Bo Ya was a master of the zither, and his friend Zhong Ziqi understood his playing. When Bo Ya played with high mountains in mind, Zhong Ziqi said: “Splendid! Towering like Mount Tai!” The story is told in the Liezi.
The Annals of Lü Buwei tell how it ended. When Zhong Ziqi died, Bo Ya “broke his zither, cut its strings, and never played again for the rest of his life.”
The word for a close friend, 知音, comes from the story. It means “one who knows the tune.”