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CooLWJ Library Original fiction inspired by poetry

Stories in poetry

Follow a line of poetry into a story.

A light by the ferry, an unsent letter, and moonlight on ordinary lives.
Take the time for a cup of tea and open a story of everyday life.

Browse the shelves 118 works waiting to be read

THE COLLECTION

On the shelves 118

Choose a book and let its story unfold.

Lamplight at the West Window

Social Life in an Ancient SettingComplete

Lamplight at the West Window

Yu Zhao hides his fare home in the soles of his shoes. After the performance at Sangping, he will sell his old shadow puppets and take the silver to see the wife he has not been with for two years. Autumn rain falls through the night. On the screen, a traveler sings of returning home in splendor; below it, someone asks whether there is a play in which a person can return without becoming rich. Suddenly, wood cracks at the rear eaves. Six households’ autumn cocoons lie beside the rising water, yet the old puppets he has already promised to deliver cannot bear even a drop of rain.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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Lingering Echoes at Maple Bridge

Ancient Chinese–Style MysteryComplete

Lingering Echoes at Maple Bridge

Tang Su only wants a little rest aboard a passenger boat at Maple Bridge. At dawn, she will take her tools into Gusu to meet the ceramic repairer who has agreed to inspect her work. Suddenly, a teapot in the next cabin, supposedly worth forty taels, shatters. The boatwoman is forced to offer her boat deed as compensation, with someone beside them bearing witness. Tang Su remembers a faint sound from inside the wooden box while the guest was still holding it on his lap. If she speaks up, her morning boat may not wait.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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Half a Sail Through Tianmen

Adventure in an Imagined Ancient WorldComplete

Half a Sail Through Tianmen

Wen Song builds a new boat so light that one person can push it, with a bird carved at the masthead. The order for five boats at Tianmen’s spring trials would be enough to revive his father’s long-quiet boatyard and make everyone remember his craftsmanship. His father keeps pressing the boat’s ribs, while an old schoolmate weighs down a low-sailed boat with two sacks of sand. Watching the willows along the bank stream with the favorable wind, he can hardly wait to set out.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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A Light Boat Leaves the Gorge

Social Life in an Ancient SettingComplete

A Light Boat Leaves the Gorge

After twenty-six years hauling boats by towrope, Shen Niang finally pays her fare and takes a seat in the cabin, yet barely has the boat left shore when she instinctively steps toward the bank. Her daughter Ye Zhi arranges a soft quilt beneath her, hoping they will reach Jiangling before sunset and secure a better assignment for the season at the dye works. Along the way, the boatman loads another shipment of wine, the boat scrapes against a sand spit, and a long towrope is once again thrown at Shen Niang’s feet, as though she had never bought that ticket.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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Spring Sails Between Two Shores

Social Life in an Ancient SettingComplete

Spring Sails Between Two Shores

After seven years of talking about Yangzhou, there is finally a boat to take them there. Fang Yi raises the new sail, but Du Mian has brought no bundle, only a key to the sail loft west of the city, which he places on the tea table: he loves making sails, but may not wish to travel far with them. The afternoon flotilla will wait for no one. The money they jointly put into the boat and an old house left by a mother are all caught within these few hours. Neither can settle it with a simple declaration that parting is too hard.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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A Homeward Light on the Ancient Road

Social Life in an Ancient SettingComplete

A Homeward Light on the Ancient Road

Fourteen years after leaving home, Gu Chi leads his old horse Yuqian to the market. Selling it will give him enough money for the boat fare home. But when the buyer lifts the old saddle, he recognizes a military brand on the horse’s back, grips the reins, and refuses to discuss the original price. Man and horse flee to a small inn beside an ancient road. There is water beneath the bridge and lamplight inside, yet the old brand on the horse’s back still stands between him and the road home.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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The River Moon Shines on Us

A Tale of Marvels in an Ancient SettingComplete

The River Moon Shines on Us

A Deng has supplied the stage’s east wind eighty-seven times, and the applause has never been for him. For the burning-warships play at Chishi Ferry, the theater owner promises to let him take the stage in armor for the final scene and sing two lines announcing victory. He knows the passenger boats are moored too close, but cannot bear to lose this chance. When the performance begins, the moon shines bright over the river, and everyone along the bank waits for the hero to flourish his fan. On the water, however, the wind quietly changes direction.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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Snow Fills an Empty Basket

Social Life in an Ancient SettingComplete

Snow Fills an Empty Basket

Every day, Lu Li fishes alone in his straw rain cape. Even after the county closes the river, he refuses to put away his boat. The constables suspect him of secretly ferrying fugitives; only he knows that a wooden box on the riverbed has kept him waiting for five years. In this snowfall, his iron hook finally takes on weight, but sounds of pursuit rise from the bank. A boy steps onto thin ice, cracks spreading beneath his feet, while the heavy object in Lu Li’s grasp is almost at the gunwale.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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Walking Slowly on White Sand

Comedy in an Ancient SettingComplete

Walking Slowly on White Sand

Han Liu loses track of his master’s newly purchased prized horse, crashes into three baskets of spring flowers, and even runs out of one shoe. He Xing, a woman washing horses beneath the willows, laughs that he knows only coat colors, not hoofprints, and points to tracks in the mud, telling him to search along another road. People are still waiting at the pavilion to admire the horse, while another pair of hands has already seized its reins beside the lake; amid the laughter of springtime visitors, old wounds on a horse’s body are slowly coming to light.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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Autumn Waters Rinse the Wine Cup

Social Life in an Ancient SettingComplete

Autumn Waters Rinse the Wine Cup

Xie Wu hides a flask of wine for the Double Ninth climb, but his son needs no search, reaching straight into his sleeve to take it out. After half a lifetime in the wine-making trade, he still hopes a lively feast will let father and son drink away their years of estrangement. Xie Qiao brings only plain water. The higher they climb, the fiercer the autumn wind grows, and every prosperous memory his father recounts has another version in his son’s recollection.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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Letters Left Amid Beacon Fires

War Fiction in a Historical SettingComplete

Letters Left Amid Beacon Fires

As Shao Wen writes his hundredth letter assuring a family of someone’s safety, a blackened roof tile falls from above. He earns food by writing letters for others, while close to his chest he keeps old letters sent by his wife and daughter from the north of the city, afraid to ask too closely about the smoke rising there. A wounded soldier offers half a flatbread and asks him to forge a letter from home. Meanwhile, the child who is always at odds with him brings a torn cloth covered in names written in charcoal.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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A Heart Suspended a Thousand Feet High

Adventure in an Imagined Ancient WorldComplete

A Heart Suspended a Thousand Feet High

Behind the waterfall, Qing He recognizes one of her younger brother’s shoes—the very one she mended last night. He hangs below on a vine rope, clutching a medicine basket filled with frostglow grass they sought for their sick father. The family already owes so much for medicine that neither dares return empty-handed. The roar of water swallows their shouts, but a new line of water appears among the rocks. She must reach him before the rope wears through.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 1 chapter

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Stories and poems lead back to one another.Find inspiration in the poetry collection

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