Huli jing in Pu Songling’s Strange Tales and later adaptations

Record summary

Fox spirits in Pu Songling’s Liaozhai zhiyi, commonly translated as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, frequently take human form and enter relationships with scholars, families, or officials. The stories complicate the categories of demon, lover, moral agent, and victim. Modern scholarship and translations since 2010 make the collection a useful comparison point for East Asian shape-changing narratives, while adaptations often recast its fox women as romantic fantasy. Researchers should verify the edition, translation, and individual tale because the collection contains sharply different narrative and ethical positions.