in Pu Songling's -4' (1640-1715) Liaozhai zhiyi fli ?. This collection contains many pieces with intriguing literary qualities shown in a variety of ways-in matters related to the narrative imagination, the transformation of traditional motifs and themes, and the use of innovative narrative devices. The piece Xia nii tI (Lady Knighterrant)' is one of those that makes use of a device related to the character's motivation of action. Told by a third-person narrator, the tale is about a girl whose behavior is so unconventional and contradictory to the expectation of other characters that it becomes enigmatic and mystifying to them. By the manipulation of the narration, the text also subjects the reader to the same mystifying effect, making him feel equally intrigued by the girl's behavior and personality. The device used here has to do with the withholding of the character's motivation for action from the reader during the unfolding of the story. Unlike the transparency of character's motivation we usually find in traditional Chinese narratives, the character's reason for certain actions in this tale, particularly those that run counter to the common expectation, is veiled from the reader: we only see her behavior from the outside. The heroine, with her aged, ailing mother, is introduced as a stranger who moves into a small town and who happens to rent a place across the street from the house of a young man by the name of Gu. The mother and daughter seemed to come from a good family, but are now caught in a dire situation. Having received material help frequently from Gu and his mother, she initiates two separate, secret rendezvous with him and gives birth to his child, but coldly refuses the marriage proposal from Gu's mother. An episode in which she kills a fox spirit, which has transformed itself into a young man to become Gu's lover, shows her to be a person with extraordinary martial power. After her mother's death, when Gu visits her in the night, he finds her absent from the house; she gives him no excuse nor