Stories in poetry

Faces in a Broken Mirror

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · A Fantasy Novel of Marriage in an Ancient Setting · Complete · 40 chapters · 5 reads

Xie Wei has waited eight years for her husband, yet after news of his return arrives, she buys an enchanted mirror. For five taels, it can preserve her twenty-year-old face for three more days; she wants to greet him with it. Cheng Zheng also looks young when he walks through the door, but the hand holding his chopsticks will not obey him. Across the table, they force smiles and skirt the changes in one another, while the day the mirror maker has appointed to collect an old possession draws near.

This original work was written with AI assistance, expanding on Wang Guowei’s “蝶恋花·阅尽天涯离别苦” (Dielianhua: Having Known All the Bitterness of Parting Across the World) and this site’s original short story “镜中人先白了头” (The Person in the Mirror Turned Gray First). The characters, towns, chronology, prices, and rules of the enchanted mirror are all imagined. It is neither a translation or adaptation of the original poem, a historical record, nor a biography of the poet.