Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Myelt from Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

In Chinese folklore, there exists the idea of four great beauties, four women from different

eras who all had beauty of mythic proportions.

The first, she, she, lived in the spring and autumn period, and she was said to be so

beautiful that when she went on a walk near a pond or stream, the fish who saw her would

be so entranced by her appearance that the fish would forget how to swim and drown beneath

the water.

Next, there was Wang Zhaojun in the first century BC, the western Han Dynasty.

Wang Zhaojun was so beautiful that birds would fall from the sky mid-song when they saw

her, forgetting how to fly.

In the three kingdoms period, there was Daochuan whose face was so luminous and milky that

the moon itself was said to shy away an embarrassment, lest it be compared to her.

Finally, there was Yanguefei in the Tang Dynasty, who they say put flowers to shame.

Of course, legend also notes that all four beauties had one single, less conventionally

perfect trait.

In order, those flaws were big feet, a slipped shoulder, small ears, and body odor.

But still, in spite of their singular flaws, the four beauties became objects of legends,

characters in stories that were retold for centuries in poems, operas, songs, and novels.

They were all so beautiful the stories go that they brought men to their knees and empires

fell with them.

That narrative is especially strong with Yanguefei, the last of the four beauties.

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