Che's family was not wealthy, but he had a craze for liquor. He couldn't sleep without drinking three big cups at night. So, the liquor bottle by his bed was never empty.
Once, he awoke in the middle of the night. When he turned over, he had the feeling someone was sleeping beside him. He though it must be the clothes with which he had covered himself and which must have fallen to one side. But when he reached out, there was something furry, like a cat, but larger. He reached for the lamp and saw that it was a fox, dead drunk and fast asleep. He looked at the bottle and found that there was not a drop left in it. Che laughed and said, "Now here's a drinking pal for me!" Not wanting to wake up the fox, he covered it, put his arm around it, and went back to sleep. He did leave the candle burning, however, so he could see if anything happened.
At midnight, the fox yawned and stretched it's limbs. Laughing, Che said, "How well you slept!" But when he lifted the clothes covering them, he saw a gentle, handsome boy lying there. The boy got off the bed and knelt down by it, thanking Che for not killing him. Che said, "I have such a weakness for liquor that some people think I am crazy. But you, you can understand me. If you can trust me, I would like for you to be my drinking pal." So saying, he dragged the fox to the bed and lay down again. "Please come often. There is no need to be afraid." The fox agreed.
When Che woke up the fox was gone. He prepared a big jar of liquor and waited for him to come again. Indeed, it did that night. They talked intimately and drank to their hearts' content. The fox was a big drinker and full of humor. Che wished he had met it earlier. Then the fox said, "I've drunk your liquor several times now, how should I repay you?" Che said, "That little bit of liquor is not worth mentioning." "While that's true," said the fox, "you are but a poor scholar and it's not easy for you to earn money for drink. I'll help you find a way to get some." The next night the fox told Che. "About seven li southeast of here, someone lost some silver coins along the roadside. You can go and collect it in the morning." Che went there at daybreak and, sure enough, found two ounces of silver. He brought home some delicacies to go with the liquor that night. Then the fox told him, "There's something buried at the back of the yard, you can go and dig it up." Che did as was suggested and collected more than one hundred strings of cash. Elated, Che said to the fox "Now that I have plenty of money in my pocket, I have no problem buying liquor." But the fox said, "Don't be so happy. The little bit of water in the rut left by the wheel cannot last long. We've got to think of some other way."
One day, the fox said to Che, "The price of buckwheat is very cheap on the market. It's a wonderful opportunity to engage in speculation." Following its advice, Che bought forty dan of buckwheat, and was ridiculed by everybody. But soon there was a big drought and all the crops in the field withered. Only the buckwheat was able to survive. Che sold the buckwheat seeds at an interest ten times their price. His wealth accumulated. He bought two hundred mu of fertile land and did everything as the fox suggested. When the fox said to plant wheat, he harvested a bumper crop of wheat. When the fox said to plan glutinous millet, he reaped a bumper harvest of that. And it was the fox who decided when to sow.
The fox became very close to Che, calling Che's wife his sister-in-law, and Che's son his nephew. Later, after Che passed away, the fox never came again.
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