Honest about how it’s made.
Jade Wisdom retells the Chinese classics with the help of AI, working from their public-domain source texts. No piece is published without a named edition, a faithful read to check it against, and an honest account of every liberty taken.
We started with a single dream dictionary and a simple frustration: the great classical Chinese works reach English readers either as dry scholarship or as loose "inspired-by" fiction with no thread back to the source. We wanted a third way — a reading you can trust and actually enjoy.
So we built a library. Tales and legends, living philosophy, cold strategy — each piece traced to its edition, retold for a modern reader with the help of AI, and honest about where we've taken a free hand.
Start from the source
Every piece begins with the original classical Chinese, in the public domain — cross-checked against Chinese Wikisource.
Retell with AI
Each piece is rendered into clear, modern English with the help of AI, working against that source text line by line — paced to read, never to gloss over it.
Trace and flag
Wherever we take a liberty, we flag it on the page. A Faithful read stays close to the text, and the original Chinese is always one tap away.
Three rules govern every retelling on Jade Wisdom. They are printed here, and they are visible on the page itself — in the Faithful read you can switch to, and in the interpretations we flag in vermilion as you read.
Render freely
We tell the story so it lives for a modern reader — vivid, paced, in clear English. We are not afraid of a free hand.
Flag interpretation
Wherever we take a liberty, we say so, in the margin, on the page. The honesty is the point. You can always see the seam.
Fabricate never
We invent nothing the source does not support. Every piece is traced to a named edition, and the original Chinese is one tap away.
Every source text we work from is in the public domain. Our retellings, notes, and English renderings are original work — produced with AI against those texts — © Jade Wisdom. Below: each work, its tradition, and the edition we read from.