Zheng Banqiao's ?Hard to Be Truly Confused? is tied to a well-known anecdote. While visiting Yunfeng Mountain in Laizhou to see the Zheng Gong Stele, he stayed with an old man who called himself a ?confused old man.? The man owned an enormous treasured inkstone and asked Zheng to inscribe it. Zheng wrote the four characters ?Nan De Hu Tu? and sealed them with his famous signature line. The old man then added his own inscription, revealing himself to be no ordinary person but likely a cultivated retired official, which earned Zheng's deep admiration. Zheng responded with another reflection about the difficulty of moving from cleverness into a higher state of generous simplicity. The exchange later became famous. Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy blends regular, cursive, seal, and clerical elements into what he called ?six-and-a-half script,? a highly original style unlike anything seen before.