Kuang Heng studied hard without a candle. His neighbor had a candle but didn't catch it. Balance is to send its light through the wall and read it with a book that reflects the light. City people can't read their surnames. They have money at home and many books. Therefore, Heng is cooperating with him, not claiming compensation. The master was surprised and asked Heng, who said, "May the master read all the books." The host sighed, gave books and became a university.

Digging for a bright translation;

Kuang Heng is diligent and studious, but there are no candles at home. There are candles next door, but the light can't reach his house. Therefore, Kuang Heng dug a hole in the wall to attract the light from his neighbors, so that it could be read in a book. There is a large family in the county, which is not very literate, but it is rich and has many books. Kuang Heng went to his house as an employee, but he didn't want to be paid. The host was surprised and asked him why. He said, "I hope to read all the books of the host family." Hearing this, the master sighed deeply, so he lent Kuang Heng a book (to help Kuang Heng read it). So Kuang Heng became a great scholar.

This article is excerpted from Liu Xin's Miscellanies of Xijing in Han Dynasty.

Classical allusions of China in Miscellanies of Xijing;

In the Western Han Dynasty, there was a farmer's child named Kuang Heng. He wanted to study very much when he was a child, but because his family was poor, he couldn't afford to go to school. Later, he learned to read from a relative before he could read.

Kuang Heng can't afford books, so he has to borrow books to read. At that time, books were so valuable that people who had books refused to lend them to others easily. During the busy farming season, Kuang Heng worked as a short-term worker for wealthy families and asked them to lend him books for free.

A few years later, Kuang Heng grew up and became the main labor force in the family. He works in the field all day, and only has time to read a little book during his lunch break, so it often takes ten days and a half months to finish reading a book. Kuang Heng was in a hurry, thinking: I grow crops during the day and have no time to read, so I can spend more time reading at night. But Kuang Heng's family is too poor to buy oil for lighting. What should we do?

One night, Kuang Heng was lying in bed reciting the books he had read during the day. Behind me, I suddenly saw a light coming through the east wall. He stood up and went to the wall to have a look. Ah! It turned out that the neighbor's light came through the cracks in the wall. So Kuang Heng thought of a way: he picked up a knife and dug several cracks in the wall. In this way, the light coming through is also very big, so he gathered the light coming through and began to read.

Kuang Heng studied so hard that he became a learned man.