Ruan Ji

Also known as Zi Sizong · Ruan Bubing

Ruan Ji, courtesy name Sizong, came from Weishi in Chenliu and was the son of Ruan Yu. Devoted to the *Laozi* and *Zhuangzi*, he was summoned to office by the Grand Commandant Jiang Ji and later served Sima Yi and Sima Shi as an aide. The *Book of Jin* (*Jinshu*) says that when Sima Zhao wanted Ruan's daughter for his son Sima Yan, Ruan stayed drunk for sixty days so that the proposal could never be made, and that he asked to be made commandant of the infantry because its kitchen kept good wine. He showed the whites of his eyes to sticklers for etiquette, and with Ji Kang, Shan Tao and others he was later counted among the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. In 263 he was made to draft the officials' petition urging Sima Zhao to accept the nine honors, and he died that winter at fifty-four. Zhong Rong's *Grading of Poets* (*Shipin*) placed his eighty-two *Poems Singing My Thoughts* (*Yonghuai shi*) in the top grade.