1
In the back street adjacent to a small university store in the suburbs of Wuhan, a peculiar billboard can be seen with a headshot imitating an ID card:.
“Name: Alien Shu Mansheng
Gender: Hope relevant experts identify
Temporary address of the global village: ……”
On the right side of the billboard, it shows the preferential accommodation information of Shu Mansheng’s first “alien apartment”.
Today, Shu Mansheng and his wife still run the hotel, but his tenants may not know that over the years, the hotel owner has led another kind of life: constantly building planes, test-flying one, then dismantling it and using the original engine and batteries to build the next plane with a new shape.
Shu Mansheng has been in the news: the first time was in 2011, when someone broke the news on Weibo, “A super-cow farmer in Wuhan made his own flying saucer for a test flight”, with a 7 minutes and 33 seconds video attached, then it became a tofu block in the newspaper; the second time was in 2018, with the news headline, “Man builds ‘flying saucer’ for 150,000 million yuan to build a ‘flying saucer’ test flight allegedly illegal” – he made a flying saucer-shaped flying machine, released a test flight video: in the night, the blue and green light of the saucer, rose to seven or eight meters in the air, after more than a minute, the It slowly returned to the ground. The shape of this “flying saucer” attracted many netizens, and Shu Mansheng, a self-proclaimed “alien”, also liked the mystery and the gimmick.
Shu Mansheng’s idea of leaving the ground began in 2007, and he also planned a “plane first, then flying saucer” path for himself. So far, he has built more than 20 aircraft, “including fixed-wing and ‘flying saucer’ shape”, years of “test flight” let him often fall.
One of Shu Mansheng’s flying machines, as well as various equipment (Photo by the author) One of Shu Mansheng’s flying machines, as well as various equipment (Photo by the author)
Constantly injured, constantly repeated, unbearable wife has been separated from him for more than half a year, but Shu Mansheng is not very concerned: “We are an old married couple nothing physical needs, just she wants me to stay around.”
Shu Mansheng feels that the two people are too different, his wife is always cautious and worried about everything, while he himself is always ready to fly into the air, full of vision and ambition. New ideas were always suddenly flashing in his mind, and he was always fast at building planes, making one in half a month at the fastest – the engine was readily available, and he only had to change the shape and function slightly.
At the entrance to the rental apartment, the bed was cluttered with clothes and miscellaneous items; this was his temporary sleeping place and the place where he built his plane. The cabin is cluttered with batteries, motors, propellers, remote controls, and scribbled geometry on the floor – he doesn’t have any accurate drawings.
Shu Mansheng’s sketch of his flying machine (Photo by the author) Shu Mansheng’s sketch of his flying machine (Photo by the author)
Look at these batteries, they’re still unpacked and cost almost 10,000.” Shu Mansheng introduced to me. He has more than 100 propellers, more than 10 engines, all from Taobao, idle fish and players on the forum to find. Some of the manuals are in English, and when he can’t figure it out, he will ask his friends online.
From the beginning of this year, Shu Mansheng has always wanted to do a “triple vehicle”, with a wheel, just like a future bus, can run on the ground, can rise into the air, but also into the water. He plans to put a float next to the wheel, more than 3 meters high, can support 135 kg.
For this brand new thing, he seemed cautious and intended to use remote control: “I sit on it or not is the same. Originally invented the aircraft, first unmanned, then carrying cargo, and then with people. But this flying machine will be 100% okay.”
When talking about his plans to build a flying saucer, Shu Mansheng always uses a logic of conversation that cannot be argued with, but is steeped in ego. His ideas, like those of his hand-built flying machines, take off for a few minutes and then always crash inevitably, but he just can’t stop, and has to keep running them.
Just as the electric sports car tesla is only a part of the American “Iron Man” Musk’s plan for Mars, Shu Mansheng’s move to build a flying saucer, which is considered by his family and neighbors as a bad job, “wrong in the head” and “money to burn”, is only the first step of his dream “super school”.
2
The turning point in Shu Mansheng’s fate and aspirations would have been in his junior high school years.
During one class, he was secretly playing with a radio he had borrowed from his brother, and when he forgot to play, the teacher came to the side and confiscated the rare toy: “After school, come to my office.”
Unexpectedly, the teacher not only returned the radio to him after class, but also asked him if he was interested in radio. After that weekend, Shu Mansheng will take the bus to the Huazhong University of Science and Technology next to the Xinhua bookstore, looking through the electrical repair books, “all the semiconductors, all the resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors these things.” When you do not understand the place, Shu Mansheng will write down, back to school, and then ask the teacher.
After graduating from junior high school, he decided not to go to vocational school, looking for a repair electrical master to people as a small worker. In his free time, he took the bus to a scrapyard to plunder the Teng accessories, where a crippled girl who worked, later became his wife. As the youngest child in the family, almost all of his parents’ belongings were divided among his brothers, leaving him with only a few acres of uncared-for farmland. After the marriage, he moved to live with his mother-in-law, and then slowly saved some money, looking for a storefront, open an electrical repair store.
A few years later, Shu Mansheng “transit”. Wuhan to Huangshi highway construction, one of the exit from their home land through. Soon, a gas station was built, and so far they have to pay rent to their family.
Seizing this opportunity, Shu Mansheng closed his small store and built a house on the ridge of his family’s field, selling auto parts and helping to fix tires. He learned to repair cars, and at the best of his business, he could repair more than 20 trucks a day. These drivers from the north and the south are also very difficult, if not always watch out, those who do not pay will just drive away. Sometimes the truck broke down in a very remote place, he went over to fix, the other side will rely on the number of people, unreasonable price, or simply do not pay.
The rabbit will bite when it is anxious. Once a person came over, falsely claiming to Shu Mansheng to a very far away place to repair the car, Shu Mansheng told the other party, “if not repaired, need to pay 100 yuan for lost wages. But when he drove the person to the designated place, the person called, said the car has been repaired to others, said to get off, no intention to pay. Shu Mansheng copied the wrench, sitting on the passenger side of the man’s head gestures, threatening: “You have to give, do not give also have to give!
Every year, Shu Mansheng will use the money earned to build a house, and then rent out the rooms to those who come to do business. In a few years, the foundation accounted for 130 square meters of space, has built 7 floors, just to collect rent a year can earn more than 100,000. More and more traffic, Shu Mansheng simply stopped repairing cars and turned to open a restaurant.
“My wife and I, one in the sky, one on the ground. She only saw the negative things, then always said, do not build, the house is enough to live on the line. I’m different, to keep building, keep building.” Shu Mansheng said.
His family and the third brother’s family originally lived together – after the road was opened to traffic, Shu Mansheng sold some of his share of land to his brother, and the third brother built a house on that land, “he built it alone, did not invite people, afraid that others say he is rich.” Later, the city management issued a demolition order, the third brother chose to take more than 100,000 compensation money. Shu Mansheng refused the 450,000 compensation at the time, insisting that it would not be demolished, with the single-minded idea that the house would be built higher before it “had” to be demolished.
“I was very crazy at that time, who stopped me did not listen, I want to find a way to make. When my house was five stories high, he (San) had just finished building one story. After his house was torn down, I had to keep building.”
In 2007, the huge self-built house was finally going to be demolished, when the area used was more than 1,000 square meters. According to the regulations at the time, the part of each household house area over 300 square meters, only 40 yuan per square meter – for this reason, Shu Mansheng spent 600,000, bought 6 households to add in, and finally, got 2.8 million demolition money.
Shu Mansheng’s “illegal house” before it was demolished in 2007 (Photo by the author)
When the demolition money arrived, his elder brother, who owned a hotel next to the university, recommended him to buy a house in the same apartment building. The apartment had 230 square meters and was converted into eight rooms, six of which were rented out to people as dormitories. After the first tenant’s lease expired, Shu Mansheng wanted to do “daily rental” to the public, the big brother felt he was stealing business, very dissatisfied, in the aisle with a bed sheet to cover his sign.
Shu Mansheng simply rented a house on the other side of the building for a long time, and after the renovation, there were 6 more rooms available for rent. The conflict between the brothers became more powerful, Shu Mansheng said “the boss wants to beat me, the whole of my people”, the elders of the family mediation, said the hotel business by two brothers in turn, one to do two years, the elder brother first.
So, every month, the elder brother paid 6,000 yuan rent to Shu Mansheng. Shu Mansheng bought two buses, hired a driver to do the transport business.
Free Shu Mansheng, see online reports of farmers doing aircraft, thinking that they can also do one, so began to think about playing aircraft, in various forums to learn the relevant knowledge. The wife, however, is worried, worried that the big brother will not be faithful, occasionally, she heard the neighbors spread the word, “I heard your boss say to others, the house to me to do, I will certainly not give the youngest again.”
“I have a way.” Shu Mansheng comforted his wife.
3
The early years and the big brother of the “fight”, Shu Mansheng is a loss.
Before the wedding, Shu Mansheng ready to build a bungalow with two rooms. Big brother with fruit to persuade him, “to do a big project, cover on the cover of the 3-story building. Shu Mansheng heart moved, “I said the money is not enough, he said first to give him the money to build a house, 1 month later to help me do – their own brother, which have not believed it?”
1 month later, big brother did not come to him, has been using various excuses to delay. Six months later, Shu Mansheng went to his big brother’s house, and his big brother fried two dishes and pointed to the passbook placed on the windowsill: “The money is on it, and in two months you will be given to start the work.”
As a little brother, he had to continue to wait. After another six months, ask big brother again, big brother said, “There is no money, lost.”
This year’s time, Shu Mansheng has been married, 3-story house shadow did not see, only to live in the mother-in-law’s house, the heart of a belly full of anger. He told his father about his elder brother cheating him to build a house money, want to pressure the elder brother through the elders. As a result, the father also did not get, came back and told Shu Mansheng: “Your elder brother said you poor his money, your wedding when (he) took 3,000 yuan to you, you did not return.”
“He took the money for the gift as a loan to me?” Shu Mansheng is angry when he mentions this. He still remembers that the money was delivered by his nephew running – “my dad just won it in a poker game and said to hurry up and bring it to you.”
He went to his big brother’s house again and put down the word: “Forget it, this 3,000 is considered my loan to you, then you are still short of my 4,200.”
Big brother did not recognize the money, the money let the two brothers have a knot in the heart. So many years later, when they once again for the opening of the hotel quarrel, the elders advocate that the two brothers each open two years, the elder brother first, Shu Mansheng thought for a long time, put forward a condition: “this before the 4200, return me.”
This time, big brother agreed, two people had a rare drink together.
Two years quickly passed, Shu Mansheng went to ask big brother, when the hotel can be handed over. Sure enough, the big brother asked in return, “When did I say it’s time for you to do it?”
Shu Mansheng, as if waiting for the words of the big brother, took out his cell phone, played a recording of the conversation two years ago, angry: “between brothers, but also recorded, before you lied to me, I was ready to jump into the river to kill myself, I thought you had changed for the better. You talk like a fart, do you count as a person, do you give? Do not give also have to give!”
Big brother is still reluctant to admit: “Let’s just split up and do it.”
“Yes, separate, separate, for two years for nothing, and just two houses.”
Shu Mansheng named his newly opened hotel “Alien Hotel” and made that exaggerated advertisement outside the entrance – over the past decades, he seldom felt goodwill, so he had his own way of coping with it.
Because they live in the same apartment, Shu Mansheng and big brother often meet, if the two do not speak, meet and greet, but a speech, will certainly have to quarrel.
“The boss speaks, the tone is very wild, either scold you, not properly speak; sometimes come over and say you are like a person is doing something? I asked in the local language, how is it going? He lost his temper and asked you back that it was how it was?” Shu Mansheng said, “- you say this can communicate? I just scolded him to throw a fit, don’t stay in my area, and he slunk away.”
I asked him curiously, “If it wasn’t for your big brother introducing you in the first place, you might not have had such a good opportunity to make money?”
“It’s gold, it will shine anywhere.” He was unconvinced by my assumption, “Small victories depend on courage, big victories depend on virtue. They only drill in the eyes of money.”
Shu Mansheng and his other siblings also had little interaction.
After the death of his father, the Qingming Festival for his father’s grave, are each family to go to each family. He and the second brother also have a knot, the same reason is money – Shu Mansheng after marriage, a share of the family’s land, but after the gas station expropriation, originally signed a lease contract, more than 100,000 a year in the proceeds of several brothers have a share, but “the second brother does not share equally, insist on exclusive, now the rent is given to him “.
Than the big brother, the second brother’s fierce and brutal, Shu Mansheng is more hung up on the early death of the third brother: “He was too timid, reading is harmful to people, he graduated from high school, consider things more.”
He attributed his third brother’s suicide to his sister-in-law: “Lao-san and neurological living, his daughter-in-law has a serious psychological disorder, but also genetic children, always impatient, and you quarrel, impose their emotions on others, outside to say bad things about you.”
Before the suicide, the third brother had come to Shu Mansheng, wanted to borrow 500 yuan, but once I heard that the reason for borrowing money is “divorce”, Shu Mansheng then refused: “rather demolish a temple, not break a marriage, certainly can not borrow ah.”
He now regrets his decision at the time. Third brother died in 2008, when the family has not installed telephone, Shu Mansheng’s apprentice knew the news, rushed to find him by bicycle, “I rushed back, it was too late. At that time I lived in my mother-in-law’s house, if I was at home this side, he could not die, I will save him alive.”
“Just this high a door, on the door.” Shu Mansheng gestures to me the height, “very sad, ah, he was very short, just hanged with a belt, penniless.”
4
In April 2010, Shu Mansheng made his third plane, a twin-engine, twin-propeller plane. This was also the first plane he had ever actually flown – the first two were found to be seriously flawed and were scrapped.
Before the test flight, he calculated that the plane had a speed of about 100 kilometers per hour, and could fly for one hour with two adults. The day of the public test flight, came a lot of media, in the crowd watched, he sat in a simple driver’s seat, glided a few hundred meters on the ground, driving this 70 kg, driven by a motorcycle engine “Dragonfly aircraft” off the ground.
Dozens of seconds later, people watched the plane five or six meters off the ground fell quickly, people and aircraft fell to the ground. Later, Shu Mansheng explained that he panicked himself and closed the throttle.
That test flight, so Shu Mansheng body fractures in many places, recuperate for several months. After recovering, he flew the twin-propeller plane again on a test flight, and together with the flyer fell down, seriously injuring his knees.
In many subsequent test flights, he was injured to varying degrees, one of the aircraft just took off and buckled over, but fortunately the seat belt to protect him. After this, he seldom test-flies publicly, choosing instead to take videos with his cell phone, more test flights also changed to control the aircraft with remote control, “young injury does not matter, now old.
After 2007, Shu Mansheng continued to buy houses, and use the house on hand as a mortgage, the extra money to continue to buy houses, rent houses to convert apartments, disc others transferred to the hotel. Until house prices rose from more than 2,000 to more than 10,000, his name already has seven sets of houses before he was ready to slow down.
The growth of his wealth is related to the housing prices in Wuhan in recent years – the edge of the city is extending, because of the “university city”, the subway also began to extend to here, the original suburban area housing prices soared, bringing him considerable rental income; it is also related to his determination – the student apartment building is not clear in terms of property rights, the transaction of the property in the transfer will have trouble, many people are worried about the risk of investment, he is used to arguing with people, lawsuits.
After being in the news for the first time in 2011 for his “test flight”, Shu Mansheng soon became known to netizens as the “beheading brother”. This time the “performance art” is to collect debts: in 2007, Shu Mansheng bought two sets of student apartments from the head of the nearby university cafeteria, the person in charge of the name of “joint investment” to borrow him 1 million, but in 2011, this person disappeared Shu Mansheng went to the other party’s hometown in Henan to collect the debt, but did not see anyone.
In February 2012, Shu Mansheng himself wearing shackles and anklets, an imitation of ancient beheaded dress, with a debt collection banner, appeared in the university cafeteria, became a network hot spot. After some time, he made another iron cage and people drilled into it to protest in front of the cafeteria.
While debt collection was still pending, the court found Shu Mansheng – the person who borrowed his money had borrowed more than 5 million outside and could not repay it, so the two apartment houses had to be seized. The two houses have not yet completed the transfer, Shu Mansheng began the road to litigation, he needs to reject the court’s seizure, and then for the ownership of the house, and finally litigation to recover the money owed 1 million.
He took out many official documents and proudly said to me, “In 13, 15, 17 and 18 years, the court ruled in my favor in all the lawsuits I filed.”
Now, Shu Mansheng’s apartment has more than 100 rooms available for rent, as does his big brother. With more and more rooms, he finds it increasingly difficult to manage, so he leaves a lot of things to his daughter and lets his youngest son intern at a major hotel to “learn the management experience”.
He led me on a “tour” of the rented rooms, went to the innermost corridor of the apartment and opened the hidden door of one of them without any fear, and there were four college-looking boys sitting inside, one of whom looked at us impatiently. The room was blandly decorated, with two beds, miserable white sheets and covers, typical of cheap hotels near colleges and universities.
“Look, this is a room, this side is also a room ……” This is the earliest room he bought and converted into an apartment, “very good to rent, the cheapest with a toilet also costs 1200 yuan a month, shared bathroom, also 600 The cheapest one with a toilet costs 1,200 yuan a month, and the one with a shared bathroom costs 600 yuan. This house has 98 square meters, at that time bought two sets.”
“Business is supposed to be accurate, bold, calculated, not blind. Some can do, some can not do. I also opened a ‘Love Hotel’ in front of the school and bought the ‘Tian Gong Business Hotel’ from someone else, with an investment of close to 4 million.” When he said this, his eyes narrowed even smaller, there is a kind of didactic smugness, “I still have a house do not want money, others pour me money.”
“Buy a house, don’t pay for a house you want?” He said it again, not in a questioning way, just a way of opening up. “I’ll tell you, I’m looking at a house, 246 square feet, it was selling for 3,500 yuan a square foot, you do the math, more than 800,000 — this house the bank can assess to 7,000 (yuan per square foot), how much do you count? — 1.6 million! We take out a loan, count 30%, pay 500,000, but that house only needs 800,000, in fact, the other party has to give me hundreds of thousands. The money is given by the bank, I take 300,000 to finish the renovation (with partitions into group rentals), (each room) rent 500 yuan a month, 1 year net profit is 150,000. My monthly mortgage is 5,000, 60,000 a year, equivalent to a house for nothing, but also every year net profit.”
“It’s not that I don’t want it, it’s that my family doesn’t want it, my wife quarrels with me every day.” He said helplessly after calculating this account.
5
At the beginning of this year, Shu Mansheng to the last few suites after closing, feel that he can start to complete his “this 30 years have been planning things”, is also his nearly 10 years of continuous aircraft to attract public attention to the original intention – junior high school education, he has been claiming to have invented a “perfect teaching model”, with this model will be the children from a few years old to start training, later can easily enter the famous universities.
“You didn’t even get into high school yourself.” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Did any of your 3 kids go to college?”
“None of them went.”
Shu Mansheng seemed to hear my skepticism and began to change the subject, “If you asked a scientist to build a tractor, with his bare hands, would you find it difficult?”
Again, this was not really asking me a question, he immediately continued, “‘Perfect teaching model’ is equivalent to, I made a machine, throw in gold and silver some materials, and then let an illiterate press the button, you tell him, how many pounds of iron, plastic, copper, and then a new The Mercedes comes out.”
It’s hard to tell whether Shu Mansheng’s vision is a long-planned trick or a long-held ego rant he has fallen into. “I mainly want to eliminate the neuroses in society, these mental disorders – as opposed to, what I call ‘neuroses’, which are ‘subhealth of mind’ , thought sickness is neurosis, to be changed from education – like my third brother’s wife is a typical mental illness.”
“Do you mean to say that the ‘perfect teaching model’ will not only get the children into Peking University and Tsinghua University, but also overcome the ‘mental subhealth’?”
“They will be 100% free of (mental disorders).”
When he was in school, Shu Mansheng did not have many friends, because his eyes were somewhat exotropia, when people talked to him, they always felt that he was always looking at other places, and later simply gave him the nickname “blind”.
He has always been very thin, 15 years old when he was a junior, weighing only 70 pounds, often bullied. Once squatting in the toilet, was a classmate deliberately peed a head, angry and people fight, and is not an opponent. Want to become stronger, he was hooked on the movie “Shaolin Temple”, “in the newspaper above the cover image of Jet Li, worshiped, to draw him down, gee, I also want to be so dashing, so handsome”.
The opportunity finally came when a cousin told him that there was a “qigong master” in the village who could teach martial arts. He saved his lunch money and bought a pack of cigarettes for the master every weekend. At 8:00 p.m., after studying at night, he “rushed over there, gulped down some food,” and at 9:00 p.m., he and his cousin and some other young people started practicing kung fu in the open courtyard.
At night, he stayed at his cousin’s house, the village was 7 kilometers away from the school, and he had to walk up a mountain road, and he had to get up at 5 a.m. to run to the school, and he didn’t have time to wash his face and comb his hair before going out.
A few months of martial arts training, did not make him as strong as he wanted to become, but in school became more alien. “Only two or three hours of sleep a day, and then neurasthenia, trying to sleep all day”, he was so sleepy in class that he simply drew a fake eye on paper and stuck it on his eyelid. A few days later, this trick was detected by the teacher, and he used the straw to strain his eyelids, the teacher threw a chalk, did not wake him up, he came over to pat him awake, to go to the blackboard to answer questions, “the first time, he said, your writing and hair is as messy, the second time, said you are enemies to meet, the eyes are red. Always make fun of me”.
That year, he failed the exam and repeated the grade. The dream of becoming Jet Li was shattered.
He complained to me about the poor standard of teachers in the township schools at that time, such as English: “We learned English words, we used the Chinese pronunciation at the bottom, but the teacher’s pronunciation was very inaccurate, making us confused; English she read ‘Ingrid’, I wrote it down, and the next time, she read The next time, she pronounced it ‘Ingrid’. Forget it, I’m not going to learn it.”
The year of the first repetition, a labor class, the students had to dig a hole for the saplings, Shu Mansheng dug the hole wider than the others, a student asked him if he was tired, he said he had trained in martial arts, and joked: “You see so wide, Ms. Yang sleep down is not quite suitable? She is so fat, I dig just right.” Classmates do not make a sound, looking at him and laughing, Shu Mansheng turned around and found that Ms. Yang was behind: “Shu Mansheng, you want to stay a grade again?”
After three junior years, Shu Mansheng decided not to continue his studies until he graduated from junior high school. Now, he would also like to “excuse” the teachers: “The current education is problematic, they are also from the problematic education, so how can we have a good education for students?”
According to Shu Mansheng’s vision, in his school, teachers will be replaced by “attendants” who will simply follow the “perfect teaching model” to lead students. When I asked him to expand on the specific model, his answer was once again evasive, saying in a conspiratorial tone: “There is a fruit farmer in Shennongjia who has nothing better to do than to graft fruit trees, and the (fruit) becomes four different things, but it tastes fine. He gave something to a professor of Huazhong Agricultural University to test, the professor said to go to the field to see, after looking at it, said, you immediately cut it down, this thing is toxic after the test, affecting everyone’s health. The fruit farmer cut it, and three years later, the professor developed a new product out, (fruit) became his.”
He wants to show that ordinary people may also make remarkable achievements, but the fruits of victory will always be picked by people in authority. Shu Mansheng feels that his identity does not affect his conception of the “perfect teaching model”: “10 years ago, someone did a survey, a hundred of the top students in not a billionaire, two or three millionaires, only a dozen millionaires – the really rich, are nothing. -Those who are really rich are those who have little diploma.”
“Who do you think I am to invent the ‘perfect teaching model’? I didn’t invent this rational approach, I combined the results of ancient and modern cases.” As all “entrepreneurship” like to use new concepts, Shu Mansheng’s rhetoric also has this flavor, “I can still tell fortunes, look at the stomach of pregnant women to know the boy and girl – do you know why? This is also not invented by me, is a big data, according to the hospital, maternal age, conception period for data integration to determine.”
“Education is also big data, by looking at successful high school students and doing integration from their experience. I invented it (‘perfect teaching model’) 20 years ago, doing airplanes, actually to promote this.”
6
Unlike those multiple entrepreneurs or scams, Shu Mansheng has no intention of taking money from any of them.
At the beginning of this year, he wanted to mortgage the property in his name and use more than 7 million to complete another investment – in a hill on the outskirts of Wuhan, there is a social welfare institution with more than 100 orphans, and Shu Mansheng had his eye on that place. He wanted to use the site to build a real school. “We’ll run the school, starting from the age of two and going all the way to high school graduation.” According to his vision, he wants to do the renovation of the original school building and lay the 5G network, “There is already a playground and dormitory there, I just need to renovate it and spend money on advertising.”
The wife was the first to agree, and after the bank came to photograph the house, she reversed herself and did not sign, wanting to discuss again.
“Can you change the bank?”
“Can you lend less?”
“Can you do something else?”
……
“I used to want to do education, and that was almost a pipe dream. Now that I can afford it, my family is against it.” Shu Mansheng was a little frustrated.
After many arguments with his wife, Shu Mansheng wanted to fake a divorce and take out a mortgage on a house himself to open up the school and dispel his family’s doubts about the debts brought on by the failed investment, but he wasn’t able to convince them. He thought of going away again, driving to Beijing, promoting his ideas along the way, and getting investment. In addition to the “perfect teaching model”, he also wanted to create a “flying saucer entertainment park”, in a closed space, a family of three can enter the flying machine, even the children will operate.
“If you want people, you don’t want money. If you want money, you don’t want people. Go away and never come back, if I don’t make it, then I have no face to come back. If I make it, then it’s too busy every day, the company is spread all over the world, no time for that.” He said gamely.
He also quickly emerged from the failed development of the tri-tropical flying machine to focus his interest on another new invention: the flying backpack. According to his vision, this backpack could be worn on a person’s body, so that the person could fly anywhere, anytime. During the test flight, he planned to pull a wire rope to “limit the height” – a safety measure that he claimed was only to overcome psychological barriers.
“The craft itself is fine.” He gave a very personal explanation, “For example, I’m flying today, what if I fall down? Then I wear a little more, wear a cotton jacket, can shock absorption.”
He intends to take this “portable flying machine”, drive their own small car, all the way north. In May this year, he bought a good electric stove, portable shower equipment, “we want to go live on the road to Beijing, performing 3 minutes to take a good shower, 3 minutes to do a dish. Do you believe it or not?”
“Who’s going with you?” I asked.
“I’m alone.”
The only person who worries Shu Mansheng is his 87-year-old mother this year. In the past, Shu Mansheng test flight will bring his mother, encounter someone praise Shu Mansheng, the old man will be very happy, but someone accused Shu Mansheng build aircraft is in the crazy, she felt sad. Last year, the old man had a craniotomy, Shu Mansheng said his mother’s personality changed after the operation, the original every day to go out for a walk, jump rope, now reluctant to leave home, “said their hair is white, out of fear of others to make fun of her”.
According to the agreement, several of their brothers have to take turns to take care of their mother by week. Shu Mansheng does not intend to give up this obligation, and he thinks that when he arrives in Beijing, he will also go home once a month. According to his idea, this will not contradict the angry words of “never going home again”: “There is no home for me here, I am not coming back, I am just coming to do some work.”
Six months after I interviewed him, Shu Mansheng still hadn’t left Wuhan. In this big Shu village near the university, no one wanted to listen to him talk about any educational philosophy, and except for the civilian flight enthusiasts he met online, the locals didn’t understand why he spent his days facing scrap metal, parts, and the exaggerated rhetoric from his mouth. Too much time has passed, and in their eyes, Shu Mansheng is just an ordinary middle-aged man.
Just before going to press, Shu Mansheng told me that this month he has divorced, net, and intends to drive out next week.
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