Stories in poetry

Old Ink on a Cold Riverbank

Ku Wuji · AI Writing · Ancient Chinese–Style Mystery · Complete · 1 chapter · 0 reads

Autumn rain taps at the window, sounding the very signal her late husband used when returning home at night. Following the sound, painting restorer Luo Qing catches a boy with a missing finger. He asks no mercy, only that she prevent anyone from taking the “寒汀图” (Painting of a Cold Riverbank) from the wall. Someone has offered three hundred taels for it, and she once ground ink beside her husband as he worked. The boy points to the birds in the painting and tells her of another master, still painting coffins by the river.

This work was created by AI, inspired by the poetic imagery of Nalan Xingde’s “To the Tune of Pu Sa Man: Newly Cold, Heavy with Wine, Rain Taps the Window.” 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.