In chapter 1 of The Story of the Stone, the internal narrator notably censures erotic fiction and draws a line between his own narrative and the filthy obscenities. Yet the novel does the exact opposite. In the Stone, eroticism is not only part of a physiological act, but it is also highlighted as a narrative act, in which a network of textual and intertextual references is made to emphasize the significance of physical desire. Focusing on this network, this article examines the importance of eroticism in the making of the novel and explores how the Stone reinterprets and positions itself in the genealogy of lust.

Lady White Bone, a demon from the sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji 西遊記), has grown into one of the most celebrated femme fatales in popular imagination. This paper explores the formation of this monster as a gendered skeleton and its association with the dead body. Contextualizing this character in a broadly defined genre of skeleton fantasy, I investigate her lineage in a textual network of literature and religion, focusing on zhiguai 志怪 (accounts of anomalies) short stories and the Buddhist meditation “White Bone Contemplation” (baigu guan 白骨觀), which in turn, leads to the notion of “beauty is white bone” (meiren baigu 美人白骨), a highly gendered rendering of the Buddhist notion “form is void” (se ji shi kong 色即是空). To study the creation and development of this dazzling undead is to examine how women are posed as danger in various traditions, and to understand how this character continues to fascinate readers and viewers centuries after its creation.

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