Yu Jiang was a village boy. His father, sleeping out in the fields one night, was eaten by a wolf. Jiang was sixteen at the time. When he found the shoe his father had left behind, he was so stricken with grief and hatred that he wished to die. One night he waited until his mother was asleep, slipped out with an iron hammer, and lay down where his father had lain, hoping to avenge him. Before long a wolf came and hovered about, sniffing at him. Jiang did not move. Finding nothing amiss, the wolf swept its tail across his forehead, then slowly lowered its head and licked his thigh. Still Jiang did not move. Then, frisking with glee, it lunged straight at him to bite his throat. Jiang swiftly struck it on the skull with the hammer, and it dropped dead. He got up and laid it in the grass. Soon another wolf came, behaved just like the first, and he killed it too.
Till midnight, nothing more came. He dozed off for a moment and dreamed his father said: "Killing those two beasts is enough to vent my hatred. But the one that led the attack on me has a white nose; neither of these is it." Jiang woke and lay doggedly still to wait for it. By dawn nothing more had come. He wanted to drag the wolves home, but fearing to frighten his mother, he threw them into a dry well and went back. That night he went again, but nothing came. So it went for three or four nights. Then suddenly a wolf came, bit his foot and dragged him off. After a few steps, thorns pierced his flesh and stones tore his skin. Jiang lay as if dead. So the wolf put him down on the ground, meaning to tear open his belly. Jiang sprang up and hammered it, and it fell; he hammered it again and again until it was dead. Looking closely, he saw it really did have a white nose. Overjoyed, he carried it home on his back and only then told his mother. Weeping, she went back with him, searched the dry well, and found the two wolves there.
