During the Southern Song Dynasty, a poet and painter named Zheng, brimming with talent and fame, urgently petitioned the court to resist the Mongol invasion with all their might, but his plea was ignored.
After the Zhao Song dynasty fell, he changed his name to "Sixiao" (the character "Xiao" being half of the traditional "Zhao"), styled himself Yi Weng, and took the pseudonym Suo Nan—all expressing his refusal to forget the Southern Song and his unwillingness to serve as a subject of the Yuan dynasty.
He lived in seclusion at Baoguo Temple south of Suzhou, naming his dwelling "Benxue World"—he split the character "ben" into "da" (great) and "shi" (ten), then placed "shi" in the center of "xue" (cave) to form "song" (Song dynasty), together meaning "Great Song." Whether sitting or lying down, he always faced south, and often climbed high to gaze southward, drawing people's attention.
During the Song-Yuan transition, the loyalist Zheng Sixiao planted thirty acres of plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum around Baoguo Temple, finding joy in farming. Often under moonlit blossoms, he recited poems yearning for his fallen Song dynasty. Naming his collection *Heart Collection*, the poems seethed with resentment toward the Yuan and a desperate hope to restore Song. Knowing such verses could never be published, he sealed them in an iron box and sank it into a well. Three centuries later, the box was retrieved, and the collection became known as *The Iron-Cased Heart History*, or *The Well-Bottom Heart History*.
Zheng Sixiao loved painting plum blossoms, orchids, bamboo, and chrysanthemums. His orchids were always drawn without soil or roots. When someone asked why, he replied indignantly, "The land has all been taken by others!"
Everyone then understood that the orchid was yet another silent protest against the Yuan rulers.
At that time, the county magistrate desired a painting of orchids by Zheng Sixiao, so he sent someone to demand taxes from Zheng, offering to waive the levy in exchange for an ink orchid painting. Upon hearing this, Zheng flew into a rage and told the messenger, "You may take my head, but you shall not take my orchid!" From then on, others admired him even more.
Zheng Sixiao was always generous with his close friends, often giving them paintings as gifts.
As time passed, Zheng Sixiao's painting skills grew increasingly exquisite and wondrous. On one occasion, he painted a scroll of ink orchids over ten feet long, again without soil or roots, yet rendered with rustic simplicity and natural spacing, exuding a vibrant vitality. He titled the painting: "Pure Are the Gentlemen, No Villains at All."
After finishing the painting, Zheng Sixiao did not immediately send it to his friends but hung it in his room for everyone to admire. His friends were full of praise, unanimously commending the painting as extraordinary, calling it "innocent and natural, surpassing all worldly things."
Zheng Sixiao never married or established a household, spending his entire life in reclusive solitude. His paintings, however, spread widely, and his works can still be seen to this day.
Later, people used the idiom "innocent and artless" to describe naturalness without pretense, and also to describe the pure and kind-hearted nature of teenagers and children.
Source: Xia Wenyan (Yuan Dynasty), *Tuhui Baojian*
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "天真烂漫" came to describe naturalness without pretense, and also to describe the pure and kind-hearted nature of teenagers and children.