Lingzi

Lingzi (Chinese: 翎子), also called zhiling (Chinese: 雉翎), refers to a traditional Chinese ornament which uses long pheasant tail feather appendages to decorate some headdress in Xifu, Chinese opera costumes. In Chinese opera, the lingzi not only decorative purpose but are also used to express thoughts, feelings, and the drama plot.

They are typically used on the helmets of warriors, where a pair of pheasant feathers extensions are the indicators that the character is a warrior figure; the length of the feathers, on the other hand, is an indicator of the warrior's rank. The lingzi are generally about five or six feet long. Most of the time, lingzi are used to represent handsome military commanders.