should dig it up." Following its advice, he found more than a hundred strings of cash, and said joyfully, "Now that there is money in my purse, I need no longer worry about buying wine." "Not so," said the fox. "How long can one dip water from a wheel-rut? We must think of more." Another day it said to Che, "Buckwheat is cheap in the market; this is a rare bargain worth hoarding." Che did as it said and bought more than forty bushels of buckwheat, at which people laughed at him. But before long a great drought came, and the grain and beans all withered; only buckwheat would grow, and selling the seed brought him a tenfold profit. From this he grew rich and bought two hundred acres of fertile land. Whatever the fox advised—sow much wheat and the wheat flourished, sow much millet and the millet flourished—every crop and every season depended on the fox's word. As they grew ever closer, the fox called Che's wife "sister-in-law" and treated his son like his own. When Che died, the fox came no more.