Emperor Wu was not allowed to approach the figure. Apparently, Li came and sat in the tent before slowly departing. Emperor Wu was requested to sit inside another tent, where he saw what appeared to be the figure of Li. He lit candles, set up a tent, and laid a table of fine wine and food at night.

An alchemist Shao Weng claimed that he could summon her spirit. According to Book of Han: the Empresses and Imperial Affines, Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty never forgot his wife Li who died at a young age. There have been countless claims as to the origin of shadow puppetry. This piece of historical record not only portrays the expert use of puppets by people in ancient times, but it also shows how a puppet can always be used as a substitute for a real person in order to complete a task that may be dangerous or impossible. This suggests that by the Han Period, puppet production and its use were already quite sophisticated, otherwise Mao Dun’s wife would not have been fooled if the puppets were not convincing in appearance. When Mao Dun's wife saw the puppets, she thought they were real people and forced Mao Dun to withdraw his army out of fear that he would take the prostitutes as his concubines. Yu, was very insecure about her marriage, and therefore ordered that puppets should be made to resemble prostitutes and to dance on the city’s parapet. Liu’s advisor, Chen Ping, was told that Mao Dun’s wife, Mrs. In the Miscellaneous Records on Ministry of Music, written by Duan An’jie during the Tang dynasty, it describes how Liu Bang, the founder of Han dynasty, was besieged by Mao Dun in a city called Pingcheng.

Shadow puppetry for rural areas