Stories in poetry

Lingering Echoes on the Fen River

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · A Novel of Rivers and Human Ties in an Imagined Ancient World · Complete · 40 chapters · 10 reads

The prince’s autumn rites will reenact a ceremonial voyage from thirty years ago, and Qi Chuan is once again assigned the seventh rowing position. He has barely lifted the long oar halfway when his right shoulder locks. The reward could repair his family’s leaking roof, and he does not want to lose the job. But Han Yu, who has come to take over, brings a piece of his late father’s broken oar and asks him to identify it. Before the flutes and drums have sounded, the old man can already hear the water from that night.

Written with AI assistance, this original book expands on Liu Che’s “Song of the Autumn Wind” and this site’s original short story “The Seventh Oar on the Fen River.” The characters, princely residence, river reaches, and chronology are fictional; this is neither a translation or adaptation of the original poem nor a biography of Emperor Wu of Han.