Starting from the third century, early Chinese writers were already questioning the significance of their existence through creative expression, such as in the fifth-century compilation A New Account of the Tales of the World, where Liu Yiqing writes of "Yang Lin's World inside a Pillow", or Shen Chichi's Tang dynasty chuanqi "Life inside a Pillow", argued to be the most "complete form (of the genre)" prior to Pu's effort.

Most notable, and one of the oldest, of the lot is the "Dream of the Yellow Millet" (黃粱夢) by Ma Zhiyuan.
In Ma's work, Lü Dongbin daydreams for a perceived period of eighteen years but wakes up to discover that in actuality only a few minutes (long enough for a millet to be cooked) have passed.
The story's popularity has led to subsequent stories being colloquially labelled as "yellow millet" tales.
While Pu's fictitious narrative references Ma's writing, Nienhauser writes that it borrows more elements from "Du Zichun" (杜子春传) than it does the original "Dream of the Yellow Millet".

Originally titled "Xu Huangliang" (续黄粱) and collected in Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai; 1740), the story was one of the first two Liaozhai entries translated by British sinologist Herbert Giles into English (alongside "The Raksha Country and Sea Market") prior to the publication of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio in 1880.
Giles titled the story "Dr Tsêng's Dream".
Subsequent translators of the story have included Sidney L. Sondergard, who included "A Sequel to the Yellow Millet Dream" in Strange Tales from Liaozhai (2008).
Starting from the third century, early Chinese writers were already questioning the significance of their existence through creative expression, such as in the fifth-century compilation A New Account of the Tales of the World, where Liu Yiqing writes of "Yang Lin's World inside a Pillow", or Shen Chichi's Tang dynasty chuanqi "Life inside a Pillow", argued to be the most "complete form (of the genre)" prior to Pu's effort.
Most notable, and one of the oldest, of the lot is the "Dream of the Yellow Millet" (黃粱夢) by Ma Zhiyuan. In Ma's work, Lü Dongbin daydreams for a perceived period of eighteen years but wakes up to discover that in actuality only a few minutes (long enough for a millet to be cooked) have passed. The story's popularity has led to subsequent stories being colloquially labelled as "yellow millet" tales. While Pu's fictitious narrative references Ma's writing, Nienhauser writes that it borrows more elements from "Du Zichun" (杜子春传) than it does the original "Dream of the Yellow Millet".
Originally titled "Xu Huangliang" (续黄粱) and collected in Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai; 1740), the story was one of the first two Liaozhai entries translated by British sinologist Herbert Giles into English (alongside "The Raksha Country and Sea Market") prior to the publication of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio in 1880. Giles titled the story "Dr Tsêng's Dream". Subsequent translators of the story have included Sidney L. Sondergard, who included "A Sequel to the Yellow Millet Dream" in Strange Tales from Liaozhai (2008).
A Sequel to the Yellow Millet Dream