Lǚ Bù (who lived at the end of the Eastern Hàn) was renowned for his skill at archery; Yí Liáo (of the Spring and Autumn Period) was famed for juggling skills—being able to handle nine balls at once, one in hand and eight in mid air. Jī Kāng of Cáo Wèi was a gǔqín virtuoso, and his countryman Ruǎn Jí could not only play that instrument brilliantly, but could pucker up his mouth and famously whistle loud and long as well.

Méng Tián of the Warring States' Qín is credited with the invention of the writing brush; Cài Lún of the Eastern Hàn invented papermaking; Mǎ Jūn of the Shǔ Hàn devised and manufactured a compass-equipped cart and the irrigation waterwheel, and the legendary Rèn Gōngzǐ discovered how to fish with pole, hook and line, as related in Zhuāngzǐ, where he is credited with catching a huge fish from the East China Sea by using a cow for bait; it seems that he simultaneously invented the fisherman's tale. Fittingly, ‘inflating a cow' is an old Chinese expression for exaggeration.

Lǚ Bù used his longbow skills to pry apart the engaging armies of Yuán Shù and Liú Bèi and create a truce during the Three Kingdoms, and Zhuāngzǐ relates how Yí Liáo once enthralled people with a merry demonstration of his juggling. The others brought people obvious practical benefits. The writing brush still sells well, and calligraphy is very popular all around the world. Even with computers in such wide use, more paper is being used today than ever, much of it fortunately recycled, and even today's most advanced ships and aircraft carry a basic magnetic compass device.

The two legendary Chinese beauties of the Warring States period, Máo Qiáng and Xī Shī. They appeared to have a charming smile even when knitting their brows in pain or displeasure; Xī Shī is famous for maintaining her beauty, poise and mysteriously alluring smile during her attacks of angina and while clutching her chest with a fatal infarction. The expression "Xī Shī feng shou" comes from those last moments of her life, her pose looking like a calm and humble gesture of offering with both hands. She has been an inspiration and model for untold millions of young Chinese girls, with the romance of her pure youth, washing clothes on her laundrystone by a river in the mountainous wilds of ancient Sìchuān.

The shǐ here is the hour hand on a Chinese water clock, that floats up and down according to the level of water remaining in the device's chamber. The Chinese had these reliable timekeeping devices in antiquity as we can see from the metaphor here; the hour hand changed into an indicator of the years and months irretrievably passing, timing out the lives of all things except for our brilliant, glorious, everlasting sun. All of us slowly pushed toward the end with the passage of our alloted years and months.

The first xuán and the jī above refer to the first four stars in the Big Dipper around which it turns, suspended. The Běidòu (‘Big Dipper') had deep religious significance for the ancient Chinese, who believed it to be the location of the Palace of the Lord of the Běidòujūn (‘Pole Star') in the ancient Zhōu sky. Huì is the last moon of the lunar month, and pò is its pale cold light. The Chinese believed moonlight to be a form of latent yīn energy, the power driving the cold wet magic of earth; the moon is also thought of as a symbol of time and mortality, its cold light having shone on so many forgotten autumns, so many joys and tragedies, births and deaths, festivals and famines; possessed of secrets, intervening in the sleep of people, its beams clearing up puzzling dreams. The pale transparent light of that frozen disc pervades every nook and cranny of the darkened 5th century central China plain, illuminating huts, earthen and brick walls and outbuildings, showing the stubble of newly harvested fields and the earthen banks and dykes in stark relief. The myriad stars and planets all spread out across the black dome of night as we face the old moon. Fifteen centuries later the American author Willa Cather would write, in her romantic rustic novel My Antonia:

"As we walked homeward across the fields, the sun dropped and lay like a great golden globe in the low west. While it hung there, the moon rose in the east, as big as a cart-wheel, pale silver and streaked with rose colour, thin as a bubble or a ghost-moon. For five, perhaps ten minutes the two luminaries confronted each other across the level land, resting on opposite edges of the world... In that singular light every tree and shock of wheat, every sunflower stalk... drew itself up high and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply... I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy again, and that my way could end there". (The Pioneer Woman's Story, IV).

The Chinese say that a person should pass down their learning or skill to the next generation in an eternal chain. Setting fire to fresh kindling; the fire is one's spirit, ideas, experience, skills, stored up good works and achievements, and the kindling is the mind and body of the young. Zhǐ above is a reading for another character meaning ‘idea'. Set your ideas to fresh tinder—your descendants are lucky to have your good and wholesome experience and accounts of your life to benefit from, and they too will pass it on in an unbroken chain. Each receives the accumulated wisdom and influence not only from his own parents, relations and seniors but from the ones who went before them, connecting all of us to an unending chain of forgotten ancestors constantly with us.

The crown prince of Liáng will someday begin his apprenticeship at court. Walking with the regulation square step, neck thrust forward, eyes distant, posture correct, ready and willing to assume the duties, repeated bowing, kowtowing and unquestioning obedience of his future life at court.

Having served proudly without dishonor, you are truly prepared to wear the imperial robes and crown; stand proudly and severely, and cast your eyes far from your place on on high. The prince has undergone a lifetime of preparation, fǔ yǎng wú huì (‘has served without regret') and is ready to mount the throne as Son of Heaven. Recall that this is a reader written on the command of Emperor Liáng Wǔdì for the education of his son.

We must spend time with people like this every now and then. Just let others see their foolishness and laugh at them. When a knowledgable person condescends to argue with or berate an ignorant fool, it is often hard for an impartial observer who doesn't know the subject well to tell who is right and who is the better cultivated.

On this humorous note, Zhōu Xìngsì wrappped up the Qiānzì wén, his hair and whiskers white. He inverted the clauses here so that these final particals used in classical Chinese could mark the end of the work in style. Yān as in the famous schoolteacher's scolding admonition, taken from the Great Learning: "xīn bù zāi yān" (‘heart isn't in it') is emphatic like an exclamation point; zāi as in "da zāi!" (‘how great!') is emotive or interrogative, hū as in "bù yì lè hū?" (‘isn't it a joy?') is similar but more interrogative and less emotive, and yě is variously an indicator of decision as well as a copula and, fittingly, the most common final particle in classical Chinese.