In the ancient mists of time, when the boundary between the celestial and the terrestrial was thin, there lived a man named Jiang Ziya. For forty years, he had secluded himself on the heights of Kunlun Mountain, serving as a devoted disciple to the Primeval Lord of Heaven. While others sought the fleeting pleasures of the mortal world, Jiang Ziya spent his decades refining his spirit, studying the mysteries of the Tao, and mastering the arts of military strategy and governance. However, the heavens had a different path for him than eternal transcendence. When he was seventy-two years old, his master told him that his destiny did not lie in immortality, but in the service of the rising Zhou Dynasty to overthrow the corrupt King Zhou of Shang.
Jiang Ziya descended the mountain with nothing but his staff and the wisdom of the ages. He sought out an old friend, Song Yiren, who welcomed him warmly but insisted that a man of his age needed a wife to manage his household. Song Yiren arranged a marriage between Jiang Ziya and a sixty-eight-year-old woman named Lady Ma. Lady Ma was a woman of pragmatic concerns and a sharp tongue. She expected her new husband to provide a life of comfort and prestige, but Jiang Ziya, despite his vast knowledge, was entirely unskilled in the ways of commerce.
Song Yiren initially provided Jiang Ziya with capital to start a business. First, Jiang Ziya tried his hand at selling wheat flour in the bustling capital of Zhaoge. He spent the entire day carrying heavy sacks through the streets, crying out his wares. Yet, not a single person stopped to buy from him. As the day drew to a close, a sudden, freakish gust of wind tore through the market, knocking the sacks from his shoulders and scattering the precious flour into the dust. He returned home empty-handed, only to be met by the stinging rebukes of Lady Ma, who called him a useless old fool who could not even perform a simple task.
Determined to prove his worth, Jiang Ziya next attempted to sell salt. At the time, salt was a precious commodity, but the moment Jiang Ziya set up his stall, the government unexpectedly declared a moratorium on salt sales, and his stock was confiscated. Following this, he tried to open a small restaurant, but the summer heat was so intense that the food spoiled before a single customer arrived. Finally, he attempted to sell livestock, but the cattle he brought to market were seized by soldiers for the King's army. Each time he returned home, the domestic storm grew more violent. Lady Ma’s nagging became a constant roar. She compared him unfavorably to every successful merchant in the city, her voice echoing through their humble shack, lamenting the day she agreed to marry a penniless dreamer.
Lady Ma eventually reached the limit of her patience. She saw no future with a man who seemed cursed by the gods themselves. She demanded a divorce, wanting to seek her fortune elsewhere. Jiang Ziya, who could foresee the coming shifts in the tides of fate, pleaded with her to stay. He told her that his time of hardship was almost at an end and that great honor and wealth were just over the horizon. But Lady Ma only laughed bitterly. She insisted that she would rather starve alone than endure one more day of his incompetence. To signify the finality of their separation, Jiang Ziya poured a bowl of water onto the dry earth and told her that if she could gather the water back into the bowl, he would grant the divorce. Lady Ma scrambled to scoop up the mud, but the water had already vanished into the soil. 'Spilled water cannot be recovered,' he said sadly, yet he granted her the freedom she sought.
While Lady Ma moved on to a mediocre second marriage, Jiang Ziya traveled to the banks of the Wei River. There, he engaged in a peculiar form of protest: he fished with a straight needle instead of a hook, and he held it three feet above the water’s surface. He claimed he was not fishing for fish, but for a king who recognized merit. Word of this eccentric old man eventually reached King Wen of Zhou. Recognizing Jiang Ziya’s wisdom, King Wen invited him to become his prime minister. Under Jiang Ziya’s brilliant guidance, the Zhou state grew in strength, and eventually, under King Wu, the Zhou forces crossed the Yellow River to confront the Shang tyrants.