10 Chinese Idioms Every The Heir (祯娘传) Fan Should Know: Ink, Ambition, and Ming Dynasty Craft

The Heir (祯娘传) is doing something no C-drama has done before: making ink-making the center of a 40-episode historical romance. Yang Zi (杨紫) plays Li Zhen (李祯), the youngest daughter of the Li family's eighth branch — the lowest-status member of a once-prestigious Huizhou ink clan brought low by a tribute ink scandal (贡墨案). Han Dongjun (韩东君) plays Luo Wenqian (骆文谦), second son of the rival Luo family, whose own schemes for restoration collide with Li Zhen's rise. Directed by Hui Kaidong (惠楷栋), the same director behind Story of Yanxi Palace (延禧攻略), the drama was filmed on location in the real Hui-style villages of Hongcun (宏村), Xidi (西递), and Chengkan (呈坎) in Anhui Province, with Yang Zi training in actual ink-making techniques for three months before filming began.

Set during the Jiajing era (嘉靖, 1522–1566) of the Ming Dynasty — the absolute peak of Chinese ink-making — this is a drama about a woman who wasn't supposed to touch the craft, in a world where the 36-step process of making ink was passed exclusively from father to son.

Here are ten idioms that capture every step of Li Zhen's journey.

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1. 青出于蓝 (qīng chū yú lán) — "The blue comes from indigo, yet surpasses it"

Meaning: The student surpasses the teacher.

This idiom originates from Xunzi (荀子), the Confucian philosopher who wrote: 青，取之于蓝而青于蓝 — "Blue dye is extracted from the indigo plant, yet it is bluer than the plant itself." It describes the natural process by which a student absorbs everything from a master and then pushes beyond.

Li Zhen wasn't supposed to be a student at all. In Ming Dynasty Huizhou, ink-making knowledge was passed through the male line. Women in artisan families might handle bookkeeping or domestic management, but the 36-step craft process — from 炼烟 (refining soot) to 描金 (applying gold decoration) — was the domain of sons. Li Zhen learns anyway. She learns from observation, from fragments, from whatever scraps of technique she can absorb from a family that is actively falling apart. And then she surpasses every male ink maker in every rival clan. 青出于蓝 — the blue that came from indigo but was never supposed to.

Use it: When a student, employee, or apprentice exceeds their mentor's abilities — especially when no one expected them to.

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2. 精益求精 (jīng yì qiú jīng) — "Already refined, yet seeking further refinement"

Meaning: Constant pursuit of perfection, never settling for "good enough."

The 36-step ink-making process demands exactly this. Each step — collecting soot (松烟 pine soot, 桐油烟 tung oil soot, or 漆烟 lacquer soot), preparing animal glue, mixing ingredients (和料), pounding the mixture thousands of times (杵捣), shaping the ink sticks, slow-drying them for months, polishing, and finally applying gold decoration (描金) — must be executed with precision. One miscalculation in temperature during soot collection ruins the entire batch. One moment of impatience during the months-long drying process cracks the stick.

Li Zhen's pursuit of 天下第一墨 (the finest ink under heaven) is 精益求精 as a lifestyle. She doesn't stop when the ink is good. She doesn't stop when it's better than her rivals'. She stops when she has created something that the real historical ink masters — Cheng Junfang (程君房) and Fang Yulu (方于鲁), whose competing illustrated catalogs (程氏墨苑 and 方氏墨谱) became masterpieces of Ming woodblock printing — would have recognized as worthy.

Use it: When someone continuously improves their work beyond what's expected, especially in a craft or skill that rewards obsessive attention to detail.

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3. 千锤百炼 (qiān chuí bǎi liàn) — "A thousand hammerings, a hundred refinings"

Meaning: Perfected through repeated trials and relentless effort.

In the drama, this idiom is almost literal. The pounding stage (杵捣) of ink-making involves physically hammering the ink mixture — soot, glue, and aromatic ingredients — thousands of times to achieve the right consistency. The production crew spent 90 days recreating an authentic ink workshop in Shexian (歙县), Anhui Province, and the pounding scenes show the brutal physicality of the craft.

But 千锤百炼 describes Li Zhen herself just as much as it describes the ink. She is hammered by the Li family's fall from grace. She is hammered by the gender barriers that say women cannot hold the pestle. She is hammered by the Tian family (田墨), the rising clan that seeks to monopolize the industry and crush any competitor. Each blow is another strike of the craftsman's hammer, and like the ink, she doesn't shatter. She becomes denser, darker, more valuable with every impact.

Use it: When someone or something has been tested and strengthened through repeated hardship — the emphasis is on the number of trials, not just their severity.

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4. 百折不挠 (bǎi zhé bù náo) — "Bent a hundred times but never broken"

Meaning: Perseverance that endures no matter how many setbacks arise.

The Li family falls from grace. Li Zhen is the youngest daughter of the eighth branch — the lowest possible status within an already-fallen clan. She is told, explicitly and repeatedly, that ink-making is not for women. The Tian family sabotages her work. Luo Wenqian, her eventual partner, begins as a competitor plotting against her interests.

What makes Li Zhen's 百折不挠 remarkable is that her perseverance isn't fueled by anger or revenge. She doesn't set out to prove the world wrong. She sets out to make great ink. The bending doesn't embitter her — it teaches her. Each setback adds to her understanding of the craft, the market, and the political dynamics of Huizhou's ink trade. She bends a hundred times, and every time she straightens, she knows something she didn't before.

Use it: When someone faces repeated failures or obstacles and keeps going — not out of stubbornness, but because each setback makes them stronger.

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5. 铁杵成针 (tiě chǔ chéng zhēn) — "Grinding an iron pestle into a needle"

Meaning: With enough persistence, even the most impossible task can be achieved.

This idiom comes from a legend about the young Li Bai (李白), China's greatest poet. As a boy, Li Bai was too restless to study. One day he saw an old woman grinding an iron pestle against a stone. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Making a needle," she said. The absurdity of the task — and the old woman's calm certainty — shamed Li Bai into returning to his studies. He became the most celebrated poet in Chinese history.

Li Zhen starts with nothing: no formal training, no master willing to teach her, no access to the family's closely guarded techniques. She has the raw materials of talent and determination, and she grinds them against the stone of reality until something sharp emerges. The drama's production underscores this — Yang Zi herself trained in real ink-making for three months, learning the physical techniques from actual Huizhou artisans. Li Zhen's transformation from untrained youngest daughter to creator of 天下第一墨 is 铁杵成针: the iron pestle didn't become a needle overnight, but it became one.

Use it: When someone accomplishes something through sheer persistence that initially seemed impossibly difficult.

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6. 一丝不苟 (yī sī bù gǒu) — "Not a single thread out of place"

Meaning: Meticulous, precise, and careful in every detail.

Ink-making is a craft where a single error in the 36-step process ruins the entire batch. The temperature during soot collection must be exact. The ratio of soot to glue must be precise. The pounding must achieve a specific consistency. The drying process takes months and cannot be rushed. The final gold decoration (描金) requires hands steady enough to paint intricate designs on a surface smaller than a palm.

Li Zhen's character is built on this principle. In a world where her rivals have more resources, more connections, and more social permission, her advantage is 一丝不苟 — a level of care that cannot be faked or bought. When she examines a competitor's ink stick and identifies a flaw invisible to everyone else, it's not genius; it's the accumulated result of paying attention to every thread, every grain, every degree of temperature.

Use it: When describing work done with extreme precision and care, where no detail is overlooked.

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7. 呕心沥血 (ǒu xīn lì xuè) — "Vomiting heart, dripping blood"

Meaning: Pouring one's heart and soul into a task with total emotional and physical investment.

The idiom is graphic for a reason — it describes effort so intense it feels like your internal organs are being wrung out. Chinese tradition associates this phrase with writers and artists who create masterpieces at the expense of their own health and sanity.

Li Zhen's investment in reviving her family's legacy is close to literal. Traditional Huizhou ink contains animal blood mixed with glue and soot — the artisan's materials are themselves visceral. But beyond the physical craft, Li Zhen pours her identity into the work. She is not making ink as a career choice; she is making ink because the Li family's name, her dead parents' legacy, and her own right to exist as something more than a daughter to be married off all depend on the quality of what comes out of her workshop. When she succeeds, it isn't professional achievement. It's the survival of everything she is.

Use it: When someone gives so much of themselves to a project that the line between the creator and the creation disappears.

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8. 温故知新 (wēn gù zhī xīn) — "Review the old, learn the new"

Meaning: By studying what came before, you discover insights for the future.

Confucius said: 温故而知新，可以为师矣 — "He who reviews the old and learns the new from it may be a teacher." The idiom captures the relationship between tradition and innovation: the past isn't a constraint but a resource.

This is the central tension of The Heir. Li Zhen inherits the Li family's centuries-old techniques — methods perfected over generations, recipes guarded as trade secrets. She studies them obsessively (温故). But she doesn't stop there. She experiments. She modifies. She takes what the old masters knew and pushes it into territory they never explored. Her eventual creation of 天下第一墨 isn't a rejection of tradition — it's a conversation with it. She reviewed the old until it taught her something new.

Use it: When someone honors tradition while innovating beyond it — in any field from cooking to coding to craftsmanship.

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9. 水到渠成 (shuǐ dào qú chéng) — "When water arrives, a channel is formed"

Meaning: When conditions are right and preparation is sufficient, success comes naturally.

The idiom describes a specific kind of achievement: not the dramatic breakthrough, but the inevitable result of sustained effort. Water doesn't force its way into a channel — it flows there because gravity, terrain, and time have made the path inevitable.

After years of study, practice, failure, and refinement, Li Zhen's creation of the finest ink under heaven feels earned rather than miraculous. The drama doesn't give her a single eureka moment. Instead, it shows dozens of small advances — a better soot ratio here, a more efficient pounding technique there, a flash of insight about glue composition — that accumulate until excellence is the natural consequence. 水到渠成 isn't about luck or talent; it's about what happens when someone prepares for so long that when the moment arrives, success flows like water into a channel that was always waiting.

Use it: When a long period of preparation leads to success that feels natural and inevitable rather than forced.

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10. 画龙点睛 (huà lóng diǎn jīng) — "Painting a dragon, dotting the eyes"

Meaning: The crucial finishing touch that brings something to life.

According to legend, the painter Zhang Sengyao (张僧繇) painted four dragons on a temple wall during the Liang Dynasty but refused to add their eyes. "If I paint the eyes, the dragons will fly away," he said. When pressured, he dotted two of them — and they immediately burst through the wall and flew into the sky.

The final step of Huizhou ink-making is 描金 — applying gold decoration to the finished ink stick. It's the moment when a functional writing tool becomes a work of art. The gold lines, painted with a brush finer than an eyelash, transform a black stick into something worthy of an emperor's desk. This is 画龙点睛 made literal: the dragon is the ink, refined through 35 previous steps of labor, and the gold decoration is the eye that brings it to life.

In Li Zhen's story, the finishing touch isn't just the gold paint. It's the moment the Tian family, the Luo family, and every doubter who said a woman couldn't master the craft sees the finished product and understands that 天下第一墨 was made by the person they wrote off.

Use it: For the final detail that transforms good work into great work — the sentence that saves the essay, the seasoning that elevates the dish, the design choice that makes the product memorable.

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For the real history behind the drama's setting, read The Real History of Huizhou Ink: Why The Heir's Ming Dynasty Setting Matters. To understand why ink matters far beyond writing, see Why Chinese Ink Shaped an Entire Civilization. And for Li Zhen's fight against gender barriers through idioms, see Li Zhen's Fight Against a Man's World.