In the twilight years of the Shang Dynasty, the Middle Kingdom was ruled by King Zhou, a monarch who possessed immense strength and intelligence but lacked the humility required to govern with wisdom. The capital, Zhaoge, was a place of unparalleled splendor, yet a shadow was beginning to fall over its marble halls. This shadow was not born of war or famine, but of a single act of divine disrespect that would alter the course of Chinese history forever. It was the birthday of the goddess Nüwa, the primordial mother who had mended the heavens and created humanity from the yellow clay of the Earth. To honor her, King Zhou was expected to visit her temple and offer incense in a show of piety. However, as the King entered the sacred precinct, a sudden breeze lifted the silk veil covering the statue of the goddess. Caught by her ethereal beauty, the King’s heart was filled with a misplaced and arrogant lust. Instead of bowing in reverence, he took a brush and inscribed a poem upon the temple walls, suggesting that if the goddess were human, he would bring her back to his palace to serve him. This act of sacrilege did not go unnoticed.
When Nüwa returned to her temple from the celestial palaces where she had been celebrating with other deities, she was met with the lingering scent of mortal insolence. Seeing the verses on the wall, her divine wrath was ignited. She realized that the Shang line, which had reigned for centuries, had lost its mandate through the corruption of its leader. She initially intended to strike the King down herself, but her divine foresight revealed that the destiny of the Shang's fall was already woven into the stars, and she could not interfere directly with the timeline of human succession. Instead, she reached for her 'Banner of Recruitment,' a cosmic artifact capable of summoning all the spirits and demons of the world. Upon waving the banner, three particular spirits from the Tomb of Xuan Yuan answered her call: a Nine-Headed Pheasant, a Jade Pipa Spirit, and most notably, a Thousand-Year-Old Fox Spirit. These entities were 'yaojing'—creatures of long cultivation who possessed great magical powers and the ability to shapeshift. Nüwa gave them a specific mission: they were to enter the royal court, disguise themselves as beautiful women, and bewitch King Zhou to ensure his ruin. However, she warned them strictly to only destroy the King’s virtue and not to harm the innocent or indulge in unnecessary cruelty, promising them that they would achieve divinity if they succeeded in their task.
At the same time, the King had become obsessed with a beautiful girl named Daji, the daughter of Su Hu, a regional lord of Yousu. Su Hu had initially resisted the King's demands to send his daughter to the capital, but under the threat of military annihilation, he was forced to comply. As the procession carrying Daji traveled toward Zhaoge, they stopped for the night at the Enzhou Inn. It was here that the Thousand-Year-Old Fox Spirit found her opportunity. Under the cover of a mystical, pitch-black fog that paralyzed the guards and the servants, the fox spirit descended upon the sleeping Daji. With a cold, supernatural efficiency, the spirit sucked the soul out of the mortal girl and inhabited her body. The true Daji died that night, and the entity that woke up the next morning was a predator wearing a human mask. The fox spirit had studied the movements and memories of the girl, ensuring that her father, Su Hu, noticed nothing but a slight change in her temperament, which he attributed to the trauma of being forced into the King's harem.