Jia Shumei： Shushan has a road service as its path.

　　Confused Scholar is the 77th book published by Cao Zhengwen. I met the text, about 1987, when I was transferred to Shanghai Press and Publication Bureau, and he was editing "Reading Music", which has been attached to books for more than 30 years.

　　Cao Zhengwen's works are rich in themes and diverse in genres, ranging from essays, celebrity interviews, literary travel notes, martial arts reviews, historical novels, detective stories and essays, with a length of more than 13 million words. Plus more than 120 manuscripts edited by him, it will be close to 200.

　　Counting famous writers at all times and at all times, few people can complete such a large workload in their lifetime. Think about it. China, Four Great Classical Novels's Dream of Red Mansions, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Journey to the West's Water Margin add up to just over 3.6 million words. Of course, the quality of the two is difficult to compare, but in terms of quantity, we can see that the text is very diligent and hard-working in writing.

　　Cao Zhengwen is from Suzhou. Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there have been 596 literary champions in China, including 45 in Suzhou, accounting for 7.55%, ranking first among cities in China, while Suzhou's population at that time only accounted for 1% of the country. Suzhou is an outstanding person, and friends laughed and said that Cao Zhengwen inherited the aura of heaven and earth and was a veritable Suzhou genius.

　　But the text does not recognize this statement. He reviewed his growing experience in the book "Confused Scholar", and his parents did their best to cultivate their only son. Whatever my son is interested in, he always tries his best to satisfy his son's wishes. Text likes painting, so his mother took him to Harding's and Liu Haisu's studios, asked famous teachers to give directions, and copied mustard seed garden. Text likes musical instruments, and his mother bought him a harmonica, erhu and accordion. The text is obsessed with pingtan, and his mother sent him to a private playing class to learn Sanxian. It took a lot of effort to learn painting, dough sculpture and music, but none of them achieved positive results.

　　The young man has many hobbies. He has tried countless times and gave up. At the end of the text, he chose books-reading, scouring books, collecting books, writing books, editing books and donating books, which are hobbies that he can't give up in his life, and he has devoted his life to them.

　　As early as his childhood when he was just literate, he rented comic books from roadside bookshops with the money saved by his parents. Every Sunday, he must go to the Old Town God Temple and the old bookstore to find books. When he graduated from junior high school, he had nearly 200 books. After joining the work, he spent most of his salary on books. In 1995, he was named one of the top ten folk book collectors in Shanghai with more than 16,000 books (including nearly 1,000 signed books by famous writers). Every night, he read and wrote all the social activities in politely decline behind closed doors, and he remained firm for decades.

　　Most people who love reading like writing, and so does the text, but this road is also very unsatisfactory. In the 1970s, he submitted 48 articles in succession, but all of them were rejected. He was a little depressed, and his mother encouraged him to stick to it. Until April 19, 1973, Liberation Daily published one of his children's songs, Fighting Tigers. He ran to a nearby post office and bought all the Liberation Daily that day. The salesperson was greatly surprised and asked, "What happened today?" Cao Zhengwen held back his excitement and said, "It's nothing important, it's an important day for me personally."

　　In 1981, Cao Zhengwen was admitted to Xinmin Evening News as a reporter. Since 1986, he has been the editor-in-chief of the special issue of Reading Music, which has been well received by readers. He independently edited the special issue of "Reading Music" for 22 years. In 22 years, he has written more than 1000 articles to answer readers' questions, and won the first Taofen News Award in Shanghai in 1993.

　　The text indulges in the sea of books and explores the historical truth in the books for decades: the emperor was born in the Qin Dynasty, but why did the first queen appear in the Western Han Dynasty? How can Liu Bang, who has been defeated in many wars, defeat Xiang Yu, a soldier of Ma Zhuang? Why did Xiao He, the prime minister of the Western Han Dynasty, buy houses at low prices and pollute himself in his later years? What is the real reason for Sima Qian's cruel imprisonment? Why did Cai Lun, the paper inventor who was promoted to Jiuqing, commit suicide? How many absurd things did Xiao Baojuan do? How did Li Jing, a famous poet in the early Tang Dynasty, turn into the "King of Tota" in his literary works? Why did Li Shen, who wrote "Who knows that every meal is hard", encounter mixed conclusions? Why did Liu Yong create a "country of eunuchs"? Why didn't anyone write an epitaph after Shen Kuo's death? What was the cause of death of Huang Chao, the leader of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty? Who is the author of Jin Ping Mei? It was so difficult for Zhang Tingyu, the first minister of the Qing Dynasty, to resign in his later years. Why is Yang Xiuqing, who controls the power of Taiping Army first, vulnerable? How can Yang Naiwu's unjust case come to light? The authors all have incisive and detailed original analysis.

　　There are nearly 100 short articles related to reading in the book, which are divided into eight series. The first seven series are mainly the textual research and elaboration of anecdotes in the ancient book sea, and the comments on literature and history, martial arts, detectives and traditional operas are quite fresh and readable. The eighth series, "Clouds in the Past", is the epitome of the author's life path. It is very kind to read and more enlightening and instructive to young readers. (This article is an excerpt from the preface of "Confusion of Scholar-Mishu's Reading Essays", Shanghai Culture Publishing House, 1st edition in August, 2023) (Jia Shumei)