He was a legendary personage of the late Eastern Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period (20 BC–280 AD) of China.

Though he is known to be from Lujiang Commandery (盧江郡; around present-day Lu'an, Anhui), the years of his birth and death are unknown.

He learned his magic and path to longevity from the Taoist sage Feng Heng (封衡), and eventually passed his arts to Ge Xuan.

At some time before 200, the local warlord Sun Ce, who was a strict Confucian, wanted to kill Zuo Ci and chased him on horseback.

On one occasion, Zuo Ci fed an entire court assembly with food and wine.

Zuo Ci eventually retired from the world to practise his arts in the mountains.

As described in the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zuo Ci was a Taoist known under the name of Master Black Horn (烏角先生).

Zuo Ci wielded amazing Taoist power and was described as a psychic.

He studied on Mount Emei in Sichuan, where he found The Book of Concealing Method (遁甲天書), from which he learned to "ascend to the clouds astride the wind, to sail up into the great void itself;" and how "...to pass through mountains and penetrate rocks; ...to float light as vapor, over the seas, to become invisible at will or change [his] shape, to fling swords and project daggers so as to decapitate a man from a distance."

When they were all executed black vapor rose from their necks where they joined to form another image of Zuo Ci.