The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Ge, Yan. Strange Beasts of China. Melville House Publishing, 2020. Kindle. Trans: Jeremy Tiang.

The novel is told in first-person past by the narrator, who is a former zoologist turned writer who writes romantic stories and stories about the beasts that populate the city of Yong’an. The narrator’s first story is about sorrowful beasts, who were incredibly beautiful. The female beasts were often married off to human men, but the males were thought to be incapable of mating with human women. However, the narrator had a friend named Lefty who tamed a male beast, Cloud, and fell in love with him. After Cloud died under mysterious circumstances, the narrator tried to find out what caused his death. Eventually, she learned that Cloud had eaten Lefty and taken upon her appearance so he could fall in love with He Qi. However, when Cloud saw the body of his deceased sister, his grief caused him to smile, and he died.

The second story is about joyous beasts, who had not been photographed except once 50 years ago when the mayor was a young journalist. After he died, though, his obituary appeared in the newspaper next to a notice for a missing woman, Li Chun. The narrator and her friend Charley search for Li Chun. They discover that she was a joyous beast that had been the lover of the mayor before it had eaten the mayor’s daughter and taken her appearance. After digesting the girl for 50 years, the beast turned into a bird and reincarnated via a feather.

The next story is about sacrificial beasts, who lived in a preserve on the top ten floors of Cloudtop Tower. The beasts were obsessed with killing themselves, so they were nearly extinct. The young people of Yong’an began mimicking the beast’s suicides, so the government decided to exterminate the remaining beasts, but a couple escaped and found refuge with the narrator and Charley. However, the narrator’s professor sent his new assistant, Zhong Liang, to find the beasts. Zhong Liang tricked the narrator into revealing their location and then had them shipped back to the lab where they were all executed. Charley, who turned out to be a beast in disguise, was locked in an asylum.

The next story is about impasse beasts, who were always quiet and hungry. The narrator grew depressed because of Charley and met an impasse beast who came to live with her and nursed her back to health. However, after the beast left, she found herself euphoric and suicidal. Zhong Liang arrived and prevented the narrator from committing suicide.

The next story is about flourishing beasts, who spent their lives gardening and lived in the Temple of Antiquities. Once they died, they were cut apart and buried so that they could regrow themselves. Zhong Liang’s uncle Zhong Ren met the narrator and demanded that they wed. The narrator took refuge in the Temple of the Antiquities, where she had grown up with her mother, who took care of eight young beasts, only one of whom had survived. The narrator learned that Zhong Ren had bought a chair made of one of the beasts and had then fallen in love with it. However, when he also fell in love with the narrator, the chair beast became jealous and bit off his tongue, killing him.

The next story is about thousand league beasts, who could see a thousand leagues into the future. When a beast from 68 years ago was found, the narrator’s editor asked her to go investigate the story. The narrator went to meet the archaeologist who had discovered the beast, but only his assistant, Jian Tan, was there. Her professor started acting irrationally and got into a car accident while trying to visit her. She learned that Jiang Tan was a beast who had been in love with the archaeologist. He had seen the archeologist’s future and tried to trick fate by killing the professor instead by telling the professor the person he loved most was in danger, but they both died instead.

The next story is about heartsick beasts, which the professor had created in a lab 20 years ago. They were adorable little children that were kept as pets by the wealthiest families who wanted companions for their own biological children. The narrator’s niece got a heartsick beast and asked for it to be made in the likeness of the narrator. When she saw the beast at age three, she realized that she was a heartsick beast, created by her professor.

The next story is about prime beasts, who typically worked as security guards. The narrator was attacked by one in an alley and asked Zhong Liang to type out her latest story about a human woman who had fallen in love with a prime beast and birthed a halfling child. The narrator began to theorize that she was the halfling child, but she was even more certain she was a heartsick beast fathered by her professor.

The last story is about returning beasts, who are said to build and maintain the underground lair, the City of the Dead, beneath Yong’an. They were the only beasts who knew the location of the underworld, and they only appeared at night. The narrator decided to track one down to enter the underworld and ask her professor the truth about her birth. Before she could follow through with her plan, though, Zhong Liang disappeared. When he returned, he explained that the underworld was populated with humans, and everyone in Yong’an was a beast of some sort, though over the centuries they had almost all forgotten they were beasts.

In the epilogue, Charley escapes the asylum and meets up with the narrator. He tells her that her mother and the professor were very much in love, but they could not have children, so they created her, a heartsick beast, together. Zhong Liang and the narrator went out to dinner, and he asked her what sort of flowers she would want at their wedding.