In the West, Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper captured a single, sacred moment before revelation—an image where silence trembled with meaning. In China, a thousand years earlier, another gathering unfolded—not of disciples and prophecy, but of poets, wine, and the quiet pulse of nature.
Eastern Jin Dynasty, 353 CE
Mist drifted through the hills of Kuaiji as spring light scattered across the stones. Scholars and poets arrived in twos and threes, robes brushing dew-laden grass, voices low with anticipation. By the winding stream, they set their cups afloat on the current—each man's verse rising or faltering with the rhythm of the water.
Among them sat Wang Xizhi, governor, calligrapher, and reluctant court official. He watched the sunlight shimmer across the flowing cups, as if time itself played a quiet game of chance. The laughter of his peers echoed faintly, yet Wang's gaze was elsewhere—on the endless movement of the stream, on the fragile shimmer of things destined to fade.
When dusk fell, and the air thickened with wine and nostalgia, Wang took up his brush. The ink breathed like wind over the surface, steady yet alive. With each stroke, he captured what no decree or monument could preserve—the fleeting joy of fellowship, the ache of impermanence, the grace of a moment that dares to pass.
Those who watched felt a hush come over them. It was as if heaven and earth had paused to listen—the calligrapher's spirit merging with the world around him. When the final character was written, Wang Xizhi set down his brush, eyes calm, smile barely visible. "To live," he murmured, "is to let go as the river flows."
Moonlight silvered the stream as the guests departed. Only the murmur of bamboo remained, carrying that night's serenity into the dark. Yet within the stillness, something new stirred—a quiet rebellion against constraint, a longing for the unbound life.And so, far from the courts and rituals of men, a different fellowship would rise among the groves—seven sages, whose laughter and song would echo through the bamboo shadows of time.