狐狸精 (hú li jīng): a fox spirit from Chinese mythology that can shape-shift into human form.
According to literature, it ascends to heaven when it is a thousand years old and becomes a celestial fox.

Birthday #0
I read in my grandmother’s diary that she always thought Ma gave birth to me out of spite. Out of spite for her landlord, the emperor, my father, etc. Mortal men that talked the talk and walked no walk. She created me to seduce their daughters and devour their sons. But the midwife pulled me out tail first—that is why I turned out the way I did, according to Ma.

Birthday #50
I am a woman in the same way my grandmother is a woman and Ma is a woman. That is to say, we were etymologically forced into it.

Birthday #100
You choose, Ma says. No pressure, she says. So I try to cultivate masculinity. I bind my chest and swallow my tail, letting it ferment in secret until divinity helps us become manlike. Ma eventually decides that love is forever and disappointment can only endure a couple of centuries, maximum. We are content.

Birthday #Unknown
We fall in love with a mountain god and tell them we think gender is quite arbitrary. They roll their eyes and call us unoriginal.

Birthday #1000
We sit on the palace steps and listen to other spirits gossip. Ma, our grandmother, our great-grandmother, etc. are all waiting inside. There are so many children of great men that we seduced and devoured, each one a martyr in their own parable. Yin/yang remains an afterthought—that is why we turned out the way we did.