Líng Xuán 伶玄 (also written Líng Yuán 伶元 in Qīng editions, where the character xuán 玄 was replaced to avoid the personal-name taboo of the Kāngxī Emperor Xuányè 玄燁) is the attributed author of Zhào Fēiyàn Wàizhuàn 趙飛燕外傳 (KR4k0289). According to the self-introduction (zì xù 自敍) appended to the novella, Líng Xuán was a native of Lùshuǐ 潞水 (modern Chángzhì 長治, Shānxī), courtesy name Zǐyú 子于. He is described as widely learned, musical, and literary; he rejected the overtures of the philosopher Yáng Xióng 揚雄, served as an official through various posts, and rose to Chancellor of Huáinán 淮南相. In his old age he purchased the concubine Fán Tōngdé 樊通德, who knew the palace traditions of the Zhào sisters from her teacher lineage, and at her suggestion composed the novella.
This biographical account is entirely fictional. Modern scholarly consensus — established most definitively by Olivia Milburn’s 2021 study — identifies the Wàizhuàn as a Táng-dynasty pseudepigraph, composed in the ninth century CE and falsely attributed to a Han-era figure. No historical person named Líng Xuán with the claimed biography has been independently attested; the figure is a literary construct designed to give the erotic novella the authority of a Han-dynasty eyewitness tradition. No CBDB entry exists for this figure.