He was one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove who held aloof from the dangerous politics of third-century China to devote themselves to art and refinement.
Ji Kang was highly critical of Confucianism and challenged many social conventions of his time, provoking scandal and suspicion.
Ji Kang assumed a post under the Cao Wei state, but official work bored him.
Before his execution, Ji Kang is said to have played one last melody on the guqin, a swan song forever lost.
[2] Ji Kang wrote Guangling San, a composition for the guqin recounting the assassination of a king of Han.