The terrace is also named Boya Terrace after a popular story about friendship that happened here during the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 B.C.). A famous musician named Yu Boya was once stranded here by a sudden heavy rain. He played a song named “high mountains and flowing steams” on his boat. Another musician named Zhong Ziqi heard the music. Yu Boya found that Zhong Ziqi could understand his music thoroughly. So he invited him to come into the boat, and the two discussed the music for the whole night. The following day, they made an appointment that they would meet at the same place a year later. Unfortunately, Yu Boya only saw the grave of his friend one year later. He was so depressed that, he played the same bit of music in front of the grave and smashed his heptachord. After that, he never played music again.

The famous story about their friendship touched many people. So Heptachord Terrace was built in honor of the sincere friendship between Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi during in the Northern Sung dynasty (960 - 1127), experiencing several destroys and rebuilds, the present one was the result of construction in 1957. The whole complex, although small in size, is elegant in layout and demarcated in arrangement. The main structure is a wide hall. A platform by the waterside in front of the hall is said to be the place where Yu Boya played heptachord. A 2 m high stele was set in the center of the courtyard, with image of Boya engraved on one side and epigraphy about this story the other.