At the age of seven, Wang Xizhi studied calligraphy with the female calligrapher Wei Shuo. Wang Xizhi had been copying Shu Wei until he was twelve years old. Although he is very good, he always feels dissatisfied. Because I often listen to the teacher's stories about calligraphers' diligent study and hard practice, I admire the calligraphy of Zhang Zhi, a "grass saint" in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and I am determined to use Zhang Zhi's "Linchi" story to motivate myself.
In order to practice calligraphy well, wherever he went, he always waded through mountains and rivers, explored ancient inscriptions and accumulated a lot of calligraphy materials. In his study, in the yard, at the gate and even outside the toilet, he has stools and pens, ink, paper and inkstones. Whenever he thinks of a well-structured word, he immediately writes it on paper. When he practiced calligraphy, he thought hard and even forgot to eat and sleep.
He believes that raising geese can not only cultivate sentiment, but also understand the truth of calligraphy from some gestures of geese. One morning, Wang Xizhi and his son Wang Xianzhi took a boat tour of Shaoxing. When they arrived near Xianshui Village, they saw a flock of white geese on the shore, staggering and dawdling. Wang Xizhi was fascinated by these white geese and wanted to buy them home. Wang Xizhi asked the Taoist priest nearby, hoping that the Taoist priest could sell him the goose. The Taoist priest said, "If you want it, please write me a Taoist health book, Huang Tingjing!" Wang Xizhi longed for the goose and readily agreed to the conditions put forward by the Taoist priest. This is the story of "Wang Xizhi gave the White Goose Book".
At the age of twenty, A Qiu Chi Jian sent someone to Wang Dao's house to choose a son-in-law. At that time, people paid attention to family status, and the door was right. When Wang Dao's son and nephew heard that Qiu's family was coming to propose marriage, they all dressed up in disguise, hoping to be selected. Only Wang Xizhi, as if he didn't hear anything, was lying on the bamboo couch in the east, eating baked wheat cakes in one hand and painting clothes in the other. When people came back, they reported what they saw to Xi Taiwei. When he knew that there was a quiet Wang Xizhi leaning on the east couch, he couldn't help clapping his hands and cheering. This is the son-in-law I want! So Chi Jian married his daughter Xi Jun to Wang Xizhi. This story has become two allusions of "East Bed" and "Lingtan".
There are more idioms on him than that. It is said that on one occasion, he wrote his words on a board and gave them to a sculptor for carving. The man cut the board with a knife, only to find that his handwriting was printed two-thirds deep in the board. This is the origin of the idiom "cut to the chase".