The novel is an autobiographical epistolary structure, narrating in the first person the story of the author sitting in the Hong family's house before passing the exam, and falling in love with a talented girl from the Wu family in the west of the city. The two exchanged poems and letters, and they had the same affection. However, Wu's mother was greedy for money and was tempted by other people's interests, so she married her daughter to another woman. Wu's daughter died of depression, leading to tragedy.
The whole text is interspersed with a large number of poems and parallel prose, which is touching and sentimental. It is regarded as a "poetry style" novel and is the forerunner of novels about talented men and beautiful women in later generations.
The work uses dreams to describe love and secretly laments the impermanence of the world. It is preserved in Tao Zongyi's "Shuo Yong" and is an important document for studying the Yuan Dynasty literati's views on marriage and love and the evolution of novel styles.
