Zheng, the Five-Tailed, One-Horned Red Leopard

What the Shan Hai Jing says

Zheng lives on Mount Zhang'e, in the third book of the Western Mountains. The text describes the mountain as bare, with no grass or trees but plenty of fine jade, and adds that many very strange things happen there. Then it introduces the beast: shaped like a red leopard, with five tails and a single horn. Its cry sounds like stone striking stone. The entry gives no omen and says nothing about eating it, leaving the Zheng as a pure image of a wild and unusual animal.

Neighbors on Mount Zhang'e

Zheng shares its mountain with one of the best-known birds in the book, the Bifang. It looks like a crane with one leg, red markings on a blue body and a white beak, and it cries its own name. Wherever it appears, strange fires break out in the town. The next mountain in the list is Mount Yin, home of the white-headed Tiangou. The same range also includes Kunlun Hill, so the Zheng lives in one of the richest stretches of the whole Shan Hai Jing.

The sound of struck stone

The Shan Hai Jing often describes a creature by its voice, comparing it to a baby, a dog, a duck or the sound of splitting wood. A cry like struck stone suggests something sharp and ringing, closer to a bell than to an animal's roar. The same character appears in zhengning, a common Chinese word for a fierce, frightening face. The text itself does not call the Zheng dangerous, but its five tails, single horn and harsh voice make it easy to picture as a fighter.

Zheng in our game

In Beasts of Shanhai the Zheng is a cheap Metal beast built around one idea: it hits hard and unpredictably, landing critical strikes far more often than its neighbors. We kept its cost low on purpose: a strange, sharp-voiced beast from a bare mountain is the kind of creature a player meets early, long before the great gods of the Great Wilderness books.

Fivetail in Beasts of Shanhai

In our free browser game Beasts of Shanhai, Fivetail is a Metal beast that costs 1 Gold. Its skill is Frenzy. Its critical hit chance is raised by 30%. At two stars the bonus is 60%, and at three stars 90%.

Play Beasts of Shanhai free