"I waited for so long (to make the third season) because I was afraid that I wouldn't be good enough to maintain that sensitivity," Dong Qing, director and host of the TV show, recalls.

"However, after everything in 2020, I found that many people, including myself, still need it," she says. "That made me decide to move forward and get the show restarted."

During China's toughest time fighting against COVID-19 last year, Dong saw a picture that depicted a man focused on reading while in the isolation ward of a hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province.

That scene reminded her of a quote from the late British writer W.Somerset Maugham, who is hugely popular in China: "To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life."

It also fueled her inspiration.