Wei Sheng arranged to meet a woman under a bridge. She did not come. The water rose, and he did not leave. He held on to the bridge pillar and drowned. Dictionaries define Wei Sheng bao zhu, Wei Sheng holds the pillar, as keeping faith with an agreement.
In the Zhuangzi, the robber Zhi tells the story to mock such men. They are “no different from a dog torn apart or a pig swept away by the river,” he says. They valued their name, made light of death and forgot their own lives.