At dusk in the Forbidden City in the 34th year of Guangxu's reign, the palace lanternmaker Su Jingchen had just completed the "Nine Dragons Playing with Pearls" lantern dedicated to Lafayette, when the sound of cannons at the top of Wuchang City shattered the dream of the dynasty. With the abdication of the Qing emperor and the beginning of the Republic of China, this craftsman who once carved light and shadow for the imperial power was thrown into the dust of the market by the times. When electric lighting swept the capital in the name of "science", Su Jingchen's three-generation lighting art was on the verge of extinction - the red sandalwood skeleton was covered in dust, the palace gauze lanterns were dimmed, and even her former apprentices were proud of Western electrical appliances.
In a dark workshop deep in the alley, Su Jingchen used thick bamboo and red paper to reshape the soul of the lamp: painting plum branches on the plain paper, hiding the secrets on the bamboo bones, condensing the story of "The Monkey King in Heaven" into a flowing play of light and shadow. Under the pale light of the electric lamp, he lit up lamps that told stories, allowing Chang'e's elegance to fly to the moon and Jingwei's persistence to fill the sea to be projected into the hearts of the people through the candlelight. When old and new civilizations come face-to-face in the hutong, this craftsman uses a bamboo knife as a pen and light and shadow as ink to carve a mark of perseverance on the ruins of the times - even if the world is dark, he must be the lamp that illuminates people's hearts.
This is a story about inheritance and innovation. In the confrontation between electric light and candlelight, the stubborn figure of the craftsman who protects the roots of culture in the torrent is reflected.
