Inspiration Relay
The last forty chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber are lost. Qing-dynasty readers wrote dozens of sequels, each unconvinced by the others. Now it's your turn — take the baton and write your version. Every continuation stays here, growing into one tree.
This week's relay
Japanese · Ryūnosuke Akutagawa · Japan
Three testimonies, three truths: the bandit, the wife, the dead man speaking through a medium. Akutagawa's 'In a Grove' is the original Rashomon effect —...
Japanese · Ryūnosuke Akutagawa · Japan · stories
Continue Rashomon: after the rain
The servant steps out into the rain, and Akutagawa ends there — Rashomon's gate, the rain, a choice we never see....
Japanese · The Tale of the Heike · Japan · epic
Continue the Heike: after Dan-no-ura
The Taira clan is destroyed at Dan-no-ura; the child emperor drowns with the imperial sword. 'The sound of the Gion...
Japanese · Natsume Sōseki · Japan · novels
Continue Kokoro: after the letter
Sensei is dead, the student inherits his confession and his guilt. Sōseki's Kokoro ends with a letter — the past...
Japanese · Sei Shōnagon · Japan · essays
Continue the Pillow Book: after the court
Sei Shōnagon's pillow book is a thousand years of lists: elegant things, hateful things, things that make the heart...
Japanese · Murasaki Shikibu · Japan · novels
Continue The Tale of Genji: Ukifune after the mist
The Tale of Genji dissolves into mist: Ukifune, caught between two princes, vanishes — perhaps a nun, perhaps...