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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.

Spring Captivity

A Novel of Strange Tales in a Historical SettingComplete

Spring Captivity

The moment Lu Qing paints over the old palace’s south gate with a wall, he forgets which street his mother lives on. He has been ordered to paint his former kingdom in everlasting spring for the new ruler. Towers, terraces, and crabapple blossoms must all remain as they were, but no way out may be left. The flute master in the prison tower is also beginning to forget the river of their old city. As the birthday gift nears completion and the east wind rises outside the window once more, Lu Qing grips his brush, no longer daring to paint a wall lightly.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 40 chapters

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Half a Jar of Autumn Wine

A War Novel in a Historical SettingComplete

Half a Jar of Autumn Wine

Before the farewell banquet has ended, Xie Lin’s carriage breaks down at the threshold. The old adviser Wen Ce pretends to scold the carriage maker, but his palms are slick with sweat: he wedged the wood into the axle hole himself. After twenty-six years of friendship, he only wants to keep his old friend for one more night of autumn wine. But bad news from Xingyuan has already arrived, and the hidden letter is harder to bring to the table than a broken wheel.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 40 chapters

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Faces in a Broken Mirror

A Fantasy Novel of Marriage in an Ancient SettingComplete

Faces in a Broken Mirror

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.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 40 chapters

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Lights on Stone Ridge

A Frontier Novel in an Ancient SettingComplete

Lights on Stone Ridge

Gu Xing returns to Shiling Pass with thirty-seven displaced people and finally recognizes his wife, from whom he has been separated for three years, atop the gate tower. Holding a crossbow, Liang Su does not ask where he has been all these years; first she asks whether anyone in the crowd has a fever. Inside the pass, food is scarce; outside, the cold is coming. The gateway home he promised all along the journey has not opened. A brazier is lit beside a yellow boulder, and the people behind him are still waiting for him to speak.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 40 chapters

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The One Who Pawns a Fur Robe

A Novel of Musicians in an Ancient SettingComplete

The One Who Pawns a Fur Robe

Du Fang pawns the old fur coat he bought for forty taels and receives only eight, intending to drink with an old friend through the night and bid farewell to his old dream of fame. Halfway into their drinking, the mute apprentice behind the stove raises a bamboo clapper and beats out a different rhythm for Crossing the Sands. The inn’s creditor also arrives that night. The wine is still warm, but the song he has sung for half his life can no longer be sung as before.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 40 chapters

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Half a Quilt Awaiting Dawn

A Novel of Marriage and Craft in an Ancient SettingComplete

Half a Quilt Awaiting Dawn

Xu Ling’s sewing needle pierces a letter of divorce, dated last autumn. Back then, she was too ill to rise, and her husband carried her on his back to seek treatment every day. Now he is to head north with officials tomorrow morning, having said only that he was going to check taxes on goods along the trade routes. With the paper spread beneath the lamp, she removes the thick socks and cough medicine she had packed, item by item, and asks why he has still been eating at home all this past year.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 40 chapters

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Lingering Echoes on the Fen River

A Novel of Rivers and Human Ties in an Imagined Ancient WorldComplete

Lingering Echoes on the Fen River

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.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 40 chapters

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A Handcart Carrying Autumn

A Novel of Social Life and Disaster Relief in an Imagined Ancient WorldComplete

A Handcart Carrying Autumn

His resignation has been submitted and his small handcart packed. Yu Heng wants only to return to Dongtian, grow vegetables, and listen to the rain. But at the final banquet thanking those involved in disaster relief before he leaves the city, eighty disaster victims have been replaced by a hall full of distinguished guests. Outside, a child divides a flatbread into three; inside, they are still praising the autumn crabs. After twenty years heading the provisions office, he knows the accounts for every dish, yet now cannot find a single guest list that would give those outside a seat.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 40 chapters

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White Feathers Return to Dust

A Novel of Social Life and the Borderlands in an Ancient SettingComplete

White Feathers Return to Dust

On a night of wind and snow, a boy carrying a northern bow collapses outside A-Shuang’s door, half a white-feathered arrow clenched in his palm. The blue-green thread wound around it is the very thread she wrapped herself when sending her husband to war. The matching arrow still gathers dust on a beam inside. The boy cannot speak her language, and an uncle from her clan is already approaching with his blade drawn. The news of a return she has awaited for years now rests in the hands of a boy her clansmen regard as an enemy.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 40 chapters

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A Name Left beneath the Banner

A Novel of War and Coming of Age in an Ancient SettingComplete

A Name Left beneath the Banner

When the recruit Meng Shi receives his reward, he recognizes the red cord as coming from the home of a boy from his own village. According to the army rolls, that boy has just earned military honors; yet three days earlier, Meng Shi saw the same kind of red cord in a burial pit. Seeking answers about the reward, he heads toward the old camp everyone avoids and finds an old man deep among the reeds, branded as a deserter. Behind the old man is a group of children who tremble at the sight of Meng Shi’s scabbard.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 38 chapters

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The Setting Sun in a Cup

A Novel of Society and Reunion in Later Life in a Historical SettingComplete

The Setting Sun in a Cup

When the chrysanthemum wine for the Double Ninth arrives, Song Tang is putting away a green cup that has stood empty for years. The familiar scent of well water draws her onto the mountain road, but the white-haired person in the courtyard takes her for a stranger come to buy wine. The marriage pledge from thirty years ago still exists, yet the lives of the two households have each traveled far. Suddenly, she does not know how to begin the question she brought.

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 38 chapters

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The Old Dancing Robe beneath the Willow

A Novel of Women’s Lives in an Imagined Ancient WorldComplete

The Old Dancing Robe beneath the Willow

At forty-six, Liu Zhaozhao returns to the old garden, where the portrait hanging from a beam still shows her at seventeen. One autumn banquet and a fee of twenty taels could have paid for a sunny room; yet the notice recruiting apprentices has already used her name to promise someone else a future. Her old dance costume no longer fastens at the waist, while the girl in the courtyard corner still endures aching feet, waiting to be chosen. The lights are about to come on. Who should appear onstage?

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · 38 chapters

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

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