After transmigrating to the Ming Dynasty, Su Huai didn't become a prince or minister. Instead, he became a thousand-year-old locust tree atop Coal Hill, behind the Forbidden City.
He absorbed the essence of heaven and earth day and night, and finally managed to cultivate a faint spirit. All he wanted was to lie low until he could take human form.
In the year 1644, torrential rain poured down as Li Zicheng's forces closed in on the capital.
With nowhere left to turn, the disheveled Chongzhen Emperor, Zhu Youjian, climbed Coal Hill. Grief and rage consuming him, he decided to end his life on Su Huai's thickest branch.
Seeing his cultivation about to be consumed by the karmic flames of a fallen dynasty, Su Huai burst through the bark and cursed, "Foolish emperor! If you're going to lose your mind, do it somewhere else! Don't defile my sacred cultivation ground!"
Chongzhen's eyes widened in despair, as if he had seized a lifeline.
"The ancestors have answered our prayers! The divine tree guarding the nation has manifested! The Ming still has Heaven's protection!"
Chongzhen bit his fingertip and, in the name of the emperor, made a covenant of national fortune upon the tree bark.
"I hereby enshrine the sacred locust of Coal Hill as the Jianmu, the guardian tree of the Ming! May it enjoy the incense offerings of all under Heaven and live as long as the Imperial Polarity!"
"As long as the divine tree stands, the Ming stands! Today, I stake the entire three-hundred-year realm and dynasty on you. If you cannot defend Beiping, I'll bring every official here to kneel beneath your branches every day!"
Su Huai: "???"
The rebel army has already stormed the Meridian Gate, and Qing cavalry are sharpening their blades beyond the pass. You just welded the whole rotten mess of a doomed dynasty to my roots?!
