"The brush is magnificent, green dripping with vitality, branch by branch generating cool shade." The poetry on the reverse side also consists of works by earlier masters praising bamboo. The most interesting piece is the one belonging to Gu Jingzhou, inscribed with "But moved by the pure breeze, thus knowing Zizhen's heart," lines taken from the Tang Dynasty poet Li Chengyong's poem *Inscribed on a Friend's Bamboo Grove*. The original poem reads: "What harm if snow accumulates and oppresses, but moved by the pure breeze. Knowing Zizhen's heart, not shared with common people." Wu Hufan extracted one line each from the beginning and end, recombining them—a stroke of genius that created an even better artistic conception. The "Zizhen" in the poem refers to Wang Huizhi, son of the great Jin Dynasty calligrapher Wang Xizhi. Wang Huizhi's courtesy name was Zizhen, and he was by nature a lover of bamboo. *A New Account of the Tales of the World* records: "Wang Zizhen once temporarily stayed in someone's empty residence and immediately ordered bamboo to be planted. Someone asked: 'For a temporary stay, why bother?' Wang whistled for a long while, then pointed directly at the bamboo and said: 'How can one go a single day without this gentleman?'" Zizhen's love for bamboo was like his father Xizhi's love for geese—both are celebrated as legendary tales in history. But what does "Zizhen" refer to here? We speculate that Wu Hufan, in commissioning Yixing pottery, compared Jingzhou to Zizhen, subtly praising Gu Jingzhou's open and upright character and his lofty aspiration of pursuing the art of clay as a lifelong pursuit. At the same time, Wu Hufan may also have been comparing Gu Jingzhou to noble and unbending elegant bamboo, while seeing himself as Zizhen. Through his interactions with Gu Jingzhou, through Gu Jingzhou's clay teapots, he had come to regard this young man of high artistry and noble character as a lifelong friend. Truly, "in the friendships of life, only kindred spirits gather." The maker, painter, and recipients of the "Great Stone Ladle" teapots are all clearly established, but there are different views on who actually carved the inscriptions on these pots. Dai Zuomin described it this way: "After the painting was completed, Dai Xiangming again entrusted the cargo boat to deliver them to the Gu household. Gu Jingzhou carved his own pot himself, while the remaining four were carved by his cousin Tan Yaokun, a skilled hand at pottery carving." Some Yixing pottery artisans believe it was the work of Tan Yaokun, their reasoning being quite simple: Gu Jingzhou was still young at the time, while Tan Yaokun had already achieved some accomplishment in Yixing pottery carving. Combined with their family relationship (Tan was Gu's cousin), for such a straightforward task, one would naturally invite the capable person to do it—none other than Tan would be suitable. In 1991, in his essay *Tracing Origins and Discussing Art: On the Integration of Literati and Painting Circles with the Art of Clay*, Gu Jingzhou made the following statement: [The text appears to end here with an incomplete sentence]