With the air conditioner humming and a light blanket over him, Zhou You felt so comfortable he really didn’t want to get up. Lying in his own home, in his own bed, with no one rushing him or looking for him, he slept until he naturally woke up. Sometimes he wondered—did he deserve this kind of life? *Slap.* Zhou You gave himself a light smack. Not knowing how to enjoy good fortune—was this a leftover effect of being brainwashed by society? And he was even brainwashing himself. If he wasn’t going to enjoy life, was he supposed to go suffer instead?
Once he was fully awake, he brushed his teeth, washed his face, and headed downstairs to find breakfast. He sat down and ate slowly and leisurely: a deep-fried, golden-brown cruller, a tea egg, a bowl of eight-treasure congee, and a small plate with some free pickled vegetables. Watching the people around him either packing up their food or sitting there scarfing it down in a hurry, a song title popped into Zhou You’s mind: *We Are Different.*
It was mid-August now. For students and teachers, it was summer break. For working folks, it was just another normal month of clocking in. Back in the day, he’d been one of them. Now, as an outsider, he observed the people around him. The insight hit deeper, and he mentally sang a verse of Hao Yun’s *Alive* for all the wage slaves:
*Standing high on the buildings every day,* *Watching the little ants down below,* *Their heads are so big,* *Their legs are so thin,* *They hold Apple phones,* *They wear Nike and Adidas,* *They’re about to be late for work,* *And they’re in such a rush.*
*My poor old Jeep,* *Haven’t climbed a hill or crossed a river in ages,* *In this city,* *It’s living so oppressed,* *Though it never says a word,* *I know it’s hurting inside,* *I quietly made a wish,* *To take it to Mongolia.*
*Flustered and frantic,* *Hustling and bustling,* *Why is life always like this?* *Could it be,* *That my ideal,* *Is just to spend my days this way?*
*Neither humble nor arrogant,* *Neither flustered nor rushed,* *Maybe life should be like this,* *Could it be,* *That only after sixty,* *I’ll seek the freedom I want?*
*Year after year flies by,* *Still just that little bit of savings,* *So many things I like, I still can’t afford,* *Life is always full of troubles,* *And I still haven’t gotten used to it,* *They say money is a bastard,* *But it sure looks pretty.*
*Actually, I often tell myself,* *People should learn to be content and happy,* *But if you just laugh everything off,* *What’s the point?*
Humble wage slaves, selling their labor to trade for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. In the old days, people were busy just for three meals a day. In the agricultural era, they didn’t have much food—just enough to fill their stomachs. Modern people almost never starve to death, so why are they busier than ancient folks? Zhou You could never quite figure this out. Or maybe he had, but he didn’t dare say it. When material goods were scarce, being well-fed and well-drunk was happiness. Now, every day, you could eat and drink your fill. So why didn’t people have the time or energy to do the things they loved? Who was tying us down?
With these questions and thoughts, Zhou You returned to his apartment. He looked at his empty study, and a wave of guilt washed over him. As someone who loved reading, leaving the study bare and the bookshelves empty was a huge insult to himself. He’d thought about it more than once: when he had enough space and money to buy books, what would he get? Now was the time to make that wish come true. First, he’d buy all the books he’d read before and wanted to revisit. Many books needed to be read over and over, savored repeatedly, with new insights each time.
He remembered a book called *The Books Are Finished* by Jin Kemu. When he first saw the title, he couldn’t help but sneer. How arrogant, how crazy, how ignorant did someone have to be to say something like that? But he checked the rating—over 8 points—so he gave it a shot. The content was profound and wide-ranging, mostly classical literature, with the author’s reading insights, reflections on other classics, and methods for reading. The classics that had survived thousands of years in China numbered only a few dozen. If you read and thoroughly understood those, you’d basically grasp how society worked and its operating rules.
He opened JD.com and ordered a complete set of *One Hundred Thousand Whys*—the most comprehensive edition. This was Zhou You’s dream. As a kid, he’d loved reading, but in the countryside, there weren’t many books available. Back then, he was so curious about the world, always asking “why?” until his parents got annoyed and said they’d buy him *One Hundred Thousand Whys* to read himself. Too bad he never got it. When he grew up and bought his own place, looking at the cramped space, he couldn’t bear to set aside a study. So many childhood dreams of reading had been slowly erased by reality.
Staying curious, reading purely for love, and constantly discovering the world—that was Zhou You’s dream and the source of his life’s joy.
He definitely had to buy the Four Books and Five Classics. In the past, these books had been demonized as feudal dregs, and Zhou You had barely read them. It wasn’t until he faced setbacks and started calmly reading these classics that he realized how ridiculous that was. These books had survived for millennia—not just as tools of social control, but as the wellspring of Chinese spiritual civilization. Every word and action, every life principle, every societal operation was in these books. The Four Books were *The Great Learning*, *The Doctrine of the Mean*, *The Analects*, and *Mencius*. The Five Classics were *The Book of Songs*, *The Book of Documents*, *The Book of Rites*, *The Book of Changes*, and *The Spring and Autumn Annals*.
Zhuangzi was a must-buy too. Zhuangzi was the gatekeeper of his reading sanctuary, holding supreme status. *Better to drag your tail in the mud than leave your bones in the hall.* A free life was the one Zhuangzi chose. Fame and fortune were just decorations in life, not its essence. Laozi’s *Tao Te Ching* was also a must. Legalism was key too—governing the country was said to be Confucian on the outside and Legalist on the inside, making it one of the foundational schools.
Buying books was like a landslide; reading them was like pulling silk. There was an addiction to buying books—when you bought them, you got the illusion of acquiring knowledge. He bought dozens of classical books, dozens of history books, and over a dozen psychology books. He also bought over a dozen economics books, including Marx and *Das Kapital*. And the most important one: *Selected Works of Mao Zedong*. As a library science student, he always believed that when working in a library, Grandpa Mao would surely be happy—books gave people strength and comfort. Throughout history, few people had backgrounds like Mao’s; only Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang could compare. *Selected Works of Mao Zedong* was the essence of thought and the distillation of ideas. Nowadays, many books talked about “rich people’s thinking” or “poor people’s thinking,” but that was just exaggeration to grab attention. Only Mao Zedong Thought was the real essence—whether for work or life, it was a brilliant guiding light. It had real cases, concrete operations, and methods adapted to different times. Many later books were either ghostwritten, fabricated out of thin air, or self-promotional. Over time, these books would become jokes, tossed into the trash.
Awesome. Just thinking about all these books arriving soon, Zhou You couldn’t help but feel a surge of joy. So many books weren’t cheap—almost 5,000 yuan. Based on his past spending habits, he really couldn’t have brought himself to buy so many at once. He’d mostly mooched books at the library. *Books are better borrowed than read*—that was a way to force yourself, to set a time limit. But when reading was a hobby, that saying didn’t apply.
*These are books the novice author has read and found good—recommended.*