[3] These accounts have been popularized in works such as the Wu Wang Fa Zhou Pinghua (武王伐紂平話), the Fengshen Yanyi, and the Lieguo Zhi.

In the Song dynasty, fox spirit cults, including those dedicated to Daji, became outlawed, but their suppression was unsuccessful.

[6] Daji was from a noble family of Yousu (有蘇); her style name is Da (妲), and her clan name is Ji (己).

At some time during his early reign, King Zhou of Shang invaded Yousu and took Daji as his prize.

King Zhou became extremely infatuated with Daji and started to neglect state affairs in order to keep her company.

At one point, she noticed a farmer walking across ice barefoot, and so she ordered his feet cut off to understand why he was resistant to low temperatures.

[7] This is described as a bronze cylinder covered with oil heated like a furnace with charcoal beneath until its sides were extremely hot.

Daji was executed on the orders of King Wu of Zhou after the fall of the Shang dynasty on the advice of Jiang Ziya.

[9] According to Han scholar Liu Xiang's Biographies of Exemplary Women, following her death, her head was hung on a small white flag to symbolize how she had become the downfall of the dynasty.

In Fengshen Yanyi, she was a daughter of Su Hu (蘇護); in the early chapters, she was killed by a thousand-year-old fox spirit who possessed her body before becoming a concubine of King Zhou.

One night before, Daji was sent to the capital city of Zhaoge, and she was possessed by an evil nine-tailed fox spirit (aka Thousand-Year-Old Vixen).

Daji was blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty by corrupting King Zhou and causing him to neglect state affairs and rule with tyranny and despotism.