Chinese influencer fans Li Ziqi I woke up to a lovely (and extremely unexpected) surprise on Tuesday, November 12th.

The lifestyle vlogger, 34, returned to YouTube with two new videos after a three-year hiatus, surprising her followers who have long wondered if she would film again.

“This lacquer video is four years late,” Li captioned her first upload, which shows her crafting a lacquered cabinet door. “The Chinese pronunciation of lacquer is the same as ‘qi’. I named these lacquered hidden flowers ‘Zi Qi Dong Lai (the auspicious one to come)’. … I send this wish to everyone who watches the video, I miss you very much.”

Her second video, also uploaded on Tuesday, showed her converting a woodshed into a wardrobe.

“I always wanted to have my own wardrobe, located in the woods, surrounded by flowers, where I could lie on the couch and look at the stars,” she captioned the clip.

It was not immediately clear if the videos were filmed recently, but fans were excited to see Li again after her long break.

“LIZIQI PUBLISHING 2 NEW VIDEOS AFTER 3 LONG AND HARD YEARS IS THE EQUIVALENT OF THE SUN OPEN AND WARMING A FRIGIC, DESOLATE AND FROZEN EARTH. !!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!! !!!” one enthusiastic viewer wrote via X.

Another social media user added: “NEW LIZIQI VIDEO… I JUST FELL ON MY KNEES.”

Li is one of China’s most popular influencers and at one point held the Guinness World Record for most subscribers to a Chinese-language YouTube channel. Before he stopped posting, he had almost 50 million followers on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Her YouTube videos, now followed by 20 million subscribers, show her life in rural China as she makes crafts and cooks for herself and her grandmother. In one memorable charge, he built a table with a working fountain on top.

However, since July 2021, Li has been silent on YouTube, leading fans to wonder where she was or if she had retired from posting. Theories proliferated about what had happened to him, but the most likely explanation stems from a business dispute between Li and Weinian, the agency that owned a majority stake in his brand.

According to a 2023 article in The New YorkerLi and Weinian sued and countersued each other a total of five times in 2021 and 2022. They reportedly reached a settlement in late 2022 that gave Li more control over her company, but she still hasn’t posted any videos. new.

Li hasn’t commented on where he’s been all this time, but he hinted in a social media post on Chinese platform Weibo that he might share more soon.

“I don’t have time to write a short essay today!” she wrote on Tuesday. “I’ll make it up to you after I finish my work in a few days!”