In the Longmen Grottoes of Henan province, researchers have made a significant breakthrough in restoring a fragmented 1,500-year-old stone relief depicting Emperor Xiaowen, leveraging advanced technology to reassemble pieces scattered across continents due to historic looting. This achievement is documented in the recent film *How I Miss “Her”*, which aired on China Central Television’s documentary channel, highlighting a decades-long effort to reunite shattered cultural relics.

The reliefs of the Emperor and Empress Paying Homage to the Buddha, created during the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534), represent some of China's finest Buddhist stone carvings. In the 1930s, these masterpieces were forcibly dismantled under the direction of an antiquities dealer in Beijing named Yue Bin, who fragmented the panels into over 6,000 pieces for sale to overseas buyers. Approximately 4,000 fragments were transported to the United States, divided mainly between the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, while some 2,300 remained in Chinese storage.

Efforts to identify and reintegrate authentic fragments have been complicated by deliberate mixing of genuine pieces with forgeries to inflate their market value, as well as restoration work overseas that altered original features. At the Nelson-Atkins Museum, curator Laurence Sickman spent years reconstructing fragments with plaster, embedding modern interventions into the ancient reliefs. Attempts to access detailed restoration records from the Metropolitan Museum yielded scant information, adding to the mystery surrounding the artifacts’ provenance.

The film centers on the work of Wen Yucheng, honorary director of the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute, who began investigating the shards in 1965 shortly after graduating in archaeology. Now 87, Wen serves as a living link between the original looting and ongoing restoration efforts. His lifelong dedication, alongside a team of researchers and scientists, underscores the human commitment behind preserving historical heritage.

The restoration initiative gained momentum in 2024 with the launch of a digital restoration project led by Gao Junping at the Longmen Institute. Employing nondestructive testing technology developed by Tian Hengci of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, researchers analyzed the stone fragments’ chemical signatures to distinguish authentic relics from counterfeit ones. Of five candidates tested, only one fragment, cataloged as H05, matched the composition of the cave wall from which it originated.

To reposition this delicate piece on the weathered surface nearly two meters high and four meters wide, the team integrated high-precision 3D scanning and artificial intelligence-assisted surface matching. These techniques facilitated “digital reunion”—a process of virtually reassembling scattered fragments housed both within China and overseas without physical relocation. Such methods offer a “civilization backup,” preserving the cultural heritage digitally for future generations.

The documentary’s director, Chen Yi, who combines experience in cultural storytelling and technology-focused filmmaking, describes this convergence as essential. Experts note that without advanced technology, scholars like Wen might remain sidelined by the scale of the task, while without a humanistic approach, the endeavor would lack depth and resonance.

The film draws attention to the complexity of cultural restitution, where restoration of physical artifacts intertwines with restoring collective memory and identity. It also highlights international cooperation among researchers, scientists, and institutions working to heal historical wounds left by illicit trade and fragmentation.

The title *How I Miss “Her”* references a line by early 20th-century poet Liu Bannong and invokes a sense of longing for cultural treasures regarded as living souls. The documentary conveys a message of hope—while the original artifacts may never be fully restored to their initial grandeur, modern science and art together enable a new chapter in their preservation and understanding.