50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 163: Old Sun Dives into the Document Pile
"Of course, I know it's a bit inappropriate to bring this up right now, but it's okay for us to discuss it at home."

"Okay, I'll take a closer look at your collection of myths. But before that, could you please tell me the outline of your story about the human race?"

Sun Zhiwei became excited when he heard that his godfather was interested in his article and talked about future collaboration plans.

"Godfather, this is what I think. I want to write a Chinese children's storybook, just like Grimm's Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales."

“It should be divided into several parts.”

"I'm currently considering several classification methods. One is to divide it by time into ancient mythology, ancient humanity, and ancient fables."

"Another way to divide it is by content: legends, fables, idiom stories and wisdom stories."

Old Sun is also a scholar, and he understood what Sun Zhiwei said as soon as he heard it.

"Let me think about it. If we use the first time division, then the part you just wrote should be the "Ancient Mythology" chapter."

"Yes, godfather. This part is just myth and legend. It can increase our national heritage and strengthen our national character."

"But it doesn't contain any wisdom, and it doesn't teach children to grow up."

"Exactly, and now is the time to be fighting this, which is not a good time for it to come up."

"I know, so I just wrote it down and didn't ask for it to be published immediately. Things are always developing and changing. I'm still young and can wait."

Sun Zhiwei was very confident that they would be published in twelve or thirteen years at most, and he would be only in his early forties by then.

Of course, if he wants to receive royalties, he will have to wait another ten years, unless he takes the initiative to start a new era of royalties in advance.

"So, what will you write about in your chapter on 'The Ancients'?"

"The chapter on 'Ancient Human Race' will describe the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, Fuxi's interpretation of the Eight Trigrams, Suiren's drilling of wood to make fire, Shennong's tasting of hundreds of herbs, Youchao's building of houses, Huangdi's battle with Chiyou, Cangjie's creation of characters and the weeping of ghosts and gods, Jingwei's filling of the sea, Yugong's removal of mountains, and Shaohao's connection between heaven and earth."

"The rest is filled with historical stories: Dayu passed by his home three times while controlling floods but refused to enter; the Black Bird descended from heaven and gave birth to the Shang Dynasty; Bi Gan's heart was dug out; Jiang Taigong fished and the willing took the bait; the Battle of Muye brought the cry of the Phoenix to Mount Qishan; Boyi and Shuqi refused to eat Zhou grain; Duke Zhou spitted out dried meat and the world won over; King You of Zhou played tricks on the princes with beacons."

"Godfather, there's so much content, especially from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there are countless idioms and allusions."

"Cao Gui debated war, retreated three times, a frightened bird made a startling cry, slept on straw and tasted gall, recommended himself, Meng Mu moved three times, learned a great deal, Shang Yang set up a tree, was priceless, and returned the jade intact to Zhao."

“There are so many, so many, I don’t know if I can write them all, or if I manage to write them, I’ll end up being laughed to death by others.”

Sun Zhiwei spoke at length, becoming less and less confident as he spoke, and in the end he could only laugh at himself.

Old Sun stopped smiling at this moment: "Zhiwei, you're backing down before you even start?"

"Now that you've taken over the position of kindergarten principal, are you planning to be promoted to a higher position in the future?"

Mr. Sun wanted to know what Sun Zhiwei's ambition was. If he was aiming for officialdom, then there was nothing much to say. He would be scheming all day long and would have no energy to write a book.

If you are not planning to work in the government but want to achieve something in academia, then you can give it a try.

"A promotion? No, I'm not going for it. I plan to stay as the kindergarten principal until I retire." Old Sun laughed. "Since you're not planning on climbing the career ladder, why not focus on writing?"

"Ten years of sharpening the sword, one stunning success. Zhiwei, don't you want to give it a try?"

The word "ten years" immediately touched Sun Zhiwei.

Indeed, there is really not much I can do in the next ten years, so it is a good idea to focus my main energy on writing.

"We can give it a try." Sun Zhiwei agreed with Mr. Sun's idea.

After that day, Mr. Sun began to read the stories written by Sun Zhiwei carefully at home, and the two had in-depth discussions on this every week.

Mr. Sun often needs to find some ancient Chinese materials, which are basically in the library's collection.

The library is just behind the courtyard. In order to protect ancient books, Sun Zhiwei moved many rare bamboo slips and precious books from the library's warehouse to his own basement.

As long as there were books to read, Mr. Sun didn't care where Sun Zhiwei's books came from, he just focused on finding information.

Later, he saw that there was too much information, some of which was poorly preserved, so he shifted the focus of his work to the protection of documents.

Seeing that Mr. Sun's interest had been diverted, he was happy to see it happen, and he found more ancient Chinese books from storage points in various regions, scrap collection stations and even paper mill warehouses and sent them to the basement.

As the amount of documents increased, the basement gradually became insufficient, so Sun Zhiwei had to secretly expand the basement and add two larger rooms next to it specifically for storing documents.

The old man buried himself in the basement studying ancient Chinese literature, so his godmother didn't have to watch him all day long, for fear that he would run out and cause trouble.

The situation at home finally stabilized, and the city became bustling starting in September. College students and middle school students from all over the country gathered in the capital, waiting to be summoned.

At this time, they could travel all over the country without spending any money as long as they had a letter of introduction. This was a very remarkable thing in that era.

Others could hardly move without food coupons, but they could enter the canteen without any obstacles.
The city buses also became their "tourist buses", which they could take wherever they wanted without buying tickets.
As for trains, they became their exclusive trains, and they could travel around the country without paying a penny.

In order to welcome friends from all over the world, the street was notified by its superiors to be responsible for arranging their food and accommodation.

There are only a few people in the street, how can they accommodate so many people? So the task began to be assigned to the restaurants, schools, enterprises and units of each neighborhood committee.

Hotels, enterprises and units are responsible for running canteens and providing meals, and schools provide classrooms for accommodation.

The notice was also sent to the kindergarten, but this is not an ordinary unit, and the street office has a clear network of people, so they dare not force their way in.

However, Sun Zhiwei has always been kind to others, and he enthusiastically provided 2 kilograms of sweet potatoes to the street.

This batch of sweet potatoes was produced last year from the more than ten acres of land on the city wall. The kindergarten really couldn't digest them all, so they took this opportunity to ship them out quickly.

The autumn harvest is coming soon and the next batch of grain will be harvested. If we don’t empty the warehouse quickly, there will be no place to store it.

The street office had just issued a notice as a routine matter, and hadn't considered what kind of help this small, high-level unit could provide them.

(End of this chapter)