Wang Hsi-chih (312-379) at the age of 13 had already acquired a reputation for the excellence of his compositions and calligraphy.
At the same time, the court councillor Hsi Chien had a daughter so talented and beautiful that a fitting match for her could nowhere be found.
"That's it!" Hsi Chien thought one day. "I've heard that one of the Wang family boys is a pretty good fellow. I'll send a retainer over to have a look."
After the retainer arrived and explained the reason for his coming, Wang Tun, the father, told him to go to the boys' wing and look for himself.
The Wang boys were a talented bunch. But when they found out that the Hsi family had sent someone over to look for a prospective husband, they became nervous and affected. One young fellow, though, was sitting and eating, bare-stomached, on a bed on the room's east side, looking as natural and at ease as if no one were there.
The retainer went back to councillor Hsi and reported what he had seen. "That's the kind of son-in-law I want!" Hsi exclaimed, and he betrothed his daughter to Wang Hsi-chih.
Later, people used "bare-stomached on the eastern bed" as a term of praise for a son-in-law.
