"Phoenix!"
The assistant minister of the Court of State Ceremonial, following behind the sedan chair, suddenly caught sight of the golden-haired boy within its snow-white curtains and could not help crying out.
Chen Caozhi raised his long, dark brows, which swept into his temples, and wondered, Phoenix? Murong Chong's childhood name was Phoenix. So this boy was Murong Chong, younger brother of Murong Wei, the current emperor of the Yan Kingdom. But why was he a blond, blue-eyed white boy?
People of the Western Jin had disparagingly called the Xianbei “Bai Nu,” referring to their pale skin. Before the War of the Eight Princes, keeping Hu slaves and Hu maidservants had been fashionable among Western Jin aristocrats. These slaves and maidservants were all Xianbei, for the Xianbei produced many handsome men and beautiful women, pleasing to their masters' eyes as they served them. Shishuo New Words recorded that Ruan Xian, one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, had been utterly infatuated with a beautiful Hu maidservant in his aunt's household, but it had not said that she was a blond, blue-eyed beauty-
Chen Caozhi recalled that, during his rebellion, Wang Shu had called Emperor Ming of Jin, Sima Shao, a "Yellow-Headed Xianbei Slave." Emperor Ming's mother, Lady Xun, had been Xianbei, and he had inherited her golden hair. In later times, Su Shi had admired a painting by Han Gan of the Tang and written a verse: "An old Xianbei, red-bearded and blue-eyed." It seemed that both Tang people and Song people had considered the Xianbei yellow-haired and blue-eyed. Yet among the Yan Army troops Chen Caozhi had encountered since Yanshi, yellow-haired Xianbei had not been particularly numerous, accounting for roughly one-fifth of the army-
Chen Caozhi knew that the Xianbei had once absorbed a branch of the