At that time, the country called on the youth to "go to the most challenging places of the revolution, go to the greatest places of the motherland." Inspired by the Yimeng Old Area, 17-year-old Li Zhenhua answered the call, leaving Nanjing Normal School to support the remote and poor Yimeng Old Area.

On the way to Yiyuan, there was a twist. Because he was from the city and young in age, the authorities were concerned about Li Zhenhua's ability to adapt to the harsh conditions, so they assigned him to Weifang. However, "being young and fearless," Li Zhenhua pointed at the map, chose the place with the most mountains and difficulties, and decided to work at Hanwang Primary School in Yiyuan Mountain. Li Zhenhua told reporters:

"When I actually arrived in Hanwang Village, I found the place extraordinarily poor. You couldn't even find a tile, not to mention an inch of smooth ground."

After staying in the county town for a few days, Li Zhenhua set out with his luggage to Hanwang Village, 110 miles away, the very next day. At that time, there were no roads or cars, so he climbed over mountains for three days, walking until he could no longer move. On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, when Li Zhenhua arrived in Hanwang, the old village head led the entire village to greet him at the entrance.

When he saw the classroom converted from a dilapidated temple, Li Zhenhua was stunned. The windows had no glass, the doors were halfway off, and the wind blew through freely. The ground was strewn with small stones. "The village was poor; the stones were desks, and small stones were stools," the old village head said with a sigh, explaining that since half a year had passed without lessons, the students hadn't had classes for half a year. When classes resumed the next day, the students were excited. As the sun rose, 38 students filled the classroom, the oldest being a mother of three, and the youngest just seven years old. And villagers surrounded the classroom outside the windows.

When he arrived to teach, Li Zhenhua's parents had specially prepared a Zhongshan suit for him; villagers had never seen machine-woven fabric, and the moment he wore it, they thought him a foreigner. Anxious and uneasy, he nevertheless mustered the courage to give his first lecture, but their laughter and murmurs arose at his southern accent. Failing in his lecture, Li Zhenhua felt incredibly upset. As night fell, in the classroom with bare doors, he listened to the howling wolves and felt homesick, tears quietly rolling down his face. It was his first time far from home; even dozing off would make him dream of his home. Opening his eyes, he found himself alone.

"Looking back now, I don't know how I survived those days."

Immersed in his heartache, Li Zhenhua was awakened by villagers delivering food. It was a pancake of tree leaves and bran mixed with sweet potato flour, its surface a color resembling kraft paper. Curious about the villagers' "elaborateness," he unrolled it, only to find nothing inside, still warm, and realized this was the meal.

Li Zhenhua reluctantly took bite after bite, even dipping it into the bitter bean broth to manage swallowing it. "I said I was full after one, but in my heart, I was thinking how nice it would be to eat more." His heart felt pricked by needles, uncertain about how to face the lessons ahead or how to swallow those unfamiliar, black sweet potato pancakes and bran cornbread.

Li Zhenhua with the children. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)

Unable to take the path back to the city

Ideals and reality are like twin sisters; realizing ideals necessitates countless tests. Without a source of support, no matter how grand the ideal, it may remain unachievable.

Faced with language and living difficulties, Li Zhenhua, filled with fiery enthusiasm, resolved, "I can stay here; if I can endure a day, I can endure a lifetime."

When he had just arrived in the Yimeng Mountain Area, Li Zhenhua hadn't planned on staying his whole life. Initially, he thought of returning in three to five years. When asked upon returning, he struggled to answer, "At that time, I thought up a compromise, to stay for five days if I could only manage three, each extra day lightening the embarrassment of going back."

In the first half-year, out of over forty fellow students assigned to Yiyuan for support, 37 gradually returned home, while Li Zhenhua became increasingly attached to the Yimeng Mountain Area. In the celebratory crowd of the new village, a frail figure caught his attention. Taking old spectacles back, he spun cotton into yarn on a spinning wheel, wove it into cloth on a wooden loom, and made cotton clothes, pads, and even socks, lining them with straw and reeds for warmth.

"When I handed them over, I shed tears. I felt as if I had seen my own parents."

Recalling the pancakes he had eaten, Li Zhenhua noted that villagers, living on meager diets themselves, sacrificed good food for him. When someone laid an egg, initially traded for firewood and salt, it found its way into his hands, kept warm in their bosoms.

"Whenever I received a warm egg, there were no words to express my gratitude."

"It was a cultural support initiative, how could I walk away?"

Li Zhenhua reminisces how, during the Battle of Menglianggu, the whole village sent 72 young men to carry the wounded, while families sent their last pancakes and homemade shoes to the frontline, all for the revolution. "Families sacrificed their precious lives for the revolution; what are these tiny difficulties compared to that?" The Yimeng God and the villagers' sincerity moved Li Zhenhua, making the path back to his hometown an impossibility; he realized he would be here for good.

Dedication to the students

Li Zhenhua made up his mind to use knowledge to change the destiny of poor mountain areas. So, in 1968, he firmly committed: study relentlessly. From then on, after daily lessons, he would walk five or six miles to give students extra lessons. To improve teaching conditions, he crafted globes out of basketry and old newspapers, drew meridians and latitudes, demonstrating geography to students: where the Atlantic, the Pacific, Europe, and Asia were located; creating models to explain solar and lunar eclipses using tennis balls and ping-pong balls.

Hanwang Primary School was high in the mountains. If a student suddenly fell ill, Li Zhenhua would carry them down the mountain for medical attention; if the river swelled, he waited by the bank early, ferrying each student across before school and back afterward.

Such wholehearted dedication led to an extraordinary improvement in student performance. In 1955, with an enrollment ratio of 10:1 across Yiyuan County, all 8 of his graduating students were admitted to junior high, shaking the county.

In 1982, Li Zhenhua was transferred to work in Yiyuan County town. It was a newly established special school, where the students were those who had failed the county junior high entrance exam. Against this backdrop, Li Zhenhua coined a slogan—"Dedicate everything to the students"—motivating teachers to devote themselves entirely to the students. Among the first batch of students, Liu Yang (a pseudonym) was particularly unruly, with even local police familiar with his mischief. One day, Li Zhenhua discovered Liu Yang suffering from a severe cold, immediately cooking a bowl of egg noodles for him. Moved to tears, the student promised to reform, eventually getting into university.

No one could have imagined that of 108 students averaging 28.6 marks, three years later, 78 were admitted into key high schools, and 26 entered prestigious college streams, an achievement that shook society. The county immediately renamed Chengguan Second Middle School to Yiyuan County Experimental Middle School. From then on, the Experimental Middle School remained the best school in Yiyuan.

In those days, only three college choices were allowed, and influenced by Li Zhenhua, 60 to 70 percent of the students chose teacher-training colleges, eventually becoming pioneers in "Resurrecting" Mammoths after 10,000 years.

According to reports, the "resurrection" plan isn't aimed at bringing back real mammoths but at creating embryos carrying mammoth DNA, crafting a hybrid between elephants and mammoths. Church explained in an interview: "Our goal is to create a cold-resistant elephant, both in appearance and behavior like a mammoth. We're not trying to deceive; we want a creature functionally similar to a mammoth—able to live in minus 40°C, doing what both elephants and mammoths could do, particularly knocking down trees."

By comparing genomes extracted from permafrost-preserved mammoths and Asian elephants, researchers have identified the specific genes responsible for mammoth's hair, insulating fat layers, and other adaptations to cold climates. Asian elephant skin cells were then taken and re-programmed to carry mammoth DNA into pluripotent stem cells.

Eventually, these embryos will be birthed through surrogate mothers or artificial wombs. Colossal hopes to cultivate a vast number of mammoths quickly via artificial womb technology. If everything proceeds smoothly, researchers expect the first batch of calves within six years.

Diagram of "Resurrecting" Mammoths steps

This project aims to support Asian elephant conservation by endowing them with traits allowing them to thrive in regions dubbed "Pleistocene Park".

[I've heard that ever since Uncle Wang next door subscribed to the genuine service, his back doesn't ache, legs don't hurt, his arms are stronger, and he can jump five floors effortlessly. He even found an eighteen-year-old girlfriend in no time.]

[What are you waiting for?]

[Join the legitimate service family now and enjoy warmth like home.]