Plot

Miss Shan Dai, a beauty, is so talented that she passes the challenging tests set by her tutor and impresses her father, an imperial official. Miss Leng Jiangxue, sent from a poor family to be her maid, on the way sees a striking poem written by an impoverished student, Ping Ruheng. Ping is traveling to Songjiang, where he meets the accomplished and handsome scholar, Yan Baihan. The two young men decide to go to Beijing in disguise to find the renowned Shan Dai, but while they are en route, other suitors plagiarize their poetry to woo the young ladies. The two young ladies defeat Ping and Yan in a contest to write the best poem, however, and in the end their marriages are approved by the emperor himself.

Pseudo-caizi are foils to the real caizi in caizi jiaren stories. Here, the characters, Song Xin (C: 宋 信, P: Sòng Xìn, W: Sung Hsin) and Dou Guoyi (T: 竇國一, S: 窦国一, P: Dòu Guóyī, W: To Kuo-i), plagiarize poems written by Ping and Yan and pretend to be poets.