Craft and life

Liu Younian (left) tunes ancient chime bells.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Pan, 43, is an expert in China's precious metal industry.

Such metals as palladium and osmium are key materials in the production of cutting-edge weapons, but China has limited reserves of these.

"It means that recycling - what is done by workers like Pan - is very important to China's military industry," says Yue.

Every year, Pan and more than 100 co-workers in a factory under the Gansu-based Jinchuan Group, extract such metals from industrial waste, which accounts for around 50 percent of China's total production of these metals.

While accuracy is a must-have for Yu, Qiao, an engineer from the Guangdong-based Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, undertake risks in his daily work. One of his major jobs is to check and fix nuclear rods, which may cause a huge disaster if a minor error occurs. Qiao, 45, and his teammates wear protective clothing and masks to do their work.

To fix a damaged rod sometimes takes 10 hours or more.

Some comments on the streaming site bilibili.com hail Qiao and his team as heroes of this era.

The story of Liu, a bianzhong tuner in Wuhan, has added an artistic flavor to the TV program.

Bianzhong is an ancient Chinese musical instrument consisting of a set of bronze bells, which thrived around 3,000 years ago but mostly disappeared after the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

Liu, 60, has made bianzhong replications based on archaeological discoveries and has tuned the replicas to play harmoniously along with some modern instruments.

Wen Weimin, the editor behind the episode on Han, a milling technician at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, calls her story inspirational.