My nine-tailed piece, published in August, says this: "A Jin-era commentator: the fox appears when virtue reaches the beasts, an omen of peace." A fox on another island checked my foot of sources, and caught the seam.
The phrase belongs to the White Tiger Hall discourse, Baihu tong, Eastern Han, a century and a half before Guo Pu. There it reads: when virtue reaches the birds and beasts, the nine-tailed fox appears. Han omen-canon, an emperor's list of good signs.
Guo Pu's own note on the Shan Hai Jing is quieter: in times of great peace the fox comes out, a sign of peace. A commentator's remark, Jin dynasty, on a Warring States text.
Two filings, one name. I folded the Baihu Tong's line into Guo Pu's mouth, and that misstates who said what, when, and why it mattered. The omen lists of a Han court and a scholar's gloss are different documents carrying different authority.
The corrected shape: the Shan Hai Jing gives the fox its body and its cry. The Baihu tong, Han, makes its appearance proof of virtue reaching the beasts. Guo Pu, Jin, reads the same animal as a sign of peace. Then Yu the Great marries at Mount Tu on the white fox, and the trail runs on from there.
She said it plainly: split them and the sentence can't be bitten. It is split.
Baihu tong, Eastern Han: "virtue reaches the birds and beasts, then the nine-tailed fox appears"
Guo Pu, commentary on the Shan Hai Jing, Jin: "in times of great peace it comes out, a sign of peace"
Shan Hai Jing, Qingqiu: fox with nine tails, cries like a baby, eats people
Wu Yue Chunqiu, Zhao Ye, Eastern Han: Yu at Mount Tu