Xin Qiji's Nian Nu Jiao, written to match a guest's rhyme, opens with the swagger of a young man at a backgammon board. The game is shuanglu, a board game often compared to backgammon; here it is less a contest than a stage for memory and reflection. The poet recalls his younger self holding the pieces, full of confidence, with wine and poetry treated as pleasant side pursuits. Around him spectators gather—at first uncomprehending, only a few here and there—watching the board turn.
Then the pace changes. The pieces seem to fly like gulls over a stone mirror, or like magpies forming a bridge across the Milky Way. The scattered remnants of the game evoke autumn silk after beating, and the jade washing block brings to mind slender fingers—an image that shifts the scene from competition to delicate, almost domestic memory. The language is expansive, but the details are tactile.
The second half turns critical. People through the ages have fought over winning, spending precious time for a single advantage. The poet says he has forgotten such calculations; he lets things be and watches swans cross the horizon. He mentions Wu Zetian's palace and the board of Wei Niang—not to moralize over dynastic rise and fall, but to warn against treating games as if they carried the weight of history. The final image is of a million commoners, sharing a smile and a drink, enjoying a moment of ordinary pleasure.
What makes the ci compelling is the way it holds two moods together. The young player's energy is real, and so is the older poet's detachment. The poem does not ask the reader to abandon ambition; it asks them to see the board clearly, to measure a single win against the whole of a life. The language is bold, the mood deep, and the game's pleasure is never separated from a larger reflection on time and human striving.