Daji: The Fox Spirit of Xuanyuan Tomb (Part 3)

A story adapted from Creation of the Gods , based on the image I created for The Shadow’s Secret Challenge . My artwork submission: https://budgetpixel.com/p/62597 From that day onward, King Zhou scarcely wished to leave her. Morning after morning they feasted together; night after night they remained in the palace. Government memorials accumulated while the king ignored them. Officials waited for audiences that never came. Within two months, King Zhou had ceased holding regular court, while documents from the hundreds of feudal states piled up unanswered. Daji had fulfilled the first part of Nüwa's command almost effortlessly. But her influence soon went far beyond keeping the king from his duties. King Zhou became increasingly cruel toward those who tried to restrain him. Loyal officials protested his neglect of government and his growing appetite for pleasure, but remonstrance only provoked his anger. The court became a place where honest advice could cost a man his life, while flatterers such as Fei Zhong and You Hun grew more powerful. Through it all, Daji's place beside the king became increasingly secure. There remained, however, one woman above her. Empress Jiang was King Zhou's principal wife and the mistress of the central palace. Unlike Daji, she had no taste for the king's endless revelries. When she heard music one night from Shouxian Palace and learned that the king was again drinking with Daji, she could no longer remain silent. She went to him. King Zhou, already deep in his cups, ordered Daji to sing and dance for the empress. Daji performed beautifully, and the attendants praised her, but Empress Jiang scarcely looked at her. The king noticed. Why, he asked, could the empress not appreciate Daji’s beauty and graceful dancing? Empress Jiang answered that Daji's dancing was no treasure at all. A ruler's true treasures, she said, were virtue and self-restraint. Heaven possessed the sun, moon, and stars; the earth possessed its crops and forests; a kingdom possessed loyal ministers and great generals; a family possessed worthy children. Those were treasures. A ruler who drowned himself in wine and women, trusted flatterers, killed loyal men, and neglected his people was not enjoying treasure but inviting the ruin of his house. She urged King Zhou to abandon excess, return to government, listen to upright ministers, and restore order before it was too late. The king listened with mounting fury. Only her position as empress restrained him from punishing her on the spot. After Empress Jiang departed, he ordered Daji to dance again. Daji knelt instead. She dared not, she told him. The empress had condemned such entertainments as instruments of ruin. If word spread beyond the palace that Daji had bewitched the king, caused him to neglect government, and led him away from righteous rule, how could she ever answer such an accusation? Then she began to weep. King Zhou's anger immediately shifted from Daji to his wife. "Do not be afraid," he told Daji. "I will remove her and raise you in her place." From that moment, Empress Jiang's position became dangerous. Daji understood that as long as the empress remained alive and respected, there would always be someone in the inner palace capable of opposing her. Fei Zhong soon devised a way to remove that obstacle. A man named Jiang Huan was brought forward and accused of attempting to assassinate King Zhou. Under questioning, he claimed that Empress Jiang had ordered him to commit the crime. The accusation was false. Empress Jiang denied it immediately. She had no reason to murder her own husband, and those who knew her character found the charge difficult to believe. Yet King Zhou was already prepared to suspect her, and Daji encouraged that suspicion at every turn. The empress was interrogated and pressured to confess. She refused. When persuasion failed, torture followed. Even then, Empress Jiang would not admit to a crime she had not committed. Other women of the palace tried to speak in her defense, pointing out the weakness of the accusation, but Daji continued to press the king. King Zhou allowed the punishment to grow more brutal. The empress was mutilated in an attempt to force a confession, yet still she refused to submit. (To be continued in Part 4) If you would like to explore another side of the story, you can also read my Champions and Supernatural Mounts in Creation of the Gods series, which explores some of the most memorable warriors and immortals accompanied by extraordinary creatures. Creation of the Gods (《封神演义》, Fengshen Yanyi ), also known as Investiture of the Gods , is a classic Chinese mythological novel set around the fall of the Shang dynasty and the rise of the Zhou dynasty. It blends history, folklore, Taoist mythology, magic, gods, demons, and legendary heroes into a vast story of war between the Shang and Zhou. The novel is traditionally attributed to Xu Zhonglin (许仲琳), a writer of the Ming dynasty, although its exact authorship remains uncertain and Lu Xixing (陆西星) has also been proposed as a possible author. It was probably written during the late 16th century, with the earliest known surviving editions appearing in the early 17th century, around the 1600s–1620s.