The story follows a Chinese fisherman's friendship with the title character, a water spirit who has to drown a human being in the river in which he is imprisoned, in order to be reincarnated.

In his postscript, Pu comments on the fragility of friendships and briefly narrates about a destitute villager who travelled a thousand li to call upon a childhood friend who had become a high-ranking official, only to be rebuffed.

Allan Barr writes that it was probably part of the opening volume of ghost stories (c. 1670s–1683) in the original eight-volume incarnation of Strange Tales.

"[1] She also notes that Pu is alluding to "one of the most famous passages from Mencius" on compassion and human nature: When I say all people cannot bear the sufferings of others, what I mean is this: now when people see a baby suddenly about to fall into a well, they all feel a sense of fear and pity.Mencius argues that the hypothetical and innately compassionate bystander observing the baby's fall is prompted to act by a "spontaneous sense of fellow-feeling"; Wang Liulang is not only driven by fellow-feeling, but also stands to lose his life by forgoing a chance at reincarnation.

[6] Ian McGreal cites Wang Liulang as "a very good example of a virtuous ghost",[7] while a reviewer for Asiaweek writes that Pu is promoting "friendships that are based on unreserved self-abnegation".