His collaborative piece with his mother, inspired by a trip along the Maritime Silk Road, uses a single, recurring motif of a water droplet. "Water is a theme we cannot avoid," he says. "It's a small starting point for my own expression."

This modest, contemporary symbol, rendered in his mother's exquisite stitches, represents a new kind of dialogue across generations.

In a rapidly developing society, Zou Yingzi has ensured the ancient craft retains its profound voice. Her son and a new cohort of innovators are now tasked with amplifying it to ensure that the conversation she started with ancient needlework finds eager listeners in crowded cafes and on digital screens, inviting a new generation to pick up a needle and add their own thread to the story.