In the seventh lunar month of autumn in the fifth year of Shengping, Emperor Mu, Sima Dan, was buried in Yongping Mausoleum and given the temple name Xiaozong.
In the ninth month, the daughter of Wang Meng, chief clerk to the Minister of the Masses, was installed as empress. Wang Meng came from the Taiyuan Wang Clan, was handsome, and excelled at clerical script. Once, holding up a mirror to admire himself, he addressed his father Wang Na by his courtesy name and said, "Did Wang Wenkai father such a son!" Such was his self-infatuation-
As a youth, Wang Meng had been wild and unrestrained, earning the scorn of his neighbors. He loved gambling and was poor. When his cap became tattered, he went to the market to buy another. The woman tending the counter at the hat shop, taken with his looks, gave him a new cap without accepting payment, and people at the time considered him free-spirited. Only in middle age did he begin to restrain himself and cultivate his conduct, attaining a reputation equal to those of Liu Tan of Pei Commandery and Xie Shang of Chen Commandery. In the same month that his daughter was installed as empress, Wang Meng fell gravely ill. Turning a Dust-Tail Fan over beneath the lamplight and examining it, he sighed, "Can someone like me truly not live past forty?" He died at thirty-nine. As his body was being prepared for burial, Liu Tan placed a rhinoceros-handled Dust-Tail Fan in his coffin and was overcome with grief for a long time. Xie An had once praised Wang Meng, saying, "Chief Clerk Wang speaks very little, but his words may be called exquisite."
In the ninth month, Huan Wen recalled Xi Chao, who was mourning his uncle, to plan another northern expedition.