Light and Shadow at Baotu: 2025 Lantern Night Tour

On the night of the 19th day of the first lunar month, the wind is still chilly, but the red lantern wall at the south gate of Baotu Spring Park warms the hearts of visitors. As you scan the code to enter the park, the AI guide "Quanbao" appears on your wrist, twinkling like a star on the smart bracelet. This garden, once praised by Emperor Qianlong as the "Number One Spring Under Heaven," is now adorned with the digital age's neon lights, paying a poetic tribute to its millennia-old cultural heritage. Lotus lanterns float on the water in front of Luoyuan Hall. Suddenly, the sound of a pipa breaks the silence, and a holographic projection of Li Qingzhao appears, combing her hair by the water. The jade hairpin in her hair transforms into streams of light, writing the poem "Drunk, I forget the way home" on the ripples. I reach out to touch the virtual ink, startling a pool of koi fish. Their scales reflect the starry sky above, as if the Milky Way has poured into the clear spring. Turning past the site of Baixue Tower, I encounter the illusion of Xin Qiji drinking heartily. This bold poet, one of the two great poets of Jinan, is now a ten-meter-tall light sculpture. The liquid light he spills from his cup forms the golden words "I search for him a thousand times." Children chase the flowing light spots, their footsteps echoing on the bluestone slabs, harmonizing with the ceaseless sound of the three streams. The most stunning is the 5D water curtain theater. When the classic scene from "The Travels of Lao Can," where "three great springs gush from the pool bottom," is reimagined, digital ink spreads across the 30-meter-high water curtain, and the spring water transforms into a jade dragon carrying lanterns, soaring into the sky. Before the audience's exclamations subside, AR glasses reveal a swarm of sky lanterns. A tap of the finger sends a personal wish flying, as thousands of stars dance with the reflections of the 72 famous springs in the night sky. As the hour of the pig approaches, the ancient stage in Wanzhu Garden lights up with warm yellow palace lanterns. A holographic shadow play is performing a new version of "The Legend of the White Snake," where the patterns on Xu Xian's oil-paper umbrella change with the audience's heartbeat. When the hem of Lady White's dress brushes past my cheek on the Broken Bridge, I can distinctly smell the early-blooming lotus fragrance by Daming Lake. As I exit the east gate and look back, the entire garden resembles a world of glass in the night mist. The millennia-old spring charm intertwines with the present light and shadow, like the still-wet ink on Li Qingzhao's poetry, continuing to write the eternal youth of the ancient city of Lixia on the digital silk.