When Li Younan saw that national treasure, even he couldn’t help but feel regretful.
This revolving vase from the Qianlong period, formally known as the Fencai Gilded Revolving Landscape and Figures Vase.
The vase is composed of three parts: an outer vase, an inner vase, and a base. The outer vase is intricately carved with openwork landscape and pavilion patterns, and the inner vase features painted stories with figures in pastel colors, just like the replicas Li Younan had seen during his exams.
The inner screen can rotate, depicting dynamic scenes, while the base is carved with entwined lotus patterns and inlaid with gemstones.
No wonder it’s considered a national treasure-level artifact that combines ceramics, painting, and carving techniques.
However, this national treasure is also severely damaged.
The outer screen has multiple fractures and missing openwork carvings, large areas of the pastel glaze have peeled off, details of the figures’ faces and garments are blurred, the inner screen’s rotation axis is broken, and about a third of the pastel painting on the vase body is missing.
Additionally, the base’s carvings are also damaged, making the entire structure extremely loose.
Li Younan also realized that restoring this national treasure isn’t as simple as Master Chen previously mentioned; integrating three top-tier crafts is just a basic prerequisite.
To restore this artifact, every step is nested within the next, requiring a systematically designed comprehensive plan.
The director sighed softly, then looked at Li Younan with an expectant gaze and said, "Xiaozhang has already informed you about the relevant data and information of this national treasure. To put it this way, the craftsmanship of this national treasure is even more exquisite than the revolving vase previously auctioned for 220 million. If it can be restored, it could completely serve as our museum’s crown jewel."
"My suggestion is, before officially commencing restoration, we hold another meeting to discuss it. You can share your ideas and thoughts, and we’ll solve any problems together."
Li Younan put on his mask and gloves, and carefully examined the national treasure.
Gradually, his eyes brightened, and all the skills he had systematically acquired became the foundation for him to see through the national treasure and conceive a restoration plan. A clear and feasible plan had already formed in his mind.
Li Younan looked at the director, "Director, I need to make a list and ask you to help prepare it."
"Hmm, your plan is..."
"The specific plan... How about this, I’ll sort it out and report back to everyone tomorrow."
"Alright." After a pause, the director said seriously, "Once the plan is approved, we still need to report this matter to the higher-ups. But don’t worry, it’s just a formality."
Li Younan understood, after all, this is an invaluable national treasure restoration task, and in essence, he was an external party in this work.
However, with the director overseeing it, it wouldn’t be an obstacle.
Today, Li Younan stayed directly in the Forbidden City. He needed to carefully prepare and come up with a practical plan.
Restoring such a national treasure was not a simple or quick task like past examinations.
Li Younan estimated it would take at least a week.
Of course, this one-week timeframe was already extremely fast compared to other experts and craftsmen.
In dealing with this national treasure, Li Younan was ready to devote full concentration and patience.
The next day, in the meeting room with a group of experts and staff, Li Younan presented the plan he had meticulously prepared the night before, distributing it to them.
Li Younan was extremely confident in this plan.
Sure enough, everyone who read through Li Younan’s plan couldn’t help but nod.
However, there were challenges; every process in the entire plan is so precisely interlocked that it could only be perfectly executed by one craftsman. And, of course, that person could only be Li Younan.
The director saw that everyone finished reviewing the plan and asked if they had any comments. The group discussed a bit and finally reached a consensus, then divided the tasks for everyone to prepare.
Li Younan also needed to proceed further with accurately measuring the relevant data and parameters of the national treasure.
In his busyness, Li Younan suddenly remembered a rather annoying thing.
He was here to shoot a video.
Although this was just a pretext to check in at those three places, the restoration journey in the Forbidden City was truly substantial and noteworthy content.
However, now that he had become the restorer, he naturally couldn’t be the video shooter.
He quickly adjusted his mindset.
Forget it, compared to gathering video content, restoring a national treasure was significantly more meaningful.
To whom much is given, much is expected; with great power comes great responsibility.
Once all the necessary tools, materials, equipment, and so forth were prepared, the parameters and data that Li Younan needed were also ready, recorded in a small notebook of his.
Next would be the actual restoration process.
With the assistance of the staff, all parts of the national treasure were transferred to a space specially cleared out for the restoration of the national treasure in the restorer’s workshop.
Yet when Li Younan entered, he was momentarily stunned.
Several cameras—notably those with special arrangements that eliminate flashes and exposure—were fixed inside the workshop.
Additionally, there was a reporter familiar to him from CCTV.
At that moment, the director was talking to the reporter.
Huh? Are people from CCTV here too?
Li Younan hadn’t reacted yet when the dean had already brought a reporter over, introducing to the reporter, "Here’s the main restorer of this national treasure we are restoring this time, Li Younan."
The beautiful reporter gave Li Younan a sweet smile and said, "Teacher Li, we’re in the same field."
Li Younan was slightly taken aback, and the correspondent continued, "We are all media people."
Li Younan suddenly gave a silent smile.
Then the reporter’s expression turned serious and explained, "Here’s the situation. We just received the assignment. Because the restoration of this national treasure is so significant, we plan to film the entire restoration process as material for a documentary. Of course, this material isn’t necessarily just for one documentary; additionally, we’re thinking of reporting it and see if we can get this piece of news on CCTV News Broadcast."
The dean added on the side, "The restoration process is supposed to have video documentation."
Li Younan was a bit happy for a moment. Initially, he thought that since he was leading the restoration, no one would help him with videos. Little did he expect the most professional staff from CCTV to get involved directly.
Even though the footage they take may not be handed directly to him, it’s okay; as long as it’s filmed, that’s what matters.
Of course, he also knew very well that the restoration process they documented would not necessarily highlight him as an individual, or even feature his name, but would certainly showcase it from the perspective of "The Forbidden City restored a Qing dynasty national treasure artifact."
But it’s still the same old story; it doesn’t matter.
Getting a face on CCTV and being on it as a principal staff member, even providing segments afterward, making one or two brochures, isn’t something any online celebrity can claim credit for.
After some simple small talk, Li Younan began to work seriously.
During this process, all those heavyweight experts became Li Younan’s assistants, helping him.
As they experienced Li Younan’s craftsmanship up close, the impact of the unbridgeable gap between genius became more apparent.
At this time, everyone defined Li Younan as a "genius."
During breaks, naturally, everyone would chat with Li Younan, wanting to understand why his skills were so remarkable.
It’s impossible for Li Younan to explain the details, so his answers were vague, simply saying things like "It’s a hobby" or "Had some exposure to it" or "Just found it likable" or "Learned it here and there."
But this vagueness, in the eyes of others, turned into humility.
A genius, not only a genius but also so low-key.
Everyone developed a sense of cherishing talent; they felt someone with such capability should be kept at the Forbidden City Museum.
Yet they also remembered that Li Younan is a multi-million-level broadcaster, and they clearly knew that such a super cyber-celebrity can’t be retained by the Forbidden City.
What a pity.
The entire restoration process went very smoothly, and the cameraman and reporter sent by CCTV weren’t idle either.
Besides continuously taking close-up shots to enrich video material, the reporter found those heavyweight experts and professors to learn about the difficulty of restoring this national treasure and its value significance, forming written materials.
These things will ultimately be presented in several forms, possibly as material for some heavyweight documentary, or directly in the news for a few dozen seconds, like "The Forbidden City Museum recently successfully restored a certain national treasure artifact, how precious this national treasure is, how challenging the restoration was, and how the Forbidden City team overcame difficulties," etc.
But at this point, Li Younan couldn’t be bothered with external disturbances.
He had to fully concentrate.
As time passed, his restoration work gradually reached a critical step, where engraving and painting needed to be coordinated simultaneously.
Experts who participated in meeting discussions had only now understood where the true difficulty of restoring this national treasure lay—the exterior bottle’s pierced patterns and the bottle body’s colored drawings weren’t independently existing; these two must be executed simultaneously.
For instance, inside the hollow railings of pavilion tiers, pastel needs a light blue shadow to enhance the three-dimensionality. If the engravings alone add railings without considering the shadow’s width on painting, exceeding the railing’s range will appear chaotic, affecting the entire picture’s three-dimensional depth, ruining the national treasure.
The base’s twining lotus pattern extra carvings are even more so; if the slope angle deviates by a few degrees, synchronization in color, improper transition ratio painting, then light pink covering the slope, at a glance, the restoration traces are visible, ruining the national treasure still.
The dynamic character painting on the internal screen needs to design around rotation trajectory; even a slight mishandling in details renders impossible restoring original dynamic effects, ruining the national treasure once again.
At this crucial time during the procedure, every expert sweated bullets for Li Younan.
Eventually, the dean simply called everyone out, leaving Li Younan in a quiet space, only letting set-up paper-positioned fittings record Li Younan’s procedure, as they viewed his carving on outside surveillance imagery.
However, the more it was time like this, the clearer Li Younan’s thinking became, the steadier his hands were.
The entire restoration took a whole week, and once every piece was fully repaired post-kiln curing, the restoration room became lively again.
The reporter and cameraman were also synchronized, witnessing this moment of grand assembly together.
When Li Younan nested the final piece seamlessly in place.
In the next moment, this once silent, downtrodden national treasure artifact came alive again.
It was like it suddenly began to glow.
Everyone couldn’t help but cheer; their long-suppressed emotion was released at this moment.
The dean couldn’t help but remove his glasses to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes.
But Li Younan was instead very calm at this moment, as he propped his chin on his arm, quietly watching this national treasure in front of him.
He knew that restoring this national treasure... would bring about many, many implications next.
But for now, he didn’t want to think about those things, just wanted to quietly admire this beautiful little thing.
Haha, restoring national treasures is indeed quite an interesting task.

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