The fairytale of Liu and Ruan (劉阮) was first collected in Youming Lu (幽明錄), then in Xu Qixie Ji (續齊諧記) and other relevant texts since the Tang and Song dynasties. The development of the story involves many progressive plot layers, with each layer conveying different meanings. These different layers and meanings become clearly recognizable with the help of plot summaries and categorization in ancient Chinese reference books (leishu 類書). During the circulation process of the texts, the story has evolved with changing times and contexts. The story has gone through changes, due to intentional selections and modifications made by the subsequent authors with different viewpoints