Crouching Dragon, Fledging Phoenix

Crouching Dragon, fledging Phoenix is the slash ship between Zhuge Liang (crouching dragon) and Pang Tong (fledging phoenix) from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms fandom.

Canon
Pang Tong and Zhuge Liang are friends; they met when Zhuge Liang first entered Longzhong. Both studied together under Sima Huis, another very famous hermit (隐士) at the time. Pang Tong is two years older than Zhuge Liang. before Liu Bei came to find Zhuge Liang, they used to hang out together often, hidden in the depths of the mountains surrounding Longzhong. They share poems, life advice, opinions on humanity and life in general with each other.

Zhou Yu's funeral
After attending Zhou Yu's funeral, Zhuge Liang is invited to eat and talk with Pang Tong on his small boat. Pang Tong jokes that ZHuge Liang had killed Zhou Yu with jealousy and that he was just crying crocodile tears. Zhuge Liang invites him to work under Liu Bei, to which Pang Tong accepts. Later, when he is put in charge of a city's affairs, all he does is drink. Liu Bei is angry with Pang Tong but Zhuge Liang tells him to be patient, for Pang Tong's abilities will be shown later.

Pang Tong's Death
After falling at the "fallen phoenix slope", news of Pang Tong's death has not reached Zhuge Liang. However, when observing the stars later that night, Zhuge Liang starts weeping uncontrollably. When his subordinates ask why, Zhuge Liang claims that Pang Tong was killed in a rain of arrows. His subordinates do not believe him. Later, when news of Pang Tong's death does reach Jing Zhou, the subordinates gawk at Zhuge Liang's predictions.

Fanon
is not a popular ship in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms fandom. It is unusual, as a dragon and a phoenix are symbols of love in China. Rival ships include XuanLiang, YunLiang, and BeiTong. Some people don't like this ship, and Pang Tong seems to envy Zhuge Liang even right before death. This ship seems to have a following in the "Honors of Kings (王者荣耀)" fandom, where there are two characters of the same name.

There are 9 fics on A03.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION

Trivia

 * They are featured together on the card 卧龙凤雏 from the card game 三国杀.
 * The "dragon-phoenix" is said to represent love, but for Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong, it represents wisdom.