Solon, a thinker from the ancient Greek period, once said, "Learn through activity". He believed that people should learn new things throughout their lives. Studying hard will definitely bring you rewards. This sentence is most suitable for Cai Wei.

In April 2009, Cai Wei, a 38-year-old laid-off worker with only a high school education, was admitted as a doctoral student in the history department of Fudan University, a top university. What kind of legendary story happened to Cai Wei? What is Cai Wei's current development like?

Cai Wei was born in an ordinary worker's family in 1971. His parents were both diligent workers. They don't have many requirements for Cai Wei, they just hope that he can grow up healthily and learn a skill early to support himself. But Cai Wei did not follow the advice given to him by his parents. When he was in school, Cai Wei liked to study history and Chinese very much.

Originally, Cai Wei's father wanted Cai Wei to drop out of high school and study carpentry from a master, but Cai Wei just wanted to study hard and get into college. Unfortunately, because Cai Wei was partial to subjects and was not very good in other subjects, Cai Wei failed to get into college. The family did not want and had no conditions to let Cai Wei re-enroll in high school and take the exam again, so Cai Wei could only choose to work in a factory.

Initially, Cai Wei came to a hose factory to work as an installation worker. During his breaks, Cai Wei would go to the local library to read some classical documents. Because he was too poor to buy books, Cai Wei would carry a small notebook and copy out passages he had newly learned and interested him.

When he got off work, Cai Wei did not drink and play cards with other workers. Instead, he spent all his time in the dormitory reading his own excerpts. Because of Cai Wei's "weird" behavior, his coworkers also called Cai Wei a stupid nerd.

I don’t know if “working hard and working hard” was not enough. In 1994, the factory where Cai Wei worked closed down. In order to take care of his family, Cai Wei could only survive by setting up a street stall in front of the shopping mall. When there were no customers, Cai Wei would take out his little book and read it again, hoping to gain new insights.

Three years later, Cai Wei's fate finally turned around. Because he has unique insights into the study of ancient documents, Cai Wei will occasionally publish some of his own experiences online and sometimes write short articles. Qiu Xigui, a doctoral supervisor at Fudan University, also likes to read these short historical articles on the Internet. It happened that Qiu Xigui saw the article written by Cai Wei, and he felt that this person with the online name "Baoxiao" had no weaker views on some ancient texts than some university professors.

Qiu Xigui, who was delighted to see Hunter, began to send private messages to Cai Wei, and the two slowly developed into pen pals. In 1997, Qiu Xigui sought help on the Internet. He did not know the pronunciation and meaning of the word "zuozi" in the article "A Preliminary Study of "Shenwu Fu"". After Cai Wei saw it, he immediately wrote to Qiu Xigui. He believed that "zuozi" and "域子" were just modal particles and had no real meaning.

Qiu Xigui thought Cai Wei's explanation was very reasonable, and he stated in the next article that he had received an on-demand call from an expert and understood the meaning. After that, Qiu Xigui and Cai Wei exchanged letters more frequently.

In 2007, Qiu Xigui also invited Cai Wei to apply for Fudan University. However, Cai Wei thought that his English level was too low and he had to take care of his sick wife, so he declined Qiu Xigui's kindness.

Qiu Xigui couldn’t bear the silence of such a great talent. In 2008, Qiu Xigui invited Cai Wei to work in Shanghai. The next year, he organized several other old professors at Fudan University to evaluate Cai Wei. . In the end, Cai Wei passed the examination. The old professors who participated in the examination were also surprised by Cai Wei's profound knowledge and jointly recommended Cai Wei to become a doctoral student. At this time, Cai Wei was already 38 years old.

2015. Cai Wei successfully graduated from Fudan University and later worked in the library of Anshun University, sometimes giving lectures. From laid-off worker to university teacher, Cai Wei also completed a gorgeous turnaround.