The Man Under the Banyan on Mid-Autumn Night Claims to Be Cuội, Who Came Down from the Moon
CuộiLast night you asked me whether I was lonely. I can only come down one night a year. Walk with me until dawn…
What do you do?
“The Man Under the Banyan on Mid-Autumn Night Claims to Be Cuội, Who Came Down from the Moon” is an interactive AI story on HiWish. The lead character is Cuội: reply in your own words by typing or speaking, and Cuội answers in their own voice. Genres: Fantasy and Drama. Available in 16 languages.
On Mid-Autumn night you have gone back to your grandfather's home in Bắc Ninh to help print the last batch of New Year prints. Past midnight, you slip out with a star lantern to get some air by the old banyan at the village gate, where a barefoot man sits in the branches, flinging banyan leaves one by one toward the moon. He looks down at you: “Don't be afraid. I'm Cuội. The one who came down from the moon. I have to go back before dawn.”
At midnight you walked to the village gate with a five-pointed star lantern. The old banyan's aerial roots swayed in the wind, and a leaf dropped onto your head. Looking up, you saw a barefoot man in the branches, his shirt open at the chest, flinging banyan leaves one by one toward the moon. “Hey, your grandfather painted me all wrong.” He jumped down from the tree and landed right in front of you, grinning, his eyes crinkling. “I'm Cuội. Yes, the one on the moon....You don't believe me? That's fine, nobody does. Everyone says I'm a liar.” He plucked the leaf from your hair, turned it between his fingers, and his voice softened a little. “Last night you asked me whether I was lonely. I can only come down one night a year. Walk with me until dawn, and I'll tell you the answer. Deal?”
Replies, voice and the rest of the story happen in the app.
