By the time the army arrived to overthrow the Shang, tongues of fire had already engulfed the entirety of Lutai!
"A Jiao-sacrifice! This is a Jiao-sacrifice!"
Someone cried out in alarm at the sight. "The tyrant Di Xin is malicious indeed. I implore my King to offer sacrifices to the heavens to dispel this curse!"
Ji Fa watched the raging inferno and raised a hand to silence the commotion.
He looked off into the distance.
Outside the city of Zhao Ge, Qingnu was skipping along, swinging her gourd and humming a little tune.
In the woods ahead, three middle-aged men dressed in coarse hempen clothes emerged.
The trio blocked Qingnu's path.
"Please wait, Teacher!"
They bowed and greeted Qingnu with beaming smiles.
Finding her path suddenly blocked by three strangers, Qingnu narrowed her eyes, her expression turning unfriendly.
She tied the gourd to her waist.
"You three, instead of going to Zhao Ge to claim credit for the victory, you're blocking my way in this little grove. What for?"
The lead Daoist in grey clothes maintained a gentle expression as he cupped his hands toward Qingnu. "We have come on behalf of our King to seek the art of longevity from you, Teacher."
"You're doing it for yourselves, but you certainly make it sound noble."
Qingnu muttered under her breath upon hearing this, waving them off. "I don't have it. Don't block the road."
The three men laughed.
The grey-clad Daoist stepped forward and bowed again.
"You must be joking, Teacher. Ever since you arrived in our Xiqi over a decade ago, your appearance hasn't aged a day. If that isn't the art of immortality, then what is?"
"Teacher, please do not keep such secrets to yourself!"
"Our King is a peerless and wise ruler. If he were to achieve longevity, wouldn't that be a blessing for the world?"
The three of them chatted and laughed as they slowly closed in on Qingnu.
Qingnu was losing her patience.
"I said I don't have it! A good snake keeps her word and never lies. Get out of my way!"
Seeing that Qingnu was unwilling to share the secrets of immortality, the smile on the grey-clad Daoist’s face gradually faded. He exchanged a look with the two beside him.
"For the sake of our King and the Great Zhou, forgive our offense, Teacher!"
The three of them took up positions and brought out their various ritual tools, surrounding Qingnu in an attempt to capture her by force.
Qingnu watched as they set up their formation, chanting under their breaths, and fell into a brief silence.
Then, she walked straight toward one side of the woods.
Seeing Qingnu walk through their established formation as if it weren't even there, the three men were struck with shock.
"This..."
"How can this be!"
"This is the formation passed down by the Patriarch!"
Ignoring their shock, Qingnu snapped off a tree branch and walked back toward them.
Under their bewildered gazes, Qingnu swung the branch.
One strike after another, she whipped them mercilessly.
Though the branch looked light, it seemed to carry the weight of a thousand pounds whenever it landed!
The three were instantly knocked to the ground.
Qingnu kept whipping them while grumbling: "Blocking my way, are you? Trying to get physical, are you? Longevity? Immortality? What happened, are you mute now? Talk! Do you still want longevity?"
"Teacher, have mercy..."
"No more, we don't want longevity anymore! Please forgive us, Teacher!"
The body-tempering techniques they took such pride in were completely useless against Qingnu's strikes!
They wailed, begging for her forgiveness.
Qingnu whipped them a few more times before finally stopping.
She tossed the branch aside and walked over to kick away the tools they had used for their formation.
"What kind of junk is this? You thought you could trap me with this?"
"Do you think this snake is easy to mess with! You really think you're in the Great Zhou from the Investiture of the Gods?"
"You've read too many novels!"
The three men on the ground didn't understand the latter half of her sentence. They were in agonizing pain, feeling as though their bones had been shattered by her whipping.
Qingnu crushed the tools under her heel and then grabbed the lead Daoist by his collar.
She bared her fangs, her tone turning cold.
"Tell Ji Fa that my deal with him has begun. When the time comes, I will come to collect what I want!"
"Yes... what Teacher says, I... I will surely relay it to my King!"
The grey-clad Daoist nodded weakly.
Qingnu released his collar, wiped her hands, and reverted to her previous lighthearted self, humming a tune as she departed.
That evening, the three badly injured Daoists were carried before Ji Fa.
The grey-clad Daoist relayed Qingnu's words to him.
Ji Fa remained silent for a long time after hearing them. Eventually, he simply waved his hand for them to be taken away for treatment.
"Prime Minister, did I do something wrong?"
Jiang Ziya sighed. "Your Majesty should not have set yourself against the Teacher so easily."
Ji Fa was speechless for a long time.
The next day, Ji Fa offered sacrifices to the heavens outside the city of Zhao Ge!
A month later, the Zhou army returned in triumph to Xiqi.
Several months after that, Qingnu climbed the Qinling Mountains. Under the night sky, she observed the world’s fortune.
In a hazy blur, the dragon qi of Zhao Ge dissipated.
Above Haojing, the mists and clouds surged!
Watching the shifting winds and clouds, Qingnu shook her gourd. Listening to the sound of the two drops of heart-blood—which contained nearly a thousand years of fortune from two dynasties—she laughed aloud.
"Sooner or later, I will become a dragon!"
...
The brilliant and martial King Ji Fa was unable to continue his grand ambitions.
Only a year after the fall of Shang, Ji Fa fell ill.
The illness struck like a collapsing mountain.
Ji Fa remained bedridden for two years, never able to rise again.
In the palace of Haojing.
The attendants stood outside Ji Fa's sleeping quarters with solemn expressions.
As night fell, Ji Fa, in a daze, saw Qingnu standing by his bed.
"Teacher, you've come?"
Upon seeing Qingnu, Ji Fa's expression showed a flash of surprise, but he quickly relaxed.
He coughed several times and asked, "Has Teacher come to take Ji Fa's life?"
Qingnu shook her head. "What use would your life be to me? I want the life of the very last king of your Great Zhou."
Hearing this, Ji Fa forced a small smile.
"Then Teacher will have to wait a long time. The Prime Minister said my Great Zhou is destined to have eight hundred years of reign."
"It's only eight hundred years. I can afford to wait."
Qingnu didn't care how long it took.
She didn't have many special talents, but she certainly had a long life.
Perhaps it was the heavens compensating her. After all, having traveled across worlds and turned from a human into a snake, and from a man into a woman—it would be a bit much if there wasn't some kind of compensation for such a novel experience.
"Teacher is truly a teacher indeed, watching a thousand years of history pass by with a laugh."
Ji Fa gave a bitter smile. He looked at Qingnu and, after a moment of silence, said, "Back then..."
"I know. It was just those Daoists being greedy for the art of longevity themselves."
Qingnu understood what Ji Fa wanted to say. She comforted him, saying, "I didn't take it to heart, and you shouldn't either. After all, you don't have much time left. Try to be more open-minded."
"Teacher’s way of comforting people is as unique as ever."
"I used to be better at it. But after seeing too much, I lost the heart for it."
Qingnu shrugged. She pulled two fruits from her robe, wiped them, handed one to Ji Fa, and asked, "Want one? I picked them from your palace. They taste pretty good."
Looking at the red fruit in Qingnu's hand, Ji Fa weakly lifted his hand.
"Teacher... I am sorry..."
Seeing this, Qingnu simply stuffed the fruit into his hand.
"Just take it."
Ji Fa held the fruit, feeling the coolness it radiated. His gaze lingered on Qingnu.
"Have you been in Haojing these past three years, Teacher?"
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