AI-assisted Animation | 00:04:06 | 2026

Carved as an auspicious beast on a Shang-Zhou bronze ding, recorded as "a token of kingship" in Qin-Han bamboo slips, and smeared as "a fox demon deluding the world" on Wei-Jin plaster walls—across millennia, humanity has written her countless names, some reverent, some reviled, none truly hers. The nine-tailed fox tears open a rift in time and, with a god's-eye view, traverses the dynasties, watching her own image be rewritten, whitewashed, and mythologized again and again. At last she arrives in the modern era: she walks through temple incense, looks up at a contemporary deity statue, and finally returns to an ancient well at Qingqiu. The reflection in the water shatters and reforms—auspicious beast, fox demon, blankness; everything has been there, and nothing has. When the ripples settle, only an ordinary white fox remains in the water. She finally understands: what was written down was never the real her.

Hengxuan Lou, Yixiang Lin, and Jialuo Cao are university students engaged in visual design, filmmaking, and creative media production. Their practice explores visual communication, AI-assisted creation, and collaborative storytelling across a range of media projects.

Hengxuan Lou has received recognition in several student competitions, including a provincial Third Prize in the National College Student Advertising Art Competition and a university-level First Prize in “AI Jia Culture.”