Zhang Zhuo (Chinese: , born 658–730 CE), bestowed the honorary name of Wencheng (), was a Tang dynasty
jinshi, a former imperial censor (), and a native of Luze, Shenzhou (now Shenxian county,
Hebei province).
You Xian Ku is a story of the author's purported first-hand account visiting Heyuan (now
Qinghai province, Xinghai county), passing through Jishi () mountain. "The days turn to nights, and the road is far. The horse is weary and the man tired" (). He stayed in the fairy grotto and met two women by chance: Cui Shi Niang () and Wu Sao (), a widow. There they drank wine, wrote poetry, flirted, and joked around. The text is written in a mixture of different styles, including
pianwen (parallel prose) and
bianwen, and it features rhymes and is leisurely in tone. Some scholars called the work a "new form of novel" ().
You Xian Ku can be considered as one of the Tang dynasty's earliest
romances, based on the wanton lives of
prostitutes first met by Tang scholars. It has had a profound influence on the love stories and romance novels written by later generations of writers. The work's popularity in Japan also proved to be enormous. According to the
Old Book of Tang, every time Japan sent an envoy to China during the Tang dynasty, they had to pay a lot to buy copies of the book. In the late
Qing dynasty, the book was reprinted and sent back to China. In
Bai Xianyong's () novel
Crystal Boys, the chapter "Journey to the Goblin Cave" (You Yao Ku, ) is a parody of
You Xian Ku. File:WUL-he21 02716 遊仙窟鈔 1.pdf|page=12| File:WUL-he21 00322 遊仙窟鈔 2.pdf|page=16| File:WUL-bunko30 e0174 遊仙窟鈔 3.pdf|page=17| == See also ==