A classical rendition

When the original idea for the series to use chapters of the classics as lyrics and adapt them into songs was first conceived, some people might have been skeptical about the idea at first, asking: Should these classics be "performed" in a modern way?

However, the feedback speaks for itself: the first season of the show achieved a rating of 8.7 points out of the total 10 on Douban, a popular Chinese film and TV review website.

As such, ancient classics continue to be the main theme in the second season. The songs take inspiration from many sources rooted in ancient Chinese literature, from the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, Shijing (Classic of Poetry), comprising works from the 11th to 7th centuries BC, to Thousand-Character Classic from the 6th century, an encyclopedic and rhythmic piece of prose with 1,000 non-recur-ring characters, along with the myriad works from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), representing arguably the zenith of ancient Chinese poetry.

Nevertheless, the producers do also include some more recent classics in the new season, in a bid to create a stronger emotional resonance with contemporary audiences.

For example, a poem by Wang Guozhen, the late poet who was active in the 1980s and 1990s, was chosen as the source material for a song performed by pop singer Tan Weiwei.