Xue Tao was originally from Chang'an. Xue Tao's father Xue Yun was a very upright man, so he offended the powerful people of the dynasty and was demoted to Chengdu. Xue Tao followed him to Chengdu and has been loyal to Chengdu ever since. . So I say, no one who comes to Chengdu wants to leave. The only person Chengdu cannot take away is you.
Wangjiang Tower was the place where Xue Tao liked to stay at that time. It is said that she fetched water from the well to make "Xue Tao's Notes". "Xue Tao Jian" is Xue Tao's patent. It is a kind of paper she invented and made that is very suitable for writing poems. This kind of paper was later used by the Tang Dynasty officials and has been passed down to this day. There is a "Xue Tao Well" next to Wangjiang Tower. Later, Xue Tao was buried here after his death, and there was Xue Tao's tomb next to it.
This Wangjiang Tower is even more legendary today because there is a peculiar couplet on it. Why is it strange? Because this couplet only has the upper couplet, not the lower couplet. The reason why there is no second line is not because the author is deliberately showing off, but because the author himself cannot correct the second line because his first line is too difficult to correct. His first couplet is:
Wangjiang Tower, Wangjiang Flow, Wangjiang Tower Wangjiang Flow. The river flows through the ages, and the river towers last through the ages.
This first couplet has a profound artistic conception and a long charm, and the contrast within the sentence is neat, with both stillness and movement. Another wonderful thing about this couplet is that in medieval Chinese and in many current dialects, "lou" and "liu" are homophones. For example, in Cantonese, these two characters have exactly the same pronunciation. Pronounced "老", it has the same pronunciation in Hokkien.
On the Wangjiang Tower, the pillar on the left is engraved with the first couplet, while the pillar on the right is empty, because no one has been able to make a perfect second couplet.