Green Through the Ten Thousand Worlds: I Rescue Endangered Intangible Heritage Through Livestreaming

Story Introduction

So many things disappear without a sound.

It happens quietly in old alleys, remote mountain villages, and dusty old workshops.

The artisans grow old, and the crafts passed down by word of mouth over a lifetime are buried deep in the years along with their memories. Assembly-line goods fill the market, while cheap imitations circulate everywhere.

One by one, traditional Chinese crafts fade away and vanish in the unnoticed gaps of everyday life.

Shen Yanxun used to spend much of her time traveling through the countryside, researching intangible cultural heritage and documenting folk crafts.

Then, after an accident, she fell into countless parallel worlds.

There are no System pop-ups here, nor any miraculous golden finger that lets her rise to the top overnight.

The standard for deciding whether a craft has truly survived is simple, yet cruel enough: someone must learn it, someone must record it, it must be archived, and its roots must endure.

A global cultural observation livestream, unfolding as if by fate, connects silently with the present day. Countless strangers stumble into the livestream and finally catch sight of these old crafts, nearly buried by the times.

In every world she visits, she meets the same person: Wen Xuqing.

In every life, Wen Xuqing is the last young person desperately holding on to that intangible cultural heritage craft.

He keeps to a life of poverty, bears the incomprehension and contempt of others, and endures the same tedious labor over and over. Countless times, exhausted to the brink, he almost drops his tools and escapes this trap for good.

Shen Yanxun has never come to save the world.

She only does the simplest, most practical things.

She hammers staples, dyes cloth, carves wood, engraves characters, threads needles, and shapes timber.

Little by little, she learns each craft, documents it in full, and preserves it in an archive.

And along the way, she catches the person crushed beneath the weight of the times, the one who's close to breaking.

As she salvages China's cultural heritage, on the verge of disappearing,

she crosses lifetimes and worlds, journeying toward the same lonely soul.

There are no exaggerated myths or earth-shattering tales of saving the world.

Only the enduring warmth of workshop hearths, thick calluses layered on their palms, and the aches earned through day after day of labor.

And, in their darkest hour, the tenderness of two people holding each other up.

[Couple: Shen Yanxun x Wen Xuqing | Fated Reincarnation · A Journey Toward Each Other]

Shen Yanxun: A seeker of cultural heritage. Restrained and distant with others, always mindful of boundaries, but willing to do everything in her power to protect Wen Xuqing.

Wen Xuqing: The last guardian of his craft. Exceptionally gifted and resilient, trapped between the cracks of the times, he is accustomed to swallowing every hardship and loneliness alone.

World Arcs

1. World One | Kintsugi with Metal Staples · Mending Shattered Porcelain, Restoring the Years

Seamless machine repairs are now widespread, and people favor flawless objects. The ancient craft of mending porcelain with metal staples is gradually dismissed as an unnecessary blemish. The old street workshop grows quieter by the day. An elderly artisan clings to his handwritten manual and refuses to pass it on freely, while young people are unwilling to endure the hardship and toil.

"You can mend broken porcelain, but what can mend the heart of someone who devoted their life to a craft, once it breaks?"

"People out there call stapled porcelain ugly scars. But scars are proof that something has lived."

2. World Two | Blue Clamp-Resist Dyeing · Seasons of Plant-Dyed Cloth

Bright chemical dyes are quick to produce, and ancient plant-dyeing methods passed down since the Tang and Song dynasties are slowly fading from public view. The old dye workshop decays beneath layers of dust, while ancestral rules keep patterns and techniques locked away. Almost no traditionally dyed cloth can be found on the market.

"Months of boiling plants can't match the brightness of a bucket of chemical dye. The times have never been willing to wait for a slow craft."

"These patterns hold the prayers of our ancestors. If nobody can read them anymore, they'll truly die on the cloth."

3. World Three | Carving Mountains and Rivers in Thin Wood · Fuzhou Cork Art

A miniature woodworking craft where a fraction of a mistake ruins everything. Mass-produced 3D-printed imitations circulate widely, and years of painstaking skill can't compete with a machine-made piece finished in minutes. An old artisan's eyesight is failing, and he can no longer hold his carving knife steady.

"A tiny piece of wood can hold a thousand miles of mountains and rivers, but not a moment of patience from the world."

"I've carved all my life. What I fear most isn't ruining a piece of wood, but that nobody will ever care enough to look closely again."

4. World Four | The Fragrance of Books, Carried by Movable Type · Wooden Movable-Type Printing

Letterpress and digital printing are now widespread. Carving wooden type takes time, effort, and materials, while strict family rules keep the craft from being passed on. Some rare old type blocks are even burned as firewood.

"You can print anything in a flash, but the warmth of words carved one stroke at a time is gone."

"The type blocks are still piled quietly in the workshop, but everyone willing to sit on a cold bench and tend to them has already left."

5. World Five | Charcoal Ash Preserving the New Year Spirit · Gaomi Gray-ash New Year Prints

The Spring Festival markets are covered with mass-produced, machine-printed New Year pictures. Gray-ash prints, sketched with willow charcoal and hand-painted with mineral pigments, decline year by year. So many blessings and opera stories survive only in the spoken memories of elderly artisans.

"We celebrate the New Year every year, but the New Year spirit that belonged to the land has long since been printed onto plastic."

"Charcoal ash scatters with the slightest breath. What if the last of our memories scatters with it?"

6. World Six | A Woven Dream in Warp and Weft · Yongchun Paper-Weaving Paintings

Xuan paper is cut into strands as fine as hair, then woven into pictures. The results are serene and exquisite, but the craft is obscure and painstakingly slow. Printed imitations are passed off as originals, and few people know about the authentic handwoven art.

"People think it's foolish and pointless to tear paper into fine strands, then weave them back into a picture."

"It's so fragile. A gust of wind, a touch of damp, or someone forgetting it, and it will be shattered for good."

7. World Seven | Sand and Fire Temper the Soul of Clay · Rongchang An Pottery

The market is full of sleek, refined industrial ceramics with glossy glazes. Traditional An pottery, fired unglazed from red clay in open flames in a dragon kiln, has a high failure rate and demands exhausting work tending the kiln. Young people flee the hardship, and the old dragon kilns have long been overgrown with weeds.

"Everyone favors smooth, perfect porcelain. Nobody cares about the old pottery, rough with sand and stained by smoke."

"A kiln fire can go out in an instant. Getting it burning again often takes an entire generation."

8. World Eight | Ancient Patterns Woven Between Mountains and Sea · Li People Spinning, Dyeing, Weaving, and Embroidery

The mountain-and-sea people have no written records, and the entirety of their thousand-year history is hidden in the patterns of their textiles. Backstrap looms and plant dyes are gradually being lost. Young people have cast off their traditional dress, and no one can read the ancient patterns anymore.

"The cloth is still here, but nobody recognizes the stories recorded on it anymore."

"When we take off these embroidered clothes, do we also lose a part of our roots?"

9. World Nine | A Thousand Stitches, the Soul of the Yi People

The Yi people have no written history. Their rites, life and death, and tribal beliefs are all preserved through needle and thread. Machine embroidery and heat-transfer imitations have flooded the mountains. Elderly embroiderers grow older by the year, and plant-dye formulas and ritual patterns are on the verge of being lost forever.

"When the last elderly embroiderer puts down her needle, half this people's memories will vanish with her stitches."

"People from beyond the mountains only like pretty embroidery. They never care about the beliefs hidden deep in the stitches."

10. World Ten | Building Mountains and Rivers Without a Single Nail · Mortise-and-Tenon Construction of Wooden Arch Bridges

Bridges of steel and concrete stand everywhere. Wooden covered arch bridges, built without nails or rivets, rely entirely on techniques passed down orally by elderly artisans. Complete architectural plans have never been preserved.

"Steel can build a bridge stretching for thousands of feet, but it can't recreate the wisdom of ancient wooden construction, accumulated over thousands of years."

"The calculations and methods stored in these artisans' minds will be buried in the ground when they are gone."

11. World Eleven | A Lone Ship Crossing the Vast Sea · Building Fujian Ships with Watertight Bulkheads

Steel motorized ships have completely replaced old wooden sailing vessels. Traditional shipbuilding methods, using wooden joints and seams caulked with hemp fiber and putty, have steadily declined. Old shipyards by the sea lie abandoned, and the shipwrights grow fewer year by year.

"Ancient ships could weather towering waves, but they couldn't weather the tide of change sweeping over the world."

"We can build ships that withstand raging winds and waves, but we can't keep young people willing to devote themselves to shipbuilding."

Theme: Crafts silently rot away in the changing times. I clumsily gather the pieces, and time and again, pull up the person who is close to collapsing from exhaustion.