Explosive Wavelength has ended. From the heavens to the earth, spanning tens of millions of years—thank you for all your effort, readers, and for sticking with the story! We're all tired, so let's open our eyes and return to reality. Whatever our circumstances, we must face them with courage.
In this afterword, Xian Ge wasn't going to hold up the Thousand Autumn Mirror again, reflecting on the past and present and gazing into the future.
Let's talk about something lighter: why did Xian Ge add lines of classical Chinese poetry as "epilogue poems" to a novel with almost no Chinese people or events—and even include one in every chapter?
It was so jarring, like hanging a Chinese couplet at the entrance to a world-famous science museum. It really didn't fit and seemed completely out of place.
Collected-verse poetry began in the Wei-Jin era. People of that time selected lines from different ancient works, such as the Book of Songs, and combined them into new poems, hence the name. In the Song dynasty, Wang Anshi collected lines from Tang poets, establishing collected-verse poetry as a literary form. It was beloved by scholars, and fine examples by Su Shi and others have been passed down.
Wen Tianxiang was passionate about collected-verse poetry and especially fond of Du Fu. While imprisoned, he composed more than two hundred poems using lines by Du Fu alone, expressing his devotion to his country and family through the new poems. The story became a celebrated one.
In the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the surviving works of Tang and Song poets were as numerous as the stars, and collected-verse poetry became even more popular among poets. Such poems often served as closing pieces in traditional opera. For example, Tang Xianzu's The Peony Pavilion had fifty-five scenes and