There is also an interesting folk legend about the origin of eating Lantern Festival. Legend has it that Yuanxiao originated from King Zhao of Chu in the Spring and Autumn Period. On the fifteenth day of the first month, King Zhao of Chu passed the Yangtze River and saw floating objects on the river, which were sweet food with white outside and red inside. King Zhao of Chu asked Confucius, who said, "This duckweed fruit is also a sign of the revival of the Lord." Because this day is the fifteenth day of the first month, on this day in the future, King Zhao ordered his men to imitate this fruit with flour and cook it with red stuffing made of hawthorn, which is the embryonic form of today's Lantern Festival. Since then, eating Yuanxiao on the Lantern Festival has become a tradition.

Lantern Festival is a traditional festival in China. The north eats Yuanxiao and the south eats glutinous rice balls, which are two foods with different practices and tastes. Yuanxiao usually only uses vegetarian solid sweet stuffing, cuts it into small pieces, dips it in water and repeatedly rounds it in glutinous rice flour until the size is appropriate, and its surface is dry. Tangyuan fillings are well-prepared. First, glutinous rice flour is made into dough, and the stuffing is wrapped like jiaozi and then kneaded. The taste of glutinous rice balls is more delicate and smooth than that of Yuanxiao.