The word 故事 (gùshi, "story") is formed by combining two characters: 故, which carries the core meaning of "past", "former", or "old", and 事, which means "event", "matter", or "affair". The compound conceptually fuses these ideas to signify "narrated past events", essentially creating the sense of a tale or account. It is a straightforward semantic combination where the meaning of the whole is directly derived from the conjunction of its parts, past matters or old events, which is the fundamental substance of a story.