We chose the Pixiu as our team’s mascot and emblem. The Pixiu is a mythical creature recorded in the ancient Chinese classic Shan Hai Jing. Closely related to auspicious beasts in Chinese tradition, it symbolizes protection and transformation.
In our project, we convert carbon dioxide into methanol and further into glucose, thereby contributing to environmental improvement and supporting carbon neutrality. This process mirrors the Pixiu’s ability to devour wealth, transform misfortune, and ultimately bring prosperity and blessings to humankind. By adopting this image, we aim not only to align our project’s vision with environmental value but also to showcase the unique charm of traditional Chinese culture.
AMIGO is our project that engineers Aureobasidium to convert methanol into glucose. Acting as a “friend” in carbon cycling, AMIGO provides an innovative route to utilize CO₂-derived methanol as a sustainable carbon source, contributing to environmental improvement and carbon neutrality.
Midsummer mist carried the thin scent of locust blooms, and the bamboo staff tapped crisply on the bluestone. An old man, his hair white as snow, leaned on a staff of catalpa wood and stood on the north slope of the town, staring at the stretch of steel that had swallowed half the sky. His rough palm brushed a yellowed pine bough; he remembered that, at this very time last year, his grandson had still been in those trees, picking mushrooms.
As the town’s eldest night watchman, he had seen the change with his own eyes—when the bulldozers rolled over a hundred acres of rice paddies, startled egrets circled the sky for three days; galvanized factories spread across the land like alien moss, eating the ridges that generations of farmers had tended; when the chimneys began to belch smoke day and night, the town’s layered blue bricks and tiles were draped in a heavy dust.
A year ago today the sunflowers on this slope had rippled in golden waves. This year even the sparrows would not linger.
On the third dawn he shouldered a bundle and went away. Wrapped carefully in oiled paper inside the bundle were rice cakes—made from the last crop of the previous year; a tin kettle at his waist held the last living water from the town spring. He carried nothing else, only the last flicker of hope in his heart to save his homeland.
He traveled rough roads, following the sun across scorched earth, sleeping under the stars on deserted knolls. The sun rose and set three times; he wound through mountain passes again and again. On another morning, dew still unbaked by the sun, he pushed through clutching thorns and suddenly came upon a waterfall that poured like the Milky Way, a pool the color of emerald. Mist shrouded the place, and a Daoist woman gathering herbs looked back at him. The Taiji pattern on her plain white robe seemed to move in the morning light; silver ribbons brushed the hanging wisteria.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. The agarwood beads on her wrist moved without wind, exuding a clean fragrance. Seeing the old man frozen in place, she smiled faintly and beckoned him to follow.
As they walked a pine path, he opened his mouth several times and fell silent. She seemed to have known already; she only smiled without speaking. They passed in silence, accompanied by oriole songs in the ravine, the creek answering the breeze, the mountains companioned by white clouds.
Around a bend an ancient temple came into view. The Daoist stepped aside and led the old man inside.
In the temple courtyard a bronze alchemical furnace hummed low in the dim light. The Daoist took a glass bottle from her sleeve; the gray-black gas inside made the old man catch his breath—this was the poison that had ravaged his home. The moment she poured the gas into the furnace chamber, the pi xiu knob on the lid suddenly opened its eyes, and the taotie motifs along the body shimmered with jade light.
Through the furnace’s glass window the old man saw pale-green microbes breaking the foul gas into drifting points of light. As those sprites consumed the methanol, a snow-white, fertile soil gathered at the furnace’s base; the mist wafting from the mouth smelled faintly of bamboo leaves and even coaxed a withered orchid in the temple to swell with a new bud.
“This is called the Taiqing Rotating Furnace,” the Daoist said softly when she saw how dumbstruck he was. “The miasma ravaging your homeland is rooted in what people call carbon dioxide. It is born of heaven and earth, present in the breath of all things. But mankind’s reckless burning of coal has filled the air with filth, unbalancing yin and yang, and brought about this calamity.”
The old man’s face went pale.
“Our predecessors found a first step: they could convert the foul air into methanol,” she continued. “But methanol is a fierce thing and can harm living beings. Building on their foundation, we took our cue from nature and forged this furnace.” From her fingertip a drop of clear dew formed, within which tiny, pinprick sprites swam. “This is a short-stalk mold, a minute creature of rotting wood. Tempered through three hundred generations of practice, it can now transform the world’s foul airs.”
The old man thanked her and set off for home at once. On the way he spent the night in a ruined mountain shrine, cradling the furnace as he slipped into sleep. Half-awake he heard an old song from within the furnace, and in the faded murals the star charts turned, enacting the cycles of the Five Elements.
When he returned to the old town, industrial smoke raged through the streets like a yellow dragon. The furnace, newly revealed, trembled in his arms and then, as if with a will of its own, pulled the fetid air into itself, spinning a vast vortex that swallowed it all. Through the glass he watched billions of microbes become a silver shoal, swimming upstream against the polluted flow and leaving strings of pearl-like bubbles in their wake. In the fissures of an acid-eaten archway, green jade growths sprouted with visibly swift life; the dead sunflower fields straightened and, within three days, their golden disks bloomed again.
The next day the Daoist returned in a fine rain. She buried the furnace at a node of the earth’s veins, and thousands upon thousands of luminous spores spread outward like a woven network. The townspeople were most astonished when she taught them the furnace’s making and the art of cultivating the fungus—so completely that even children in the ancestral hall could fashion miniature furnaces from clay.
Ten years later, every township within a hundred li had lit a Taiqing furnace. Old chimneys were wrapped in vines and turned into towers where egrets nested; cooling towers grew wild lingzhi into circular totems. The original furnace at the town’s heart still hummed deep within the earth, a sound like a mother’s lullaby—an otherworldly music woven by generations of artisans that connected past and future.
仲夏的晨雾裹着槐花稀薄的香气，青石板上传来竹杖叩击的脆响。白发如雪的老者拄着杞梓木杖，站在镇北的土坡上，望着那片吞噬了半边天空的钢铁丛林。他粗糙的手掌抚过枯黄的松枝，想起去岁此时，孙儿还在那片林里拾蘑菇。
作为镇里最年长的守夜人，他亲眼见证这场变迁——推土机碾过百亩稻田时，惊飞的白鹭在天空盘旋了三日；镀锌铁皮厂房如异色苔藓蔓延，吞没了镇民世代耕作的田垄；当那些烟囱开始昼夜不休地喷吐黑烟，小镇层叠的青砖黛瓦蒙上一层厚重的尘埃。
去年今日，这坡下的向日葵还在风里翻涌金色波浪。今年此时，连麻雀都不愿在此停留。
第三日黎明，老者背上包袱踏上征途。包袱里装着用油纸仔细包裹的米糕——那是用去年最后一茬稻谷制成；腰间悬挂的锡壶里，盛着镇里清泉的最后一壶活水。此外别无他物，只剩下老者内心深处拯救家乡的最后一丝希望。
一路筚路蓝缕，他追着夕阳行过焦土，披着繁星卧于荒丘，太阳升起又落下了三次，老者在山重水复之中绕了三番又三番。在又一个朝露未晞的清晨，他拨开缠人的荆棘，忽见瀑布如银河倒泻，潭水碧如翡翠。水雾弥漫处，一位正在采药的道士回眸望来，素白道袍上的太极暗纹在晨光里流转，银丝绦带拂过紫藤垂枝。
“小道等您很久了。”她腕间沉香木串无风自动，清芬袭人。见老者怔在原地，她浅浅一笑，示意老者随她而来。
跟随道士穿行松径时，老者数次欲言又止。见老者如此窘态，道士却似早已洞悉，只是泯然一笑，亦不做言语。一路无话，唯有山涧中黄鹂映唱，溪流与清风相和，高山与白云相伴。
峰回路转，一座古寺映入眼帘。道士侧身，将老者请入寺中。
门庭中央，青铜丹炉在天光微茫处低吟。当道士从袖中取出一樽琉璃瓶，瓶中灰黑气体令老者瞬间屏息——这正是荼毒他家乡的元凶。气体注入炉腔的刹那，貔貅炉钮倏然睁眼，炉身饕餮纹路泛起翡翠光波。透过炉壁的琉璃镜，老者看见莹绿的微生物正将浊气分解成漫天光点。那些精灵吞下甲醇时，炉底渐渐堆积起雪白的沃土；炉口飘出的雾气带着竹叶清香，竟让寺内枯死的兰草重绽花苞。
“此物名唤‘太清转轮炉’。”道士见老者望着炉内景象，已是目瞪口呆，便缓声解释道，“在您故乡肆虐的毒瘴，其根源名为‘二氧化碳’。此气本是天地所生，存在于万物呼吸之间。然而世人滥燃煤炭，致使浊气盈天，阴阳失衡，方酿成今日之祸。”
老者闻言，面露骇然。
道士继续言道：“我宗前辈曾寻得初步净化之法，能将此浊气转化为‘甲醇’。然此物性烈，同样可伤生灵。我辈遂在前人根基之上，效法自然，终铸成此炉。”她指尖凝结出一滴清露，其中可见针尖大小的精灵游弋，“此乃短梗霉，本是腐木间的微末生灵，历经三百代心法炼化，方得转化世间浊气之能。”
老者谢过道士，立即踏上归途。归途夜宿一处破败的山神庙，老者怀抱丹炉沉入梦境。蒙眬间听见炉中传来古老的歌谣，星宿图在残壁上演绎着五行轮转。
重返古镇那日，工业废气正如黄龙肆虐街巷。丹炉才现，竟自震颤着脱离老者怀抱，牵引四方浊气形成巨大的涡旋，将其尽数吞与腹中。透过琉璃镜可见亿万微生物化作银色鱼群，逆着污流溯游而上，所过之处泛起珍珠气泡。被酸雨蚀刻的牌坊裂缝里，翠绿玉髓以肉眼可见的速度生长；枯死的向日葵田重新挺立，金色花盘在三日內绽放如初。
次日，道士踏着细雨而来。她将丹炉埋入地脉节点，万千发光芽孢如网络般向四方蔓延。最让镇民震撼的是，她将丹炉制法与菌种培育之术尽数传授，连孩童都能在祠堂里用陶土塑出微缩炉型。
十年后，百里内的乡镇都点亮了太清炉。昔日的烟囱被藤蔓缠绕成白鹭栖居的塔楼，冷却塔内野生灵芝长成轮回图腾。镇中心那口初代丹炉仍在地脉深处轻吟，那声音如同母亲哼唱的摇篮曲，那是连接过去与未来的、一代代匠人编制成的，天外玄音。