Luoyu, the Winged Fish That Brings Floods

What the Shan Hai Jing says

The Luoyu lives in the fourth book of the Western Mountains, at Mount Gui. The Meng River rises on this mountain and flows south into the Yang River, and the text says its waters hold many yellow cowrie shells, the shells that served as money and ornaments in early China. Among the shells swim the Luoyu, fish with the body of a fish and the wings of a bird. Their voice is like the call of a mandarin duck, the bird that in later Chinese poetry stands for a faithful couple. The final line turns that gentle picture into a warning: when a Luoyu is seen, its town will suffer a great flood.

A mountain with a man-eater

Mount Gui is not a peaceful place. Just before the Luoyu, the same entry describes a beast on the mountain that looks like an ox with hedgehog bristles and a cry like a howling dog. It is the Qiongqi, and it eats people. Later texts make Qiongqi one of the Four Perils, the villains banished by the sage king Shun. Putting the two together, Mount Gui offers danger on land and danger from the water: a man-eating beast on the slopes, and in the river a fish whose appearance means the river will rise.

Winged fish and flood omens

Winged fish appear several times in the Shan Hai Jing, each with its own omen. The Luoyu belongs with the Huashe of the Central Mountains, a winged creature in the Yang River of Mount Yang that also signals flood. For the people who compiled the book, a strange creature leaving its usual element, a fish with wings or a jackal that slithers, was a natural sign that the waters themselves were about to break their bounds.

The Luoyu in our game

In Beasts of Shanhai the Luoyu is a quick water beast that uses its wings to slip out of the way. It has no tricks beyond dodging, and it cannot dodge two attacks in a row, but at higher stars it becomes hard to hit at all. It costs 2 Gold and belongs to the water element, like the other flood creatures of the book. Like the original, it has no remedy to offer: it is simply hard to catch.

Winged Fish in Beasts of Shanhai

In our free browser game Beasts of Shanhai, Winged Fish is a Water beast that costs 2 Gold. Its skill is Wing Dodge. Dodge +20%, but it can't Dodge twice in a row. Dodge rises to +30% at two stars and +40% at three stars.

Play Beasts of Shanhai free