Lin Jinxi, an heir to a family renowned for Shu embroidery during the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty, was sent through time by an accident and landed in 21st-century Chengdu. When she opened her eyes, she found herself in the body of an impoverished university student studying embroidery who was on the verge of dropping out.
Amid the roar of modern industry, the thousand-year-old art of Shu embroidery faced the threat of disappearing. Machine-made embroidery was everywhere, and fewer and fewer people were willing to devote themselves to learning the craft. In her modern life, Lin Jinxi was a “good-for-nothing” student whom her advisor had given up on and her classmates mocked. She was branded as someone with “no talent.”
But when she held that embroidery needle, it was as if she held her entire past life in her hand. Double-sided embroidery, contrasting-color embroidery, shaped embroidery… long-lost techniques came back to life at her fingertips. The koi she embroidered seemed to “swim,” her peonies seemed to “smell sweet,” and her pandas looked so adorably clumsy that they might tumble right off the silk.
From astonishing everyone at a campus embroidery exhibition to dazzling audiences at the Shu Embroidery Culture Festival; from being questioned over “copying ancient techniques” to proving through her skill that she was a “living heir” to the tradition; from winning gold at a national intangible cultural heritage expo to representing China as a cultural ambassador to the world, Lin Jinxi used a single embroidery needle to stitch a path of her own for carrying the tradition forward in modern society.
Along the way, she met Gu Yanzhi, an expert in protecting intangible cultural heritage who seemed stern on the outside but was passionate within. At first, he doubted her story, but her skill won him over. He witnessed every breakthrough she made and protected her from the intrusions of the outside world. Two souls who both loved traditional crafts stitched together a beautiful romance, one thread and one stitch at a time.
