Stories in poetry

Crossing the Mist into the Human World

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · Adventure in an Imagined Ancient World · Complete · 1 chapter · 1 read

After delivering other people’s family letters for twenty-eight years, Xing Shan has gone three months without word from his son. On an inn’s window frame amid the river mist, he recognizes the character “山” (mountain, also the Shan in his name), with its elongated final stroke. The innkeeper says an old guest merely carved it in passing. At night, a roomful of displaced people waits for a boat to Taoyuan: they say that once across the river, they will never need to flee again. He walks toward the ferry landing and sees a familiar length of red cord showing at a young worker’s wrist.

This work was created by AI, inspired by the poetic imagery of Qin Guan’s “To the Tune of Ta Suo Xing: A Travelers’ Lodge in Chenzhou.” Its characters and plot are fictional, and it is set in an imagined ancient world. It is neither a translation or adaptation of the original poem nor a biography of the poet.