Jiu Ke was a native of Liang Shi Shangjiu Jia. The wine he brewed was often excellent and sold well, earning him ten thousand coins each day. After someone wronged him and left, the host’s wine would often become sour and spoiled. In poverty, many merchants in Liang Shi gave their daughters to him in marriage and welcomed him into their families, some leaving and others coming. After more than a hundred years, he became the magistrate of Liang, instructing the people to plant more taro and vegetables, saying: “There will be a great famine in three years.” It eventually happened exactly as he had said, and the people of Liang did not die. After five years, he resigned from his post and left; no one knew what became of him in the end.

Jiu Ke’s story follows a pattern seen throughout the Lie Xian Zhuan: the immortal who enters the world, serves it fully, and then withdraws without a trace. Fan Li assisted a king in defeating his enemies, accumulated vast wealth, then abandoned everything to disappear — both men demonstrating that the Taoist sage acts in the world not for personal gain, but out of a deeper alignment with the Dao.

His century of brewing wine in the marketplace connects him to the cluster of long-lived, market-dwelling immortals in the Lie Xian Zhuan: Anqi Xiansheng sold medicine along the Eastern Sea for a thousand years, while Xiaqiu Zhong sold medicine in Ning for over a century before surviving death itself. All three lived hidden in plain sight, their immortality invisible to those around them.

Jiu Ke Xiao Cui lodged at a wine shop in Liang Shi. What distinguishes it is the unique flavor of its pure and fragrant liquor. Humbling himself to assist in governance, he ensured that the people never lacked for necessities. On the morning of his resignation and departure, no one knew where he eventually gathered or settled.

The eulogy’s phrase “humbling himself to assist in governance” is the key to Jiu Ke’s character. Like Youbozi, who protected the Su family across generations without ever revealing his true nature, Jiu Ke served the people of Liang not as a celebrated sage but as an ordinary magistrate — his power expressed through practical action rather than display. And like Gui Fu, whose cassia pills continued to nourish the people of Jingzhou long after his passing, Jiu Ke’s legacy was measured not in monuments but in lives saved.