Under the carving sect of Zhimufang in Wuzhen, woodcarver Lin Zhixia and business elite Gu Chenzhou met because of twelve mysterious hourglasses. The astrological carvings on the hourglass and the legend of the "hourglass of time" that spans hundreds of years involve the two in a time and space puzzle that combines mortise and tenon craftsmanship, astrological codes and family secret history. As the hourglasses appear one by one, the protection of cultural relics during the Anti-Japanese War in 1937, the conspiracy of the Japanese Army's "Starfall Project", and the wooden heart agreement passed down from generation to generation by the Gu and Lin families are gradually revealed - each hourglass hides a piece of national memory, which is not only a spiritual totem to resist foreign aggression, but also a time key connecting the past and present.
When traditional woodcarving craftsmanship collides with quantum technology and interstellar civilization, Lin Zhixia and Gu Chenzhou go from commercial opposition to life and death together on the road to protecting the "heart of wood". They not only solve the ancient mystery of the twelve astrology, but also discover that the ultimate secret of the hourglass points directly to the cosmic roots of human civilization. From the growth rings of the old camphor tree in Wuzhen to the hourglass geology of Mars, from the passion of the craftsmen of the Republic of China to the resonance of consciousness of interstellar civilization, the novel uses the hourglass as its vein to connect tradition and modernity, national memory and cosmic philosophy, and compose a song of inheritance that "the heart of wood is immortal, and time continues forever".
This is an ingenious protection that spans a hundred years, a fantastic resonance of traditional craftsmanship and astrological codes, and it is also the eternal journey of human civilization to find itself in the hourglass of time.
Purpose: Using artifacts as the key, we ask how traditional craftsmanship can become the sustainable vein of the "wooden heart" that connects national memory and human civilization in the war of history and future imagination.