The Thirteen Chapters of the Classic of Go, written by Zhang Ni, a Hanlin academician-in-waiting of the Northern Song, contained roughly two thousand characters. It systematically summarized the discussions of weiqi in works ranging from the pre-Qin Yin Wenzi, the Eastern Han Ban Gu's Essentials of Weiqi and Ma Rong's Rhapsody on Weiqi, to the Ten Admonitions on Weiqi by the great Tang master Wang Jixin. Drawing together their achievements, it established a complete and profound theory of weiqi that influenced the following thousand years.
On the morning of the nineteenth day of the second month, Chen Caozhi rose early and practiced a round of the Five-Animal Exercises, then sat in his small study to write out the Thirteen Chapters of the Classic of Go from memory, removing some of its strained analogies and replacing them with the latest weiqi theories of later ages-
As he pondered deeply, his brush moving without pause, he suddenly heard Gu Kaizhi's hearty laughter outside the courtyard. Gu called loudly, "Zizhong, Zizhong, a fair soul has come to visit! Guess who?"
Before the Tang and Song, the term "fair soul" had three meanings. In Song Yu's Rhapsody on the Lecherous Dengtu, "Of all the fair souls beneath heaven, none rival those of Chu," it referred to beautiful women. In the "Biography of Tao Kan" in the Book of Jin, Tao Kan said to the rebel general Wang Gong, "You were a worthy soul. Why follow him?" Here it meant a gentleman of virtue and ability. In the Southern Dynasties writer Wang Rong's Ballad of Qiu Hu, "My fair soul suddenly a thousand miles away, resentment gathers in the empty chamber," it was synonymous with "good man" and referred to a husband-
Gu Kaizhi's "fair soul" ought to have meant the second: a gentleman of