It was an abrupt, dramatic return to rival the release of Beyoncé’s “Lemonade.” On Tuesday, Li Ziqi, one of China’s most popular influencers, suddenly dropped her first videos in more than three years, triggering a social media frenzy that is even being felt beyond the country’s borders.

The 34-year-old first rose to fame by posting soothing videos about her life in the countryside of southwestern China’s Sichuan province. This content, which often featured Li cooking and making handicrafts against an idyllic rural backdrop, quickly found a massive audience both in China and abroad.

By 2021, Li not only had tens of millions of fans on Chinese social media, she had also become the most popular Chinese-language influencer on YouTube, with around 20 million subscribers. Then, her accounts suddenly went dark as she reportedly became mired in a contract dispute with her agency.

But the star’s mysterious, yearslong absence came to an end this week when she posted three new videos without warning to her channels. One documents Li’s crafting of a lacquered wardrobe for her grandmother; the others feature her building a bamboo shed and making velvet flowers.

Cue pandemonium. The first video amassed more than 100 million views on the microblogging platform Weibo within five hours of its release on Tuesday. By Wednesday afternoon, the topic of Li’s return had received more than 270 million views on the platform.

Like many famous figures, Li’s popularity springs from several different sources. Her calm depictions of rural life resonated with China’s millennials and Gen Z, who have grown increasingly frustrated with the grind of urban life in recent years. Meanwhile, her commitment to preserving traditional Chinese culture helped her appeal to a broader audience.

Then, of course, there is the soap opera-style drama of her recent career. One fan, a 35-year-old surnamed Yu, told Sixth Tone that the serene aesthetic of Li’s videos was only part of her appeal.

“It was her decision to stop posting at the peak of her popularity that truly won my admiration,” Yu said. “It showed real courage — not compromising despite her fame. I look forward to her sharing more about her experiences and mindset over the past few years.”

So far, Li has said little in public about her life since she disappeared from China’s screens. Originally from Mianyang in Sichuan province, she reportedly left the city for several years to work as a migrant worker, but returned in 2016 to take care of her grandmother.

She began posting videos about her life back in her hometown soon after, with her early efforts focused mostly on cooking. Her first big hit was a video showing her making hand-pulled Lanzhou beef noodles from scratch, which went viral in 2017.

Li found a niche depicting a tranquil, idyllic rural way of life. Her videos often showed her performing the traditional tasks and crafts that Chinese villagers have relied on for centuries, set against picturesque rural landscapes. Others featured her interacting with local animals, as well as her grandmother.

In 2017, Li and her representatives, an agency named Weinian, set up a company to manage her rapidly growing content empire. Li reportedly held a 49% minority stake in the company, named Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co. The two parties later became embroiled in a lawsuit over the company, though the details of the dispute remain undisclosed.

Li stopped posting to her accounts in July 2021. Just over a year later, Weinian announced that they had reached a settlement with Li, which reportedly saw Weinian’s stake in the company reduced to 1%. Li owned the remaining 99%, giving her control over her own content.

According to domestic media reports, Weinian withdrew from its shareholding position in the company entirely in January 2023. Corporate information platform Qichacha shows that Li Ziqi is now listed as the company’s legal representative, executive director, and primary shareholder.

Li appears to have been plotting her comeback for some time. Her first video, which runs for 14 minutes, documents a monthslong effort to build a lacquered wardrobe from scratch, starting with her gathering raw lacquer from local trees.

Li decided to name her handiwork “Ziqi Donglai” — a choice laden with symbolism. The idiom literally means “arrival of good fortune,” but also includes a homonym of her own name, Ziqi, and could be read as “Ziqi from the East.”

In a post sharing the video on Weibo, Li wrote: “The video is four years late … miss you very much.”

The other two videos, released at 5 p.m. on Tuesday and 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, have also attracted immense numbers of views. As of Wednesday afternoon, the counts stood at 32.7 million and 20.2 million, respectively.

In an interview with state broadcaster CCTV, Li said that she had decided to resume posting videos a month ago, as she wanted to update her fans on her life over the past three years and her future plans.

She shared that she had spent her long hiatus from social media traveling China to deepen her knowledge of traditional cultural forms. She said she had visited more than 100 experts in 20 different Chinese provinces.

To produce the lacquer wardrobe, Li reportedly closely consulted an artisan due to the intricate techniques involved. Li and several members of her team turned out to be allergic to the lacquer, with several people developing severe rashes that temporarily disrupted filming.

Li said she planned to continue promoting traditional Chinese culture, with a series of videos in the works that were developed with a variety of different artisans.

“Being forgotten wasn’t entirely a bad thing,” she told CCTV. “It gave me more time to do what I love, allowing me to focus without distractions. But having a following is also wonderful.”

Liu Xinliang, a 28-year-old postgraduate student from the northern city of Tianjin, told Sixth Tone that he had watched all of Li Ziqi’s videos, and had learned a huge amount about Chinese culture as a result.

“Her content often makes me search for more information online,” he said. “The comment section also has people sharing knowledge, so you really learn something.”

(Header image: A screenshot from Li Ziqi’s latest video. From @李子柒 on Weibo)