心有灵犀一点通 — “To have a telepathic understanding”

Li Shangyin, courtesy name Yishan, was a shining star in the late Tang Dynasty poetry scene and an influential poet for later generations. He began working as a staff member at 17 and passed the imperial civil service examination at 25. However, his official career was fraught with difficulties and stagnation throughout his life, spending most of his time as a subordinate and never holding an important official post.

In his youth, he harbored political ambitions. But as his 'aspirations were thwarted by fate,' he wrote many poems to indirectly express his inner anguish. A collection of Li Shangyin's 'Untitled' poems gained widespread circulation and exerted considerable influence on Chinese literary history.

In 842 AD (the second year of Huichang during Emperor Wuzong of Tang's reign), while serving as Zhengzi (an official title) in the Secretariat, Li Shangyin wrote an 'Untitled' poem that included these two lines: '身无彩凤双飞翼，心有灵犀一点通.' Literally, these two lines mean: We do not possess the wings of a colorful phoenix to fly together to distant places; we only have hearts like a rhinoceros horn, through which that extremely fine white line allows us to be of one heart and mind.

Ancient legends say that the rhinoceros was a mystical and sensitive beast, and a white line ran from its horn tip to its brain, enabling acute perception and telepathy, hence the term 'spiritual rhinoceros' (灵犀).