Six looks in the quiet white-and-pale palette of the old martial-arts tradition, each set in a chamber carved straight out of blue stone and lit by a single oil lamp.

The clothes are all in the same family of pale, unfussy fabrics — a white gauze gown, a moon-white silk-blend gown, a pale cyan silk gown, a snow-white raw-silk gauze gown, a pale violet gauze gown and a white satin cross-collar gown. Each is cut long and loose, with wide or narrow sleeves, a soft sash at the waist and a hem that falls to the ankle. The fabrics each read differently in the lamplight: gauze thin enough to show a second layer beneath, fine silk with a soft sheen running along its length, satin woven flat and close, raw-silk gauze with a faint texture of its own.

The details are all in the finishing — a narrow rolled edge along a collar, a pressed line down a seam, a lining turned under a hem, a sash folded double and knotted at the side, a jade pin holding the hair, a pair of white jade earrings, and closed-toe soft-soled shoes in white, ivory or pale grey.

The settings are drawn from the old story of the hidden tomb on the southern mountain: a rope strung across the room at shoulder height and tied off on iron nails set in the east and west walls; a bed of cold jade with a straw mat laid over it; a stone table holding a pair of clay oil lamps and a brass tinder tube; a rack of old swords and a wooden frame piled with scale armour and a bronze helmet; a hive cut into the rock wall with its comb of six-sided cells, and a row of clay jars alongside; and a hanging scroll painting on the wall showing a woman at her mirror and a maid holding a basin, the mirror in the picture catching its own reflection.

Every image is created entirely by AI.