Scarlet Leopard with One Horn and Five Tails
Mount Zhang'e, says the 'Classic of the Western Mountains', bears no plants but abounds in fine jade, and 'strange things happen there'. Among them prowls the Zheng: 'shaped like a scarlet leopard, with five tails and a single horn, its voice like the striking of stones.'
The Shanhaijing habitually marks its beasts by adding or subtracting body parts, and the Zheng — one horn, five tails — belongs to the same figural grammar as the one-eyed, three-tailed Huan and the three-headed, six-tailed Qitu elsewhere in the same classic. It shares Mount Zhang'e with the Bifang, the one-legged bird of fire omens, yet the text assigns the Zheng itself no omen, no cure, and no use — an unusual silence in a book where most western beasts either portend drought and flood or heal ills when eaten or worn. Ming and Qing illustrated editions draw it as a five-tailed, horned leopard poised on bare rock, an image that has passed into modern bestiaries, games, and illustration.
