"Sun K'o" , also known as "Miss Yuan" , is a famous T'ang ch'uan-ch'i tale that narrates the romance , marriage , and separation of Sun K'o and Miss Yuan during the Kuang-te years （763-764）. The authorship has been attributed to P'ei Hsing and others , and the content has been generally regarded as mere fantastic romance . Pioneering and prominent , Wang Meng-ou's studies believe that this story was originally inspired by the folk legend of the displaced imperial concubine during the military rebellion of the last years of Emperor Ming-huang . Utilizing the scholarship of Yu P'ing-po , Fu Le-ch'eng , and Lo Lung-chih with references to all related historical materials , this paper , through a process of explication de texte , arrives at a different conclusion and argues that this T'ang story is a roman a clef treating the mystery of the "death" of Emperor Ming-huang's consort Yang Kuei-fei during the military rebellion .