Recent discoveries of early-diverging pennaraptoran fossils have shed light on the origin of birds and, in particular, the evolution of defining avian features such as pennaceous feathers and flight capability. Here I report a new pennaraptoran dinosaur based on a fossil recovered from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of western Liaoning, China. Despite exhibiting a combination of derived features observed across distinct pennaraptoran lineages, this new taxon is likely an early-diverging deinonychosaurian. Most notably, it possesses exceptional plumage characteristics: it represents the first known early-diverging pennaraptoran to bear both large pedal feathers and highly elongated rectrices; these elongated rectrices are substantially more abundant than those of other early-diverging pennaraptorans, bearing a superficial resemblance to the tail plumes of peacocks; and its wing feathers form the proportionally largest feathered wings among non-avialan pennaraptorans—even with relatively short bony forelimbs—indicating a decoupling of forelimb skeletal length and feathered wing surface area. This discovery underscores the complexity of early pennaraptoran evolution and raises several conceptual and methodological issues in pennaraptoran research. These issues include how to recover a robust pennaraptoran phylogeny, how to infer the aerial behavior and habitat ecology of early-diverging pennaraptorans, and how to define feathers and birds. I briefly address these issues in this paper.