Chenchen Du

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020

Stories (8)

8 Stories

363 karma pts

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“The Painter of the Morningstar” by Chenchen Du

Submitted to Contest #163

1846, a young man held a brush like a dull blade slashing through the canvas with colours. The light dances through his hand, gilding it with gold and shading it with grey. A dancing bright soul of a human battling with the demons assigned to haunt him.   He himself was nothing impressive, a mere young mortal who held dreams too big for his short life-span to carry. At the age of thirteen, he could paint his own face with its full cherub pink cheeks and hazelnut hair in a way that resonates with the true design of Father's Creat...

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“Destiny of Dust and Dirt” by Chenchen Du

Submitted to Contest #151

The thing that people don't seem to get about reincarnation is that people aren't always people. The Creation Goddess Nǚwā was only ever a human for a times in her life, at the very beginning. In between, she had been everything from a tree, a snake or a fly.  When she was a tree, the sky would gleam with distant glee, happy that she wouldn't bother them for a few hundred years until she had grown tall and wild. She was small yet headstrong as a seed, growing from the concrete of a prison where human skulls pile up like layers of a sw...

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“My Future Self Once Said” by Chenchen Du

Submitted to Contest #136

“You’ll never know unless you try.” She tried to convince herself as she stared into the pills in the container. All of them reflecting  ghastly white light in the washroom.  Her legs felt numb as she tangled them together to fit into the small space next to the shower. She didn't want to stand up and look into the mirror and see her own face.  The motions wouldn't be that hard. All she needed to do was to crack open the lid and swallow those little white tablets, like how she swallows the brown marbles in a bubble te...

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“The Girl with No Face” by Chenchen Du

Submitted to Contest #114

CW: bullying, goreJia Si Ya started off with all the facial features a normal human would have. Two years, one mouth, two eyes and a nose. She was a normal sort of girl growing up in China. Quiet, artistic, most importantly, her grades are always among the top three in her class. She was left alone to her own devices, because you simply don’t mess with a girl who has good grades in China. The teachers would be on her side. She’s not close to most of her classmates but they look at her with some jealousy, but that was plenty made up by t...

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“Judge of the Underworld Household” by Chenchen Du

Submitted to Contest #113

Bao Si Ran’s dreams lead her into the underworld household.  The underground household she goes to is not Hell, nor was it the Greek Underworld ruled by Hades. It is called 阴朝地府(Yin Chao Di Fu) in Chinese, which relatively translates to the Dynasty of Yin and the Underworld Court.  Depending on if the person accumulated good or bad karma in life, one can either be send to their next life that would be filled with joy immediately, be promoted into a minor deity in the area or a guardian ancestor for their family so people can bu...

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“A babysitting job involving a boy and a ghost” by Chenchen Du

Submitted to Contest #27

“Hey, John. Want to talk about the ghost you saw?”Dammit. That was a wrong conversation starter. As the words slipped out of her mouth, Ting immediately felt the urge to bite her own tongue off. You probably do not know this, but it’s portrayed as a common way of committing suicide in Chinese drama. Yep, that’s another random fact that is inappropriate to sprinkle in the conversation with a 7-year-old kid. She’s not good with kids. Not good with people, in general. Whenever the situation presents itself in the form of talking to a livin...

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“New Year Resolution : Be There for a Friend (Late)” by Chenchen Du

Submitted to Contest #25

Her love died in early spring. She wrote that she would be there for her love in her new year resolution earlier that year.That was around six years ago. So as you can imagine, she didn’t accomplish what she promised to do. Now she is walking towards her love’s grave, trying to do something else that ended up unaccomplished on her subsequent new year resolutions as well.Be there for her, albeit too late. Her love’s funeral was hosted on a spring morning, where the newly homecoming birds chirped with enthusiasm. A pair of swans that...

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“Something's wrong with the target behind the monitor camera” by Chenchen Du

Submitted to Contest #24

You know the rumor about secret agents spying on your phones and laptops? If you somehow avoided the thousands of memes regarding FBI agents questioning your online search history, now I will inform you that it’s all true. We do exist, but please don’t panic or proceed to call the police. It’s not as if calling authorities will do you any good. Contacting the media is also a fruitless endeavor, it will be shut down as soon as my boss found out about it. Even if it somehow managed to make into the headlines, people will think it is one o...

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Author bio

Don't know what I'm doing 90% of the time. The 10% is when I screwed up my plans.