I am the daughter of a down-and-out bookseller and a lowly female worker in the printing office of the state capital.
Seeing that woodblock printing was being hit by low-quality piracy, my father died in depression.
I worked hard for ten years and developed the Lingwen clay movable type and ink roller printing frame.
The state examiner personally came to order thousands of classics, but I secretly placed misplaced anti-counterfeiting marks.
Pirated booksellers colluded with the government to falsely accuse me of collaborating with the enemy.
That night, when officials surrounded the workshop, I held up the anti-counterfeiting stamp to compare pirated copies——
"Look carefully, gentlemen," I lit the oil lamp, "who is the national traitor who blocks the way for scholars to climb?"
