Bi Gan’s Heart

The Seven-Orifice Heart

Fox-spirit Daji demands Bi Gan’s wise heart; his death marks the fall of Shang loyalty.

In the Fengshen Yanyi, the fox-spirit Daji feigns illness and demands the seven-orifice heart of the loyal minister Bi Gan as medicine. Bi Gan opens his own breast, gives up his heart and dies; Jiang Ziya later canonizes him as the Star of Literature. His death marks the moment the Shang dynasty lost its last true minister — and heaven began to turn toward Zhou.