At first, "He Manzi" was a legendary singer in Xuanzong period of Tang Dynasty. Poets after the mid-Tang Dynasty often write stories about this singer in their poems. Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen, who are equally famous in the poetic world, both lamented the singer's experience with their own poems, but their two good friends at birth insisted on the content of this legend.

Bai Juyi wrote in his poem: "The world is full of names, and music begins when you are sentenced." A song with four words and eight stacks is heartbroken from the beginning. After "He Manzi", he wrote: "During the Kaiyuan period, the name of Cangzhou singer entered this song to redeem his death, but the world was inevitable. "In Bai Letian's poems, this He Manzi turned out to be a singer in Cangzhou. Because he committed a capital crime, he wrote "He Manzi" before the execution, hoping to win the sympathy of Tang Xuanzong, who likes music, but he was not forgiven in the end. It was his (or her) music that touched ladies-in-waiting, geisha and sensitive poets of all ages. Because of the Anshi Rebellion, geisha living in folk palaces are still singing "He Manzi" sadly, lamenting the impermanence of life. After the change of Tang Wenzong Ganlu, the emperor knew it was inevitable, so he asked the imperial secretary to sing and dance "He Manzi" as his last elegy. From this perspective, He Manzi is really a sad song of a sad person.