Son of Mount Zhong, Executed at Yao Cliff
The 'Classic of the Western Mountains' says of Mount Zhong: 'its son is called Gu, human-faced and dragon-bodied.' This Gu conspired with the god Qinpi to murder the deity Baojiang (Zujiang in some recensions) on the southern slopes of Kunlun. The High God, enraged, had both killers executed east of Mount Zhong, at a place called Yao Cliff.
Execution did not end them; each rose again as a bird. Qinpi became a great osprey 'like an eagle, black-marked and white-headed, red-beaked and tiger-clawed', whose cry is like a morning swan and whose appearance brings great war. Gu became the Jun bird, 'like a kite, red-footed and straight-beaked, yellow-marked and white-headed', its voice like a swan; whatever town it alights on will suffer great drought. Murderers in life, they persist as calamities — war and drought — after death.
This is one of the most complete narrative episodes in the entire Shanhaijing, with murder, divine punishment, and metamorphosis in three acts. Mythographers habitually read it beside Xingtian, who danced with axe and shield after losing his head, and Gun, whose corpse lay three years without rotting: the gods slain by the High God refuse, in one form or another, to be annihilated.
