In 1782, she married the official, poet, and calligrapher Wang Qisun.
[1] She wrote many poems, particularly in the form of quatrains, written to be accompanied by illustrations.
[6][7] Each poem was accompanied by a painting, done the artist Gai Qi.
[6][8] Although works describing exemplary women were an ancient genre, Cao Zhenxiu was unique in her choices of what qualified a woman as exemplary.
Instead of the traditional odes to women who showed chastity and filial piety, Cao Zhenxiu wrote about scholars, artists, calligraphers, poets, and warriors.