Ye Xian had a secret that lived in a basin of water. It was a small fish with red fins and golden eyes, and she fed it with the scraps she could save. When she came close, it lifted its head towards her. When anybody else approached, it stayed hidden.
Her father had loved her, but after his death her stepmother treated her harshly. Ye Xian was sent to collect firewood in dangerous places and fetch water from deep pools. Caring for the fish gave her something gentle to return to after the work.
A friend that would not stop growing
The fish grew larger each day. Soon its first basin was too small, then another container was too small as well. At last Ye Xian moved it into a pond behind the house. She kept feeding it, and it still came to the edge only for her.
Her stepmother discovered the friendship. She tried watching the pond, but the fish would not show itself. Instead, she pretended to be kind. She offered Ye Xian a new garment and took away her worn clothes, then sent her elsewhere to fetch water.
With Ye Xian gone, the stepmother put on those old clothes and went to the pond. The fish recognised the familiar appearance and came up. She killed it, ate it and concealed its bones beneath a heap of manure.
When Ye Xian returned, nothing rose from the water. She waited and called, but the pond gave her no sign of her friend. At last she went away to cry.
What the bones could give
A figure in rough clothing appeared and told her what had happened. Her fish was dead, he said, but its bones had a power of their own. She should recover them, keep them in her room and ask for what she needed.
Ye Xian followed his instructions. Food, clothes and precious things could now be obtained through the bones. The friend she had cared for was gone, yet something of that friendship remained to help her.
When the community’s festival came, her stepmother and stepsister went out, leaving Ye Xian to watch the fruit trees in the courtyard. Once they were well away, she dressed for the festival too. She wore a splendid garment made with kingfisher feathers and a pair of golden shoes.
She had scarcely arrived before her stepsister noticed her. This beautifully dressed girl looked very like Ye Xian. Her stepmother was suspicious as well. Ye Xian saw that they were watching and hurried home, losing one shoe on the way.
By the time her stepmother returned, she was back in the courtyard, resting beside a tree. Nothing in that familiar sight suggested the girl from the festival, and her stepmother stopped wondering.
The shoe that would fit nobody
Somebody found the lost shoe and sold it in the island kingdom of Tuo Han. It was astonishingly light, and made no sound against stone. The ruler wanted to know who it belonged to, but nobody he asked could wear it.
Even the smallest feet did not fit. Trying the shoe on more people brought him no closer to its owner. At last the search reached Ye Xian’s home, where the matching shoe was found.
Ye Xian put the shoes on and appeared in her festival clothes. She explained what had happened: the hidden fish, the cruelty, the bones and the lost shoe. The ruler took her and the bones back to his kingdom, and she became his wife.
The older tale gives a harsh fate to the stepmother and her daughter. It does not end with a modern scene of everybody forgiving one another. Ye Xian’s escape brings a change in her circumstances, but this is a folktale with an unsettling edge as well as a wish fulfilled.
One more wish
There was still another turn in the story. The ruler began asking the bones for treasure. For a time they provided it, but eventually they stopped answering. He buried them by the sea with a great store of pearls, and a tide later swept the buried treasure away.
The power that had helped Ye Xian could not be treated as an endless supply of riches. Her story finishes beyond the lost shoe, with a ruler discovering that having a magical object does not mean controlling it for ever.
Where this version comes from
This is Towards China’s own English retelling of the public-domain account recorded by Duan Chengshi in Youyang Zazu in the ninth century. His text attributes the story to Li Shiyuan, a storyteller from southern China. We have shortened its later events and softened some violent details, while keeping the fish, golden shoes and final loss of the treasure.
The story is often compared with Cinderella, but it deserves to be read on its own too. Duan’s version has a fish and a mysterious helper, not a fairy godmother with a pumpkin coach. Its shoes are gold, not glass, and the fish is not explicitly identified as Ye Xian’s mother. Later retellings may make different choices.
The familiar lost-shoe pattern makes the tale easy to recognise. The less familiar ending makes it linger: magic can answer a need, while still refusing to become somebody’s unlimited fortune.
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Sources
- Duan Chengshi: Youyang Zazu, continuation: Ye Xian, ninth-century text (public-domain original in a modern transcription)
- Victoria and Albert Museum: Cinderella’s shoes: comparing versions