The boatman made a couplet casually, which stumped Huang Tingjian, a great genius. No one has made a second couplet for hundreds of years.

Huang Tingjian, a native of xiushui county, Jiangxi Province, was a famous writer and calligrapher in the Northern Song Dynasty. He is the founder of Jiangxi Poetry School, and he is also called "one ancestor and three schools" with Du Fu, Chen. His poems take Du Fu, a master of Tang poetry, as the research object, and construct and put forward poetic theories such as "turning iron into gold" and "reborn", which have a far-reaching influence on later literary creation. His running script and cursive script are also famous in the literary world, and his cursive script created another artistic conception of China's cursive script.

Huang Tingjian studied under Su Shi, who was as famous as Su Shi before his death and was known as the "Su Huang" in the world. Su Shi also spoke highly of him, saying that Huang Tingjian's magnificent prose is a wonderful work in the world today, and his trip to filial piety matches the ancients. Except anecdotes, the table of everything is independent. It fully affirmed Huang Tingjian's literary achievements. Coincidentally, Su Shi and Huang Tingjian have deep roots and many similarities.

First, the official career is not smooth. Su Like Dongpo and Huang Tingjian's official careers were also demoted all the way. Huang Tingjian, a scholar, has a bright future and was once known as Xuanzhou. But because he told the truth in officialdom, he was repeatedly attacked and framed unscrupulously and demoted.

Second, both of them like antithesis, which is related to their talent in poetry. Su Shi often teased his friend Fo Yin and his sister Su Xiaomei, leaving many coincidences, even eternal absolutes. Huang Tingjian also likes couplets, which have not been handed down much, but there is a short story about couplets.

Huang Tingjian was transferred to Suzhou and Hangzhou to work. He was very happy because he was eager to realize his political ambitions. After bidding farewell to his family, he took his luggage and wanted to take a boat down the river from Jiangzhou (now Jiujiang) to Suzhou and Hangzhou. Along the way, Huang Tingjian was in a very happy mood, and many scholars admired him, but he hoped that the people would like him too.

On the way, the boatman saw that Huang Tingjian was quite arrogant and looked like a scholar, so he wanted to meet him. So he stopped Huang Tingjian and asked about his identity. After learning that it was Huang Tingjian, the boatman's interest increased greatly. Knowing that Huang Tingjian had a good poem, he went to the first couplet and said, Take a boat, paddle two oars, support three or four sheds, take five or six passengers, cross Qilitan, reach Bali Lake, and be ten miles away from Jiujiang.

This couplet is wonderful, it expresses the meaning, and at the same time connects everything in series with numbers from one to ten, which is extremely difficult to match. Not only that, the boatman also asked the upper part to use numbers, but also the lower part to use numbers. Regardless of the opposite direction, the arrangement should be as regular as the upper part, which undoubtedly increased the difficulty.

Did the great genius Huang Tingjian catch up with him? No, the first part really stumped him. He racked his brains but couldn't come up with the second one. After seeing off the boatman, Huang Tingjian kept thinking about the second part, but there was still no suitable second part. This also seems to indicate that Huang Tingjian's career is not satisfactory. Although he was unsuccessful as an official, people in the place where Huang Tingjian worked loved him very much, and scholars everywhere admired his talent and personality. He never tires of giving lectures and often gives advice to students.

Speaking of couplets, Huang Tingjian didn't get them right at that time, and hundreds of years later, no one could get a proper and neat couplet, which became a "swan song".