 He was a scholar and official, reaching the rank of district magistrate in Xiao Huang 小黃 (near modern Kaifeng 开封, Henan).He was a student of the great Yi Jing scholar Meng Xi 孟喜 and passed on the traditions of his school to Jing Fang 京房.However, some scholars suspect that the book was composed later, perhaps in the late Western Han, perhaps even somewhat later.