Pu Songling
Before "The Painted Skin", there was already a plethora of "zhiguai"-"chuanqi" stories about lady–beast metamorphosis. An account in the fifth-century anthology of fictitious accounts, titled "Garden of the Strange" ("Yi yuan" ), by Liu Jingshu () concerns a bachelor named Xu Huan () who gets acquainted with a tiger spirit passing off as a beautiful woman. Blinded by lust, Xu is kidnapped by the tiger, who returns him home after ten days. Tang dynasty writer Xue Yongruo () penned a story on a Puzhou native, Cui Tao, who marries a tiger spirit that ultimately devours their child and him. "Scholar Wu of Jiangnan" () by Zhang Du () revolves around the Wu household, and Wu's eventual discovery that his spouse, Madam Liu, is a demon. Pu Songling, in writing "The Painted Skin" and many of the other "Liaozhai" entries, is written to have been inspired by the above-mentioned "zhiguai" texts, and expanded upon the early authors' efforts.