During the Southern Dynasties, Xu Ling was a master of prose. It was said that as soon as his essays were written, they were immediately copied and circulated, quickly spreading far and wide, with many people memorizing them. People called Xu Ling the literary patriarch of his generation, and almost every noble family collected his works. As a result, Xu Ling naturally became an imperial writer. From the reign of Emperor Wen of Chen to Emperor Xuan of Chen, all important state documents were drafted by Xu Ling; official proclamations, military dispatches, and imperial edicts regarding appointments, rewards, and punishments were all penned by him.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang, the young Xu Ling witnessed chaos when the emperor accepted the surrendered general Hou Jing from Western Wei, only for Hou Jing to rebel, capture the capital, and starve Emperor Wu to death in captivity.
During the great upheaval, Xu Ling's father, Xu Chi, was trapped inside the capital city. With a prolonged food shortage, eight or nine out of every ten people starved to death. Unable to get news of his father, Xu Ling grew desperate but had no way to help. He observed mourning rites, eating only vegetables, wearing plain clothes, and staying indoors. After some time, Emperor Yuan of Liang, Xiao Yi, ascended the throne. Word came that Xu Chi was still alive—Hou Jing feared him enough not to kill him, but kept him captive. After much deliberation, Xu Ling wrote a long letter to Minister Yang Zunyan, pouring out the agony of being separated from his father and pleading for assistance in securing his release.
The letter, written in the elegant parallel prose style of the time, was a masterpiece of literary grace and heart-wrenching emotion, vividly capturing the profound grief and pain of loved ones torn apart by life and death.
Among them, a passage reads as follows:
"Moreover, how can one forget the love of family; who can be free from the burden of a wife and children? Especially since I have experienced many partings in life and death, through warmth and cold... If I could return to my homeland and search personally, I still hope to lead them away and spare them from cruelty."
However, for reasons unknown, Yang Zunyan made no response to this plea. Aside from the possibility that rescue was impossible, it may also be that the letter was intercepted and spread by busybodies before it ever reached Yang Zunyan's hands, thus passing down through the ages.
From then on, a new phrase "parting in life and separation by death" was added to the literary lexicon and widely used, as such events are all too common in the human world. The idiom "parting in life and separation by death" refers to the two most sorrowful events in life: separation while alive and farewell after death.
Source: *Book of Chen*, "Biography of Xu Ling"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "生离死别" came to describe parting in life and separation by death refers to the two most sorrowful events in life: separation while alive and farewell after death.