Qinggeng, the Blue Bird That Wards Off Plague

What the Shan Hai Jing says

The Qinggeng lives on Mount Jinli in the eleventh book of the Central Mountains, one of the longest books in the Classic of Mountains, with dozens of mountains in a single chain. The entry for Mount Jinli first lists the trees and minerals of the mountain, as almost every entry does, before turning to the bird that lives there. The Qinggeng is shaped like a magpie. Its body is blue or blue-green, and its beak, eyes and tail are white. Its cry is its own name. Its value is stated in four characters: it can ward off plague. The text does not explain how, whether by seeing it, keeping it or eating it, only that it guards against epidemic disease.

A bird against disease

Plague, yi in the original, was one of the great fears of the ancient world, and the Shan Hai Jing records several creatures tied to it. Some bring disease: in the same eleventh book, the Qizhong of Mount Fuzhou is a bird like an owl with a single leg and a pig's tail, and when it appears the state suffers a great epidemic. The Qinggeng is its opposite. Placed in the same book as a plague-bringing bird, it reads like a deliberate counterweight, a small blue bird that stands between people and sickness. Its likeness to the magpie, a bird already seen as lucky in Chinese culture, adds to its gentle character.

Why it calls its own name

Many birds in the Shan Hai Jing are said to cry their own names, from the Jingwei of the Northern Mountains to the Qinggeng here. The phrase is a practical detail: it tells the reader how to recognise the creature by sound, and it is probably how many of these birds got their names in the first place, from the call people heard in the hills.

The Qinggeng in our game

In Beasts of Shanhai the Qinggeng is a healer. After every round of fighting it mends the weakest member of its team, and at three stars it tends to two allies at once, a quiet guardian against harm in the spirit of the plague-warding bird. It belongs to the wood element and costs 2 Gold. Its blue body with white beak, eyes and tail comes straight from the text.

Healer Magpie in Beasts of Shanhai

In our free browser game Beasts of Shanhai, Healer Magpie is a Wood beast that costs 2 Gold. Its skill is Mend. After each round it heals your lowest-HP ally by 10% of its max HP (at least 1). This rises to 20% (at least 2) at two stars, and at three stars it heals the 2 lowest-HP allies by 20% each (at least 3).

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