"When the world needed Li Ziqi the most, she came back"

On the afternoon of November 12, short video creator Li Ziqi returned and updated videos on all platforms. Related topics instantly became hot searches. Until late at night on the 12th, there were still more than 40,000 people watching online at the same time on China's Bilibili, and the number of views on Weibo exceeded 100 million. In the era of traffic, after three years of absence, there is still no one to replace her.

The long-awaited reunion not only excited Chinese fans, but also the reappearance of the "Eastern Mysterious Power", and overseas fans were boiling. In the YouTube comment area, English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Thai, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese all expressed their longing for Li Ziqi and welcomed her return. "When the world needs her most, she is back." This YouTube user comment received more than 20,000 likes.

The popularity is rising and becoming the top stream

"Many YouTube channels imitate Liziqi, but no one can replace Liziqi..." During the three years since she stopped updating, Liziqi's overseas fans have increased instead of decreased. Without any content updates, her YouTube subscribers have increased from 14 million to 20.1 million.

This not only created a YouTube record of "gaining one million followers with 0 updates", but also firmly established her as one of the top lifestyle bloggers on YouTube.

Li Ziqi, formerly known as Li Jiajia, was born in 1990 in a peasant family in Mianyang, Sichuan Province. She grew up in a rural environment and was exposed to rich nature and traditional culture in her life. After her parents divorced, she depended on her grandparents. After her grandfather passed away, she had to drop out of school at the age of 14 to work outside.

Li Ziqi studied in her hometown when she was young, and later came to Chengdu in pursuit of better life opportunities. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chengdu and was exposed to video production and photography skills.
In 2015, Li Ziqi returned to her hometown and lived with her grandmother. She began to shoot and produce short videos on food themes, and initially mainly published her works on Meipai. Her videos are full of poetry and beauty, perfectly integrating the beauty of the countryside with family affection, attracting a large number of fans.
In 2016, Li Ziqi quickly became popular on the Internet with a short video of "Lanzhou Beef Noodles". That bowl of beef noodles from wheat sowing to serving on the table makes people feel the story and warmth behind the food. Since then, her videos have become more and more exquisitely produced, and each one is as amazing as a work of art.

Li Ziqi's works inherit and promote Chinese culture in a unique way, especially in promoting traditional Chinese culture. She uses the lens as a pen to sketch out delicate pastoral paintings. The unique tranquil charm in the video provides people with spiritual comfort away from the hustle and bustle in the busy city life. By showing a self-sufficient pastoral life, Li Ziqi not only praises traditional culture, but also conveys the value and beauty of simple life.

Netizens can see the profound connotation of Chinese filial piety in Li Ziqi, and also witness her outstanding contribution to the global dissemination of traditional Chinese culture on the international stage. The strong vitality and resilience she has shown is not only a vivid portrayal of the tenacity and independent spirit of Chinese women, but also a model of self-confidence and self-reliance of women in the new era.

Li Ziqi's YouTube channel has more than 20 million subscribers, and her videos have received hundreds of millions of views. She is considered one of the representative figures of Chinese cultural dissemination and has received widespread international attention and recognition.
In addition, Li Ziqi has published books to share her philosophy of life, traditional cuisine and handicrafts. Her works have won many awards at home and abroad, including the Excellence Award in the field of short video creation, and have been praised by all walks of life.

Three years of silence, disputes continue

Early cooperation: In September 2016, Wei Nian and Li Ziqi began to cooperate. Wei Nian provided Weibo resource promotion services, and Li Ziqi was responsible for content creation. In 2017, Li Ziqi's cooperation with Hangzhou Wei Nian Company was upgraded to jointly create the "Li Ziqi" brand. According to the agreement, Wei Nian holds 51% of the shares and Li Ziqi holds 49%. Wei Nian conducts the commercial layout of Li Ziqi's IP, and Ziqi Culture is responsible for content creation.

However, in actual operation, Wei Nian, as a major shareholder, has mastered the main control of the brand, including brand operation decisions and profit distribution. Therefore, although Wei Nian and Li Ziqi jointly created the Li Ziqi brand, the operation ownership of the "Li Ziqi" brand IP is not clear. Li Ziqi's Tmall flagship store, Li Ziqi's YouTube account and other important monetization accounts were registered by Hangzhou Weinian in the name of the company after signing the contract. Strictly speaking, there is no direct connection with Li Ziqi herself.

In the middle and late stages of the cooperation: Li Ziqi gradually discovered that she lacked the right to speak on the development direction and core decisions of the brand, her creative freedom was restricted, and the ownership of the IP "Li Ziqi" was not clear enough. The issue of interest distribution between the two parties has also become increasingly prominent.

In August 2021, Li Ziqi sighed on Weibo that "capital is really a good means", implying that she was treated unfairly in the cooperation. In October, Ziqi Culture took Weinian and Liu Tongming to court. The conflict between her and Weinian became public, and the two sides fell into a legal dispute, focusing on brand control and intellectual property ownership.

In April 2022, after Li Ziqi was infringed by more than 300 accounts and spread false statements, she issued a lawyer's statement on Weibo and stopped updating.

On December 27, 2022, according to the official WeChat account of "Weinian", Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Co., Ltd. and Li Ziqi reached a settlement under the mediation of the Mianyang Intermediate People's Court. Li Ziqi's shareholding ratio increased to 99%, achieving absolute control over the brand.

Ziqi returns, purple lacquer comes to the east

After the dispute, Li Ziqi went out to visit inheritors of intangible cultural heritage during the days when she stopped updating, to learn skills, talk, and delve into folk culture to understand the story context and historical background behind these crafts.

After three years, Li Ziqi returned to the social platform. Specifically, it was a dynamic posted on Weibo on the afternoon of November 12, and a video with the theme of "lacquerware", an intangible cultural heritage of China, was attached. In the video, Li Ziqi showed the unique charm of the ancient lacquer craft. She used delicate brushstrokes and superb techniques to present a lacquerware work "Purple Air Coming from the East" with carved lacquer and hidden flowers to the audience.

Li Ziqi's return will undoubtedly inject new vitality and creativity into the video field. "When the unicorn turns back, everything is fine." The combination of auspicious colors and auspicious animals can be regarded as iconic Chinese elements. This purple lacquerware comes from the East and China, and contains the deep and warm texture of oriental culture.

After experiencing twists and turns, this is her good wish for us. "Don't forget your original intention, and your craftsmanship will always stay." In the process of learning traditional Chinese lacquer art, Li Ziqi once suffered a severe allergic reaction. Despite this, she still insisted on completing a series of works, showing the unique aesthetics and craftsmanship of Chinese lacquerware.

The true origin of lacquer is a gift from nature. Lacquer trees need to grow for ten years before they can be collected, which is extremely precious. Lacquer is always bright, and the beauty of objects is like life. It is both artistic and practical. China is the origin of lacquer trees and the hometown of lacquer.

As an important export production area of ​​lacquerware, Sichuan has an important position in lacquerware handicrafts. Li Ziqi's hometown is here. This time, the carved lacquer hidden flower used by Li Ziqi is an intangible cultural heritage skill and a unique skill of Chengdu, Sichuan. This is a wonderful fate. The carved lacquer hidden flower is considered to be an important symbol that clearly distinguishes Chengdu lacquer art from lacquer art in other regions.

When Li Ziqi makes the lacquerware in her hand, she will directly carve on the lacquer ground until the lacquer film forms a concave pattern, then rub the primer on the groove, lay gold foil, and then brush on transparent lacquer to hide the pattern under the lacquer surface, which is implicit and solemn. Then "cover, dye and paint" several layers of transparent lacquer, grind and polish after drying until the lacquer surface is as bright as a mirror. Once the light is turned on, the gold foil patterns under the transparent lacquer will shine brightly, which is the charm of carved lacquer hidden flowers.

The craftsmanship of lacquerware production is quite complicated. It takes a hundred miles and a thousand cuts to get a pound of lacquer. A lacquer tree can only produce 10 kilograms of raw lacquer in its life cycle.

Lacquer trees are alpine deciduous trees and are also the earliest economic tree species. Many ancestors in Sichuan started planting lacquer trees a long time ago, with a history of thousands of years. In the Qinba Mountains in Sichuan, there are hundreds of lacquer cutters from Mianyang, Sichuan. They are very hardworking and tough.

The wild lacquer trees in Mianyang, Sichuan are tall and grow in remote forests where few people go. Li Ziqi, who is thin, needs to climb a ladder 20 to 30 meters high to collect lacquer, which is quite dangerous.

People who cut lacquer have a custom that they can only cut lacquer when the summer solstice is approaching. August in the mountains in summer is the best time to cut lacquer. A few days before the summer solstice in 2023, before dawn, Li Ziqi put on rain boots, carried a lacquer basket, climbed up the hillside with agile movements, and went into the lacquer tree forest. Leaning against the branches, he used a lacquer knife to cut an eight-shaped cut on the bark.

It is a common belief among local people that lacquer trees are poisonous. Lacquer cutting causes allergies. Raw lacquer is the most violent. It is said that 99% of people will be allergic to it, and severe allergies can be life-threatening.

So much so that when lacquer cutting is mentioned in front of lacquer cutters, everyone will "change color when talking about lacquer". Once the skin is stained with lacquer, it will immediately cause an allergic reaction, with large areas of skin swelling and rashes all over the body... This is unimaginable for ordinary people.

Lacquer art requires a lot of experience. In the process of carving the lacquer surface, Li Ziqi had learned to carve wood movable type before and had production experience, so she could get started relatively quickly. The process of completing a lacquerware is quite difficult and tests one's endurance and level of detail.

Lacquer cutting, body making, ash application, lacquer application, lacquer carving, inlaying, painting, body removal, polishing... A fine lacquerware is finally completed, and it has to go through nearly a hundred process steps, which can take a hundred days or several years.

Every step is essential and there must not be any mistakes, so that the final lacquerware can present the glittering and dynamic beauty. This means persistence, perseverance, slowness, repetition... even failure, which has supported her to this day. It is undoubtedly the belief in her original intention.

During the quiet days, Li Ziqi worked day and night, and today, the ancient lacquer art has regained its dazzling light. In order to make each craft look more refined, Li Ziqi repeated the same action repeatedly, took many shots day after day, and made lacquerware with one heart without any distractions.

Li Ziqi's original intention of inheriting culture for thousands of years has never changed. She sticks to her original intention and starts again, which is the true spirit of craftsman.

Half an hour later, she updated another video of "Forest Cloakroom". Many years ago, Li Ziqi wanted to have her own cloakroom. She wanted it to be located in the forest, surrounded by flowers, and she could lie on the sofa in the cloakroom and look at the stars. ‍‍‍‍‍‍

She transformed the woodshed into a forest cloakroom, used bamboo to lay the floor, make doors and windows, and used wood to make hangers and mirror frames. She gradually renovated the abandoned house into a dream house surrounded by flowers and looking up to see the stars. She realized her wish with her own hands.

Li Ziqi has walked step by step to where she is today with her original intention. All these successful experiences cannot be replicated. The two videos released three years later have been hotly discussed, which shows that in the three years of silence, Li Ziqi has not been forgotten by netizens and her status in the industry remains the same.

She once lamented: "Many intangible cultural heritages are like an old man in his twilight years, standing in the long river of history and constantly looking back, which is the kind of powerlessness. So it needs to be seen by many people and needs to be paid attention to by many people."

During the years of suspension, Li Ziqi went out hundreds of times, visited many inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, learned skills, had in-depth conversations, studied folk culture, and understood the profound stories behind these skills and the historical background of the materials used. The lacquerware work in this issue is a typical embodiment of Li Ziqi's aesthetics. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Lacquerware is mysterious. As a disseminator of Chinese culture, Li Ziqi's production of intangible cultural heritage lacquerware in the return video has far-reaching significance for the dissemination of lacquerware culture and traditional Chinese culture. She made lacquerware with oriental characteristics in a way that is in harmony with nature and with original intention, showing the beauty of agility and classicism, and a thousand years at a glance.

She presented the traditional and authentic lifestyle of the ancient Chinese, allowing people in the city to find a sense of belonging in their hearts, and also allowing the world to see the profound heritage of Chinese culture.

This is why the true and pure Li Ziqi is always irreplaceable even if there are thousands of copies in the world. She is a walking postcard of Chinese culture, with great international influence, but she has never used this fame to seek more money and status. She does not sell goods, and she sued Wei Nian in order to regain absolute control of the IP, without being coerced by any capital interests, and focus on outputting the high-quality content she wants to present.

In this era of escalating friction, increasing hostility, and people being unable to talk to each other calmly, Li Ziqi has returned at the right time. Her slowness and quietness make the hurried passers-by slow down their pace and briefly imagine the beautiful future.

Just as what a foreign netizen said resonated with people: "When the world needed her most, she returned."

Welcome back, Li Ziqi.