Liu Xun was an official who served in Guangzhou during the reign of the Tang emperor Zhaozong (r. 888-904) and then stayed on and wrote a book on the geography and fauna of the Lingnan region. Of this book, the Lingbiao luyi, only fragments survive in the Taiping yulan and Taiping guangji.

The following excerpt is from an entry on crocodiles. The anecdote concerns the former chief minister Li Deyu (787-850), who fell out of favor with a new emperor in 847 and was effectively exiled from the capital to a lowly post in the remote prefecture of Chaozhou in eastern Guangdong. Liu evidently assumes that his readers will understand why Li Deyu would try to use a Kunlun to retrieve his collection from the water. The anecdote suggests that Mohe’s fate in the Tao Xian story (see source 4.23) was not pure fantasy: real Kunlun slaves were sent on diving missions that might expose them to attack by crocodiles.

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The former Defender-in-chief, Li Deyu, was demoted to a post in Chaozhou and was passing by a crocodile-infested shore when one of his ships was damaged and sank. His entire collection of curios, ancient books, and paintings, accumulated over a lifetime, went down with it. He then called on a Kunlun on his ship to retrieve [the collection], but [the Kunlun] saw that there were very many crocodiles and did not dare to go near them. That was a whole den of crocodiles.