Xiangjixuan Zhi: The People Are Gone, but the Tree Has Grown
Grandevity Studio presents Xiangjixuan Zhi, a complete new musical setting of Gui Youguang’s Ming-dynasty prose classic. The sung text uses 100% of the project’s established original text, with no modern expansion, rewriting, added lyrics or repeated lines. Premium Cinematic Mandopop Soul and refined Chinese-inspired R&B combine guqin, xiao, Fender Rhodes, nylon-string guitar, neo-soul bass, brushed drums, pipa and cinematic strings, moving from a leaking study and moonlit courtyard through memories of mother, grandmother and wife, before ending with the loquat tree that has grown into a full canopy.
Some essays are built around a tower.
Some around a landscape.
Xiangjixuan Zhi is built around something far smaller:
a single study.
A room so small that Gui Youguang writes:
室僅方丈，可容一人居。
The room was only one zhang square, enough for one person to live in.
It leaked when it rained.
By afternoon it was already dim.
After the extended family divided its household, more doors, partitions, fences and walls appeared around it.
His mother had once stood there.
His grandmother once closed its door behind him.
His wife later came into the study to ask about old stories and practice writing at his desk.
Years passed.
His wife died.
The loquat tree she had planted continued to grow.
庭有枇杷樹， 吾妻死之年所手植也； 今已亭亭如蓋矣。
In the courtyard stands a loquat tree, planted by my wife with her own hands in the year she died; now it stands tall and graceful, its crown spread like a canopy.
Gui Youguang never ends the essay by writing:
“I miss her.”
He writes only about the tree.
And the tree says everything that remains unspoken.
Grandevity Studio’s Xiangjixuan Zhi sets the project’s established version of Gui Youguang’s complete original prose to newly composed music.
There is no modern lyrical expansion.
No vernacular rewriting.
No newly written chorus.
No added lyric lines.
No repetition of original sentences simply to extend the running time.
The prose moves once from:
項脊軒，舊南閤子也。
to:
今已亭亭如蓋矣。
The original order is preserved from beginning to end.
The architecture of memory in the prose becomes the architecture of the song.
Watch the MV: 🎬 Xiangjixuan Zhi | Official Music Video
Headphones recommended. Enter a small scholar’s study in Ming-dynasty Jiangnan. Rain falls through old roof tiles. The room is dim and cramped. Gui Youguang repairs it, opens windows and lets light return. Books fill the shelves. Birds enter the courtyard. Moonlight reaches half the wall. Then “much to delight in” turns toward “much to grieve over.” The same room begins to hold the memories of a divided family, a mother, a grandmother and finally a wife. The film ends not with a grave or a dramatic farewell, but with the loquat tree she planted, now tall enough to spread its crown over the courtyard.
How Can One Small Study Hold an Entire Life?
The extraordinary quality of Xiangjixuan Zhi is how little it depends upon a grand subject.
There is no war at its centre.
No emperor.
No heroic journey.
No deliberately engineered climax.
Instead, Gui Youguang stores emotion inside spaces and objects:
a door,
a wall,
a desk,
a window,
an ivory court tablet,
courtyard steps,
osmanthus shadows,
and a loquat tree.
These things begin as ordinary parts of daily life.
People leave.
The objects remain.
Eventually the objects begin to carry memory for them.
That is one reason the essay can still feel remarkably immediate.
Most of us possess some version of Xiangji Study:
an old room,
a desk,
a window,
an object kept by the family,
a tree planted by someone we loved.
Their importance does not come from material value.
It comes from who once lived beside them.
“The Room at Last Became Bright”
At the beginning, Xiangji Study is not picturesque.
It is a century-old room.
Dust and damp seep through it.
Rain comes down from the roof.
There is barely anywhere to move the desk.
The room faces north and becomes dim early in the afternoon.
Gui Youguang does not abandon it.
He repairs it.
He opens windows.
Builds a wall to receive southern sunlight.
Then:
日影反照，室始洞然。
Reflected sunlight entered, and the room at last became bright.
He plants orchids, osmanthus, bamboo and trees.
Borrowed books fill the shelves.
Birds come to feed.
On the night of the full moon, moonlight reaches halfway up the wall.
The study has become more than an old room.
It has become a place in which a young scholar can locate himself in the world.
“Much to Delight In, and Much to Grieve Over”
Then comes the decisive sentence:
然余居於此，多可喜，亦多可悲。
Living here, I found much to delight in, and much to grieve over.
Before this point, the essay could almost have remained a beautiful study-piece.
After it, the room changes function.
It becomes a witness.
Family division.
Bereavement.
Memory.
Marriage.
Illness.
Time.
The architecture does not merely contain these events.
It records them.
When a Fence Becomes a Wall
When the extended family divides:
庭中始為籬，已為牆，凡再變矣。
At first the courtyard was divided by a fence; later it became a wall. It changed twice in all.
Gui Youguang does not explain family estrangement through abstract analysis.
He lets the house explain it.
First a fence.
Then a wall.
A fence marks a boundary.
A wall erases the view.
In Xiangjixuan Zhi, architecture is never merely background.
Space itself becomes emotion.
“Here—This Is Where Your Mother Once Stood”
Gui Youguang’s mother does not enter the essay directly.
She returns through the memory of an old maid.
某所，而母立於茲。
Here—this is where your mother once stood.
Then the old woman remembers Gui Youguang’s mother asking through the door:
兒寒乎？欲食乎？
Is the child cold? Does she want something to eat?
There is no great declaration of maternal love.
Only two ordinary questions.
That is precisely why the scene feels like memory.
The person has disappeared.
A commonplace sentence remains in the room.
Grandmother, the Door and the Ivory Court Tablet
Gui Youguang’s grandmother first appears with affectionate humour.
She wonders why the boy spends the entire day sitting silently in the study.
As she leaves:
以手闔門。
She closes the door with her own hand.
It is a tiny action.
Yet the action makes her presence immediate.
She later returns carrying an ivory court tablet once used by an ancestor at court.
他日汝當用之。
One day, you too should use it.
The object carries more than family history.
It carries expectation.
A grandmother believes that the young scholar may one day continue the family’s public achievement.
Looking back upon these traces, Gui Youguang writes:
如在昨日，令人長號不自禁。
They seem as if they happened only yesterday, and I cannot keep myself from crying out in grief.
The door remains.
The room remains.
The tablet remains.
The person does not.
Learning People by the Sound of Their Footsteps
Gui Youguang writes:
余扃牖而居，久之，能以足音辨人。
I kept the windows shut and lived there so long that I could identify people by the sound of their footsteps.
A room inhabited long enough becomes part of the body’s memory.
One no longer needs to see.
Sound is enough.
Then:
軒凡四遭火，得不焚，殆有神護者。
The study survived four fires without burning; perhaps some spirit protected it.
The study endures.
Many of the people connected to it do not.
The survival of the room therefore becomes increasingly strange and moving as the essay continues.
A Young Scholar Looking at Himself
The passage beginning:
項脊生曰
is a distinctive moment of self-commentary.
Gui Youguang invokes the widow Qing of Shu and then Liu Bei, Cao Cao and Zhuge Liang before the wider world fully knew what they would become.
A person who is still obscure may nevertheless possess ambition.
Gui Youguang sits inside a dilapidated study and allows himself that possibility.
Then he immediately turns the thought against himself:
人知之者，其謂與埳井之蛙何異！
Would those who knew of this not say that I was no different from a frog in a shallow well?
Confidence and self-doubt exist in the same paragraph.
This prevents Xiangjixuan Zhi from becoming merely an essay of mourning.
It is also a young scholar examining obscurity, aspiration and the possibility of a future not yet visible.
His Wife Enters Xiangji Study
In the later supplement, his wife enters almost casually:
時至軒中，從余問古事，或憑几學書。
She would often come to the study, ask me about old matters, or lean over the little desk and practise writing.
There is no theatrical entrance.
No declaration of eternal love.
She simply becomes part of the room’s daily life.
When she returns to her parental home, her younger sisters ask curiously about the little chamber they have heard so much about.
The memory contains warmth.
Even humour.
That is why the next sentence lands so hard:
其後六年，吾妻死。
Six years later, my wife died.
The prose barely pauses.
A shared life ends in a single sentence.
The Room Is Repaired, but the Life Does Not Return
After his wife dies:
室壞不修。
The room fell into disrepair and was not repaired.
Later Gui Youguang has the chamber repaired again.
The architecture can be restored.
But then he writes:
然自後余多在外，不常居。
After that, however, I spent much of my time away and rarely lived there.
The room has returned.
The old life has not.
This distinction is central to the essay.
A place can be repaired.
Time cannot.
“Now It Stands Tall and Graceful, Its Crown Like a Canopy”
The essay does not end inside the study.
It ends in the courtyard.
庭有枇杷樹， 吾妻死之年所手植也； 今已亭亭如蓋矣。
When his wife died, the tree was still young.
Now it is mature.
Its growth is time made visible.
The longer the time,
the larger the tree.
The larger the tree,
the clearer her absence becomes.
The most painful image is not that everything withers.
It is that the world continues to grow.
For that reason, the song does not turn the sentence into a massive vocal climax.
The arrangement withdraws.
The voice approaches near-a-cappella intimacy.
After the final word, the music is allowed to decay into silence.
At that point, the most important thing to hear is not the arrangement.
It is time.
Music: Let the Prose Create Its Own Emotional Peaks
The production is built around:
Premium Cinematic Mandopop Soul / refined Chinese-inspired R&B
Tempo: 70 BPM.
Meter: 6/8.
Form: through-composed.
There is no fixed pop-chorus cycle.
No line of Gui Youguang’s original text is repeated.
The main palette includes:
- guqin
- xiao
- Fender Rhodes
- nylon-string guitar
- neo-soul bass
- brushed drums
- pipa
- cinematic strings
The track begins with rain on old roof tiles, guqin and xiao.
As the study is repaired, harmony and space gradually brighten.
The birds, moon and osmanthus passages are the most luminous.
After:
多可喜，亦多可悲。
the tonal world darkens.
The divided household, mother and grandmother passages carry increasing emotional weight.
The self-commentary section deliberately pulls back.
When the wife enters, warmth returns.
At:
其後六年，吾妻死。
the sound field suddenly empties.
The final loquat-tree lines are left almost exposed.
The song does not end by becoming larger.
It ends by becoming smaller.
The MV: Let One Room Be Changed by Time
The central visual subject is not simply a person in historical costume.
It is a place enduring time.
The film is grounded in the visual world of a Ming-dynasty Jiangnan scholar’s residence in the Kunshan cultural setting:
whitewashed walls,
dark roof tiles,
wooden lattice windows,
grey-brick courtyards,
a compact study,
period paper books and writing furniture,
orchids,
osmanthus,
bamboo,
trees,
and finally the loquat tree.
The study layout remains continuous across the film.
The people change.
The light changes.
Walls appear.
The room deteriorates.
It is repaired.
People disappear.
Gui Youguang’s mother, grandmother, the old maid and his wife appear only where the prose requires them.
There are no modern lamps.
No later-period furniture.
No decorative pseudo-calligraphy added merely to manufacture an “ancient” mood.
The goal is not ornamental antiquity.
It is lived memory.
📜 Complete Sung Text / Original Chinese with English Translation
Gui Youguang, Xiangjixuan Zhi
Project-established complete sung text
No expansion・No rewriting・No added lyrics・No repeated original lines
【The Old Southern Chamber・Repair and Light】
項脊軒，舊南閤子也。室僅方丈，可容一人居。百年老屋，塵泥滲漉，雨澤下注，每移案，顧視無可置者。又北向，不能得日；日過午已昏。
Xiangji Study was originally the old southern chamber. The room was only one zhang square, enough for one person to live in. It was a century-old house: dust and damp seeped through, and rainwater poured down. Whenever I moved my desk, I looked around and found nowhere else to place it. The room also faced north and received no direct sunlight; by afternoon it was already dim.
余稍為修葺，使不上漏。前闢四窗，垣牆周庭，以當南日。日影反照，室始洞然。又雜植蘭、桂、竹、木於庭，舊時欄楯，亦遂增勝。借書滿架，偃仰嘯歌，冥然兀坐，萬籟有聲。而庭階寂寂，小鳥時來啄食，人至不去。三五之夜，明月半牆，桂影斑駁，風移影動，珊珊可愛。
I repaired it somewhat so that it no longer leaked. I opened four windows in front and built a wall around the courtyard to receive the southern sunlight. Reflected light entered, and the room at last became bright. I also planted orchids, osmanthus, bamboo and trees in the courtyard; the old railings, too, gained new beauty. Borrowed books filled the shelves. I reclined, sat up, sang freely, or sat still in silence, and in the seeming quiet all sounds could be heard. The courtyard steps were hushed; small birds often came to peck for food and did not fly away when people approached. On the night of the full moon, moonlight reached halfway up the wall; osmanthus shadows lay scattered across it, moving with the wind, graceful and lovely.
【Much to Delight In・Much to Grieve Over】
然余居於此，多可喜，亦多可悲。先是，庭中通南北為一。迨諸父異爨，內外多置小門牆，往往而是。東犬西吠，客踰庖而宴，雞棲於廳。庭中始為籬，已為牆，凡再變矣。
Living here, I found much to delight in and much to grieve over. Before this, the courtyard had connected north and south as one. When my uncles divided the household and cooked separately, small doors and walls appeared everywhere, inside and out. Dogs in the east barked at people in the west; guests crossed the kitchen to attend meals; chickens roosted in the hall. At first the courtyard was divided by a fence; later by a wall. It changed twice in all.
【The Old Maid・His Mother】
家有老嫗，嘗居於此。嫗，先大母婢也，乳二世，先妣撫之甚厚。室西連於中閨，先妣嘗一至。嫗每謂余曰：「某所，而母立於茲。」
There was an old maid in the family who once lived here. She had been my grandmother’s servant, had nursed two generations, and my late mother treated her with great kindness. The west side of the room connected with the inner quarters, and my mother had once come there. The old woman would often say to me, “Here, this is where your mother once stood.”
嫗又曰：「汝姊在吾懷，呱呱而泣；娘以指扣門扉曰：『兒寒乎？欲食乎？』吾從板外相為應答。」語未畢，余泣，嫗亦泣。
She also said, “Your elder sister was in my arms, crying. Your mother tapped on the door with her finger and asked, ‘Is the child cold? Does she want something to eat?’ I answered her from the other side of the panel.” Before she finished speaking, I wept, and the old woman wept too.
【Grandmother・The Ivory Court Tablet】
余自束髮讀書軒中，一日，大母過余曰：「吾兒，久不見若影，何竟日默默在此，大類女郎也？」比去，以手闔門，自語曰：「吾家讀書久不效，兒之成，則可待乎！」
From the time I tied up my hair as a youth, I studied in this room. One day my grandmother came by and said, “My child, I have not seen even your shadow for so long. Why do you spend the whole day sitting silently here? You are becoming just like a young lady!” As she left, she closed the door with her own hand and said to herself, “For so long our family’s study has produced no result. Perhaps this child’s success is something we can finally wait for!”
頃之，持一象笏至，曰：「此吾祖太常公宣德間執此以朝，他日汝當用之。」瞻顧遺跡，如在昨日，令人長號不自禁。
A little later she returned carrying an ivory court tablet and said, “Your ancestor, the Court of Imperial Sacrifices official, carried this when attending court during the Xuande reign. One day you should use it.” Looking back on these traces now, they seem as if they were here only yesterday, and I cannot keep myself from crying out in grief.
【Footsteps・Four Fires】
軒東故嘗為廚，人往，從軒前過。余扃牖而居，久之，能以足音辨人。軒凡四遭火，得不焚，殆有神護者。
East of the study there had once been a kitchen, and people going there passed in front of my room. I kept the windows shut and lived inside for so long that I could identify people by the sound of their footsteps. The study survived four fires without burning; perhaps some spirit protected it.
【Xiangji Sheng Speaks・A Young Scholar’s Self-Reflection】
項脊生曰：「蜀清守丹穴，利甲天下，其後秦皇帝築女懷清臺。劉玄德與曹操爭天下，諸葛孔明起隴中。方二人之昧昧於一隅也，世何足以知之？余區區處敗屋中，方揚眉瞬目，謂有奇景。人知之者，其謂與埳井之蛙何異！」
Xiangji Sheng says: “The widow Qing of Shu guarded cinnabar mines and became the wealthiest under heaven; later the First Emperor of Qin built the Terrace of Lady Huaiqing in her honour. Liu Xuande and Cao Cao contended for the realm, and Zhuge Kongming rose from Longzhong. When these people were still obscure in a single corner, how could the world have known what they would become? I occupy this shabby little house, lifting my brows and widening my eyes as though I possessed some extraordinary prospect. Those who know of me, would they not say I am no different from a frog in a shallow well?”
【His Wife Arrives・Questions and Writing】
余既為此志，後五年，吾妻來歸，時至軒中，從余問古事，或憑几學書。吾妻歸寧，述諸小妹語曰：「聞姊家有閤子，且何謂閤子也？」
After I wrote this account, five years passed and my wife married into my family. She would often come to the study, ask me about old matters, or lean over the little desk and practise writing. When she returned to her parental home, she repeated what her younger sisters had said: “We hear there is a little chamber at elder sister’s home. What exactly is this chamber?”
【His Wife Dies・The Chamber Is Repaired Again】
其後六年，吾妻死，室壞不修。其後二年，余久臥病無聊，乃使人復葺南閤子，其制稍異於前。然自後余多在外，不常居。
Six years later, my wife died, and the room fell into disrepair and was not repaired. Two years later, after I had been bedridden for a long illness and had nothing to occupy me, I had the southern chamber repaired again; its form differed somewhat from before. After that, however, I spent much of my time away and rarely lived there.
【The Loquat Tree・Tall as a Canopy】
庭有枇杷樹，吾妻死之年所手植也；今已亭亭如蓋矣。
The courtyard has a loquat tree, planted by my wife with her own hands in the year she died; now it stands tall and graceful, its crown spread like a canopy.
An Essay That Never Says “I Miss You”
The loquat tree is not the only reason Xiangjixuan Zhi is unforgettable.
Gui Youguang never forces the reader toward tears.
His mother returns because someone remembers the place where she once stood.
His grandmother returns because a door she once closed and an ivory tablet remain.
His wife returns because she once came into the study to ask questions and practise writing.
At the end, Gui Youguang does not even describe her face again.
Only the tree remains.
Mature grief often does not require explanation.
Sometimes it requires only one surviving thing
to prove that someone was truly there.
💿 Credits
- Song Title: Xiangjixuan Zhi
- Chinese Title: 項脊軒志
- English Subtitle: Record of Xiangji Study
- Classical Source: Gui Youguang, Xiangjixuan Zhi
- Author: Gui Youguang
- Period: Ming Dynasty
- Literary Form: Ji prose / lyrical prose memoir
- Original Text / Complete Sung Words: Gui Youguang
- Lyrics Format: 100% original prose, with no modern expansion, rewriting, added lyrics or repeated original lines
- Text Order: Strictly follows the project-established original text
- Music Style: Premium Cinematic Mandopop Soul / refined Chinese-inspired R&B
- Tempo / Meter: 70 BPM / 6/8
- Composition / Arrangement: Suno AI / Grandevity Studio
- Vocals: Suno AI Mandarin male vocal
- Music Production: Grandevity Studio
- AI-Assisted Visuals: ChatGPT Images
- Video Editing / Art Direction / Creative Production: Grandevity Studio
- Released by: Grandevity Limited
- Production Year: 2026
- Official MV: https://youtu.be/gMJYeyRuW4U
Music Style and Mood:
Premium Cinematic Mandopop Soul / refined Chinese-inspired R&B at 70 BPM in 6/8, built as a through-composed setting of Gui Youguang’s complete prose. Rain on old roof tiles, guqin and xiao open the study; Fender Rhodes, nylon-string guitar, neo-soul bass, brushed drums, subtle pipa and cinematic strings enter as the room is repaired. The birds, moonlight and osmanthus passages become the most luminous; the divided household darkens the harmony; memories of mother and grandmother carry increasing emotional weight; the wife section briefly restores warmth; “Six years later, my wife died” suddenly empties the sound field; and the final loquat-tree lines approach near-a-cappella intimacy before a long instrumental decay.
⚖️ Copyright Notice
Gui Youguang’s Xiangjixuan Zhi is a public-domain classical literary text.
This musical work uses the project-established original text as 100% of the sung words. No modern lyrical expansion, vernacular rewriting, newly added lyrics or other newly written lyric sections have been inserted.
The music production, recorded master, arrangement, mix, master, MV visuals, cover art, video editing, subtitles, shot design, art direction, written promotional material and overall creative production were produced by or lawfully licensed to Grandevity Limited / Grandevity Studio. Relevant rights are retained and administered subject to applicable law and the terms of the platforms and tools used in production.
Unauthorized re-uploading, redistribution, reproduction, editing, sampling, commercial use, platform distribution, AI training, dataset use, remixing, or incorporation into another audiovisual work is prohibited except where otherwise permitted by applicable law or license.
Licensing Contact:
About This Project
Xiangjixuan Zhi is part of Grandevity Studio’s Classical Literature Reimagined in Music series.
We want classical literature to live beyond textbooks, annotations and examinations.
It can become sound again.
Rain on old roof tiles.
A shaft of afternoon light entering a repaired study.
Moonlight across half a wall.
Osmanthus shadows and birdsong.
A door once closed gently by a grandmother.
A mother asking from the other side:
兒寒乎？欲食乎？
Is the child cold? Does she want something to eat?
A wife sitting quietly beside a writing desk.
And finally,
a loquat tree now grown tall enough to cover the courtyard.
Perhaps one of the most meaningful ways to bring classical literature across time is not to give the ancients new lines.
It is to let their original words
be heard again today.