Running My Brush, I Congratulate Master Go on the Completion of His House, and Set Down besides the Intent with Which the Surveillance Commissioner Bade Me Compose It走筆賀高先生宅成。兼敍廉察命搆之意。

The feeling of the world nowadays is thin as autumn water: brothers in the morning, strangers by evening. In want they would cut their throats for each other; getting through, they cast each other off at once. From beginning to end, who thinks upon an old affection? The Lord Yun alone is a gentleman of the old sort, and his friendship with you is like that of Lei Yi (雷義) and Chen Zhong (陳重). His lordship is the honoured envoy of a whole region, and you are of those who nest and dwell in a straitened valley. Though in the world's flourishing and withering your conditions differ, the heart is like iron and stone, and neither blackens nor wears away. He thought of your want, like a carp in a wheel rut, and pitied your straits, like a roe deer that has lost its wood. He bade a new house be opened, and in a moment it was done: the flying veranda spreads its wings and the tiles are like scales. In the tenth month the day is cold and the snow lies a foot deep, yet at the south window, with the sun on your back, it is warmer than spring. The whole household laughs for joy and has the will to live, and they pray his lordship a long life that would topple the divine cedrela. The elders gather like swallows to congratulate the great house's completion, and killing a sheep and beating the drum they stir the neighbours on all four sides. I have never been one to cover over another's goodness, and hearing of this thing once, my tears wet my kerchief. I shall surely wait till the green ants float on the jar's mouth, and putting on my hood go and be a guest who mounts the hall. In one long piece I set down this uncommon thing, and on another day I shall surely send it to the minister who makes the history.