Hai Collection, Middle Volume
Radical: Fish (yú)
Character: Ren
Kangxi strokes: 13
Page 1465, Entry 07
Yu pian: Pronounced ren. A type of fish.
Book of Southern Qi (Nan Qi Shu), Biography of Zhang Rong: Ren.
Zhengzitong: Note that this type of fish is the merman of the sea. It possesses eyebrows, ears, mouth, nose, hands, claws, and a head. Its skin and flesh are as white and pure as jade; it has no scales but possesses fine hair. Its five-colored hair resembles a horse's tail, and it grows to five or six feet in length, with a body also five or six feet long. People living along the coast capture them and raise them in ponds and marshes. The males and females mate, showing no difference from humans. Guo Pu composed a eulogy for the merman. Adding the person radical to the word merman results in the character ren, just as adding the ox radical to the word ox-fish results in a specific variant.