In 1953, traveling from the city to Yiyuan Mountain, the quality of life between Nanjing and Yiyuan differed greatly. During his studies, Li Zhenhua often heard teachers talk about the revolutionary stories of Yimeng Sister-in-law and the Yimeng Six Sisters. At that time, he secretly decided to contribute to the people and the nation himself.

At that time, the country called on young people to "go to the most challenging revolutionary places and the greatest places in the motherland." Influenced by the spirit of the Yimeng Old Area, the 17-year-old Li Zhenhua responded to the call, leaving the gate of Nanjing Normal School to support the remote and impoverished areas of the Yimeng Old Area.

There was a twist before entering Yiyuan. Since he was from the city and very young at the time, the authorities were worried that Li Zhenhua would not adapt to the hardship of the place, so they assigned him to Weifang instead. However, with the "recklessness of youth," Li Zhenhua pointed at the map and chose to work at Hanwang Primary School in the most mountainous and difficult Yiyuan Mountain. Li Zhenhua told reporters:

"When I truly reached Hanwang Village, I found that the local area was extremely poor. There wasn't even a tile, let alone a square meter of mud ground."

After staying in the county for a day, on the second day, Li Zhenhua set out with his luggage towards Hanwang Village, 110 li (around 55 km) away. At that time, there were no roads or cars, and he climbed mountains and crossed ridges, walking in the mountains for a whole day until he could walk no more. On the sixteenth of the lunar month, when Li Zhenhua arrived in Hanwang, the old village head led the entire village to greet him at the entrance.

Upon entering the room converted from an old temple, Li Zhenhua was stunned. The windows had no glass, the door was half fallen off, wind was blowing in from all directions, and small stones were scattered on the ground. "The village is poor; big stones serve as desks, small stones as benches." The old village head sighed and said, they had invited a teacher because the students hadn't had classes for half a year. Since there hadn't been a teacher for half a year, when class started the next day, the students were very enthusiastic. As soon as the sun rose over the mountain, there were already 38 students in the classroom, the oldest of whom was already a parent of three children, and the youngest was only 7 years old. Villagers gathered around the classroom windows.

In preparation, Li Zhenhua's father had specially made him a Zhongshan suit. Villagers had never seen machine-woven cloth before, so as soon as Li Zhenhua arrived, he was referred to as a foreigner. In apprehension, he gathered the courage to start teaching, but as soon as he opened his mouth, his southern accent sparked waves of laughter and discussions. The teaching failed, and Li Zhenhua felt very upset inside. At night, staying in a room with no tight doors, listening to the howling wolves, he felt frightened, homesick, and tears trickled down. Being away from home for the first time, sometimes with just a nap, he could vividly dream of his old home. Opening his eyes, he found himself still alone.

"Looking back now, I don't know how I got through it back then."

Lost in sadness, Li Zhenhua was woken by villagers bringing food. It was pancakes made of tree leaves and husks mixed into sweet potato flour, with an outer layer that looked much like cowhide paper. Curious about the villagers' "delicacy," he unwrapped it only to find that there was nothing inside. When he realized it was a meal, it was still warm.

Li Zhenhua chewed piece by piece, struggling to swallow. Eventually, he dipped them in the bitter bean broth to barely finish one. "They said one was enough, but actually I was thinking, I really wanted to have more." At that time, Li Zhenhua's heart felt like it was being pricked by needles, unsure how to face the upcoming classes, let alone how to swallow those dark, never-seen sweet potato flour pancakes and husk bread.

Li Zhenhua was with the children. (Photo provided by the interviewee)

Unable to return to the city

Ideal and reality, just like a pair of twin sisters, achieving the ideal means going through countless trials. Without finding a spiritual support, the best ideals may not be realized.

Facing difficulties in language and life, relying on a burning passion to go to the poor mountains, Li Zhenhua's heart didn't waver: "I can stay in this place; I can stay for more than a day."

When he first arrived in the Yimeng Mountain Area, Li Zhenhua did not plan on staying for a lifetime. He intended to stay for three to five years before returning. Once back home, when asked, it would be difficult for him to answer. "At that time, I came up with a compromise; if I could stay for five days, I'd stay for three, stay one more day, so that the degree of being laughed at wouldn't be as much when I returned."

Half a year later, 37 of his more than 40 schoolmates who had come to support the Yiyuan area had left one after another, but Li Zhenhua gradually couldn't leave the Yimeng Mountain Area anymore. When he left the village, in the joyful crowd, there was a thin and weak old person. Seeing it with his own eyes, thinking of it in his heart. He brought the old spinning wheel back home to spin the cotton into threads, using a wooden loom to weave them into cloth, making cotton-padded clothes and trousers, even making straw shoes with millet straw and reeds for warmth.

"When the time came to part, tears fell. It felt like seeing my own elders."

Li Zhenhua recalled that after learning he couldn't eat pancakes, the villagers shared their coarse meals with him, saving their good food for him. When anyone's hen laid eggs, which they would usually exchange for firewood and salt, the villagers would secretly slip them into his pocket.

"Whenever I received eggs with warmth, there were indescribable feelings in my heart."

"It was originally a mission to spread culture; how could you walk away?"

Li Zhenhua recalled that during the battle of Menglianggu, the whole village sent 72 young people to transport the wounded, while the women stayed at home making pancakes and cloth shoes for the front line, doing their best for the revolution. "Families sacrificed their precious lives for the revolution. Was I afraid of this little difficulty?" The spirit of Yimeng God and the simplicity of the villagers deeply moved Li Zhenhua, preventing him from taking steps back home, realizing he had taken root there.

Pouring everything into the students

Li Zhenhua made up his mind to use knowledge to change the impoverished mountainous area. Therefore, for 68 years, he persisted in one thing: studying rigorously. From that time on, he'd conduct classes during the day and walk five or six li in the evening to give students extra lessons. To improve teaching conditions, he used hoops from baskets and old newspapers to make globes, drawing longitude and latitude, to show students during geography classes where the Atlantic, Pacific, Europe, and Asia are; making orreries from chopsticks, matches, and ping-pong balls to demonstrate solar and lunar eclipses. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Hanwang Primary School was set up in the mountains; sometimes when a student suddenly fell ill, Li Zhenhua would carry the student over the mountain to seek medical treatment; if the river flooded, he would wait early by the river to carry each student across before and after school.

With wholehearted dedication, the students' grades skyrocketed. In 1955, the enrollment rate of graduating students from schools in Yiyuan County was 10:1, while all 8 graduates he taught were admitted to middle school, making a stir in the whole county.

In 1982, Li Zhenhua was transferred to work in Yiyuan County. It was a newly established special school where all the students were those who had failed the countywide middle school entrance exam. Under these circumstances, Li Zhenhua came up with a slogan: "All for the students." Teachers were passionate about their work. Among the first batch of students, Liu Yang (a pseudonym) was particularly naughty, and even the police at the station were used to him causing trouble. During one class, Li Zhenhua discovered Liu Yang had a serious cold, so he immediately went home and cooked him a bowl of egg noodles. The student was so moved that he promised not to be mischievous again, eventually passing his exam into technical school.

Nobody could have imagined that of 108 students, with an average score of 28.6 points, 78 entered key middle schools, and 26 entered colleges, which shocked the community. The county immediately renamed Chengguan Second Middle School to Yiyuan County Experimental Middle School, and since then, the Experimental Middle School has been the best in Yiyuan.

At that time, students could only fill in three college choices. Influenced by Li Zhenhua, sixty to seventy percent of them chose to attend normal schools and eventually become teachers.

After 10,000 years of extinction, scientists are "resurrecting" the mammoth

According to reports, this "resurrection" plan does not aim to recreate an actual mammoth but to produce embryos carrying mammoth DNA and create a hybrid offspring of an elephant and a mammoth. Church explained in an interview: "Our goal is to create a cold-resistant elephant, which resembles a mammoth in appearance and behavior. We are not trying to deceive anyone; rather, we want an animal functionally like a mammoth — one that thrives in minus 40°C conditions and capable of doing everything elephants and mammoths do, particularly knocking down trees."

By comparing genomes extracted from mammoths in permafrost to those from Asian elephants, researchers were able to identify specific genes responsible for mammoth fur, insulating fat layers, and other cold climate adaptations. Subsequently, they extracted skin cells from Asian elephants and set about reprogramming them into hybrid mammoth-elephant embryos with mammoth-like traits, including resilience in cold climates.

Ultimately, these embryos will be brought to term either by surrogate mother elephants or in an artificial womb. Colossal, in an interview, explained: "Our goal is to create a cold-resistant elephant that looks and acts like a woolly mammoth. We are not trying to deceive anyone, but rather aim for an animal that is functionally equivalent to a mammoth — one that can thrive in environments as cold as minus 40°C and be capable of doing all the things that elephants and mammoths do, especially knocking down trees."

Researchers have identified specific genes responsible for the mammoth's woolly coat, insulating fat layers, and other cold-climate adaptations. They are now extracting cells from them and are working to re-engineer them into pluripotent stem cells carrying mammoth DNA.

Ultimately, these embryos will be birthed via surrogate mother elephants or in an artificial womb. According to Colossal, the first baby mammoths are expected to be born within six years.

"Diagram of the 'resurrection' steps of the mammoth"

It is reported that the project aims for this "resurrection" to help these Asian elephants survive by adapting some features of mammoths and to enable them to thrive in the "Pleistocene Park" region.

[It is said that Uncle Wang next door hasn't had back pain or leg pain since subscribing to the authentic version.]