Shen Zhousheng was born in Shenjiadai, a water town in the south of the Yangtze River. His father died young, his mother was sick, and his family was poor. However, he was obsessed with reading since he was a child. He was regarded as a "nerd" by the villagers. After failing the college entrance examination, he was forced to work in a brick kiln and was bullied. With the rise of township enterprises in the early 1990s, he was appreciated by the town factory accountant for his photographic memory. He started as a warehouse keeper, but was framed and imprisoned for offending the factory director's brother-in-law. After he was released from prison, he had nothing. His mother died of illness and his fiancée remarried, and he fell to the lowest point in his life. He went to Sioux City alone and started by setting up a street stall and selling clothes. With his keen business acumen and the knowledge accumulated from reading, he seized the opportunities of the Pudong development era and grew from a self-employed businessman to a textile industry giant in ten years. However, during the capital expansion, he encountered the betrayal of his partners and the collusion between government and businessmen. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy, his wife left, and everyone betrayed his relatives. In the end, he gave up his obsession and returned to his hometown of water town. He used his last resources to build a rural library and found the true meaning of life in teaching and educating people. The wheel of the times finally gave him belated justice.
