Some pages of the books, A Deer of Nine Colors, Mr Turtle Moves the Mountain, The Magic Dragon and the Herbal Medicines, A Carp Leaping the Dragon Gate, and The Yangque Bird Creating Sun and Moon. [Photos provided to China Daily]

It is only in recent decades that artists have rediscovered its charm and revived the technique. The glittering particles, the wild colors and the layers of texture are what drew Qiu and his peers to it.

Some of the colors are actually powdered gemstones. "Dozens of grams of such colors would cost me hundreds of yuan, and only cover a small patch of the painting," he says, who bought all his materials himself.

A student of ink painting, Qiu felt an "emotional bond" with these traditional colors, so it was natural for him to apply them to his work, a tale about Shennong, one of the three great emperors of myth who is said to have been first to develop agriculture and herbal medicines.

The tale is based on a well-known myth, Shennong Tastes a Hundred Herbs, so at first he feared that he would struggle to create something original. To solve the problem, the human emperor Shennong is portrayed as a magic dragon (shenlong in Chinese). The success of the transformation lies in the fact that the pronunciation of the two names sounds similar in many southern dialects.

Mou offered the Magic Dragon a coming-of-age character arc. In the tale, the dragon overcomes setbacks to grow into glorious maturity and finally soar.

"The cool idea of the image transformation sparked my passion and desire, and I believe young readers will love it as much as I did," Qiu says.