This play is divided into two parts, with a duration of five hours. The chief playwright, Chen Sheng-guo, browsed through Biographies of Immortals and other related Daoist texts and found that the Eight Immortals had all been males prior to the Ming Dynasty. The Lady Ho of Lotus only appeared much later. He came up with an inspiration, that is, to combine Zhang Si-lang, who was one of the original Eight Immortals, with latecomer Lady Ho of Lotus to create an androgynous Lady Ho of Lotus.

The plot describes Lady Ho of Lotus’ pre-incarnation, Zhang Si-lang, who worked as a gardener in the Tang Palace, and had a passion for lotus flowers. He was once involved in a romantic love affair with Empress Wu Ze-tian. One day, he woke up to find the past a fleeting dream. Empress Wu Ze-tian was dead. It was then Li Long-ji’s reign. Zhang Si-lang sought everywhere for Wu Ze-tian, even mistaking Yang Gui-fei to be Wu’s incarnation. It took him a while to realize that what he cared for most was not the temporal romance between man and woman, but something larger and more profound. Therefore, he would rather renounce his male body and transform himself into a woman. He also came to accept the fact that becoming an immortal had not been his destiny, but his mission.

The leading actress, Sun Cui-feng, played seven characters, alternating between man and woman. The young dan, played Empress Wu Ze-tian, from a young woman to an old lady. Both actresses took up great challenges in this play.