Fei, the One-Eyed Bringer of Plague in the Shan Hai Jing

What the Shan Hai Jing says

In the fourth book of the Eastern Mountains, the Shan Hai Jing reaches Mount Tai and describes a beast like an ox with a white head, a single eye and a snake's tail. It is called the Fei. Wherever it goes, harm follows: water dries up when it wades through, and grass dies when it walks across. When it appears, a great plague sweeps the world. The book's Mount Tai sits in its legendary eastern geography, and whether it is the famous sacred mountain of Shandong is not settled.

The Fei is among the most frightening beasts in the book because its harm is not limited to the people it meets. It poisons the land itself. Many creatures in the Shan Hai Jing are dangerous to anyone who crosses their path; the Fei is dangerous to everything, and its single eye and snake's tail mark it as something that does not belong among ordinary cattle.

A sign of plague

For people in the ancient world, epidemics came suddenly and with no visible cause. A beast that dried rivers and withered grass gave a shape to that fear: plague as something that walks through the country and leaves death behind it. The Shan Hai Jing lists many omens of flood, drought, fire and war, and the Fei is one of its clearest signs of disease spreading across the whole world rather than one town. Its neighbor in the same book, the Dangkang, brings the opposite news: a great harvest.

The other fei

The same character, fei, names a different creature in the Spring and Autumn Annals, which records for one autumn that the fei appeared. There it is usually understood as a crop-eating insect, and the Zuo Zhuan explains that the event was written down because it caused disaster. The insect and the ox of Mount Tai are not the same animal, but they share the same idea: when the fei appears, harm follows. For another beast whose appearance ruins the land, see the Feiyi, the snake of drought.

Fei in Beasts of Shanhai

In Beasts of Shanhai, our browser game built on these creatures, the Fei spreads sickness in battle. It is a Wood beast that poisons any foe it attacks and any foe that attacks it. Each stack of poison takes a share of the victim's health every round and cannot be blocked by a shield, so the longer a fight goes on, the more the Fei's plague does. At three stars each touch adds three stacks.

Plague Ox in Beasts of Shanhai

In our free browser game Beasts of Shanhai, Plague Ox is a Wood beast that costs 2 Gold. Its skill is Pestilence. When it attacks or is attacked, the other beast gets Poison 1: each stack loses 10% of its max HP every round and ignores Shield. At two stars it applies Poison 2, and at three stars Poison 3.

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