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【阅读理解】Reading: The Tanner Who Poisoned His Own River
Mei first noticed the smell when she stood on the Qinglong footbridge in 2023.
It was not the bacterial tang of the old canal, but something sweeter—wet stone, cut grass, a faint mineral breath she had not smelled since 2003.
With her clipboard, she counted eleven species of dragonfly in forty minutes.
In 2015, she had counted only two.
Mei, a 41-year-old hydrologist, had spent seven years chasing a stubborn question: why did this 12-kilometre stretch of water recover while six comparable rivers nearby stayed dead?
The official version credited a 240-million-yuan cleanup.
The unofficial version, whispered by fishermen, credited a man who had died in 2018.
His name was Old Zhou, and he had been a tanner, a polluter, and—according to his own autobiography, self-published in 2016—a criminal who had poisoned his own womb of a river.
That phrase, 'my river, my womb,' had embarrassed his family.
It also turned out to be the essence of the problem.
Zhou had run a leather workshop from 1987 to 2009.
His vats discharged chromium and ammonia directly into the canal; the excreta of his trade settled into the silt.
For two decades, the water ran black.
Fish died.
Children were told to refrain from swimming.
The local government, lax and underfunded, issued warnings but little else.
Zhou's son, Wei, now 38, remembers being bullied at school because of the smell that clung to his clothes.
'They called me the river boy,' he said.
'I hurled my uniform into the bin every Friday.'
Then came the drought of 2010.
The canal dropped to a depth of 30 centimetres.
The stench saturated three neighbourhoods.
Something shifted.
Zhou, by then 61 and diagnosed with cancer, began to read.
He studied hydrology pamphlets, attended a lecture on sustainable drainage, and discovered that his own wastewater had created an impermeable layer under the bed.
The fix wasn't just removal of chemicals; it was reintroduction of oxygen and native plants.
He proposed a plan to the district board: 14 species of reed, 3 species of snail, and a strict specification for discharge.
They rejected him twice.
On the third try, in 2014, they gave him 60,000 yuan and a one-year trial.
He was told not to expect a miracle.
He didn't.
The first year, the reeds died.
The second year, they returned—thinner, but alive.
By 2017, dissolved oxygen had risen from 1.1 to 6.8 milligrams per litre.
Dragonfly larvae reappeared.
Wei, who had refused to speak to his father for years, began helping on weekends.
'He would crouch by the water,' Wei said, 'and reiterate the same instruction: check the flow, check the shade, check the snails.'
'He was not an attractive man.'
'He was not even a good man.'
'But he was decisive.'
Zhou died in March 2018, four months before the official reopening.
The ceremony was monumental—ribbon, speeches, a bronze plaque.
No one mentioned him.
Mei found his notebooks in a plastic crate: 41 volumes, some water-stained, some with pressed leaves interweaved between pages.
The entries were not motivational.
They were obsessive.
'Day 1,204: pH 7.2. Fish small, silver. Two children asked me what I was doing. I could not answer.'
Today the canal supports 19 fish species and a weekly market of 40 stalls.
Property values along the east bank have risen 34 percent since 2019.
Yet the pollution has not vanished; it has moved.
Three of the six comparable rivers still fail bacterial tests, and a new industrial zone upstream has begun to discharge at night.
Mei's data shows nitrate levels creeping up again.
She has requested a meeting with the district board.
They have not replied.
On the bridge, a boy leans over the rail, pointing at a fish.
His mother pulls him back.
'Don't touch,' she says.
'You don't know what's in there.'
The fish, a pale flash, disappears under the reeds.
Mei writes the time in her notebook: 16:42.
Then she writes a single word—unresolved—and closes the cover.
Questions
1. What did Old Zhou do between 1987 and 2009?
A. He worked as a hydrologist for the district board. B. He led a cleanup project funded by the government. C. He ran a leather workshop that polluted the canal. D. He wrote pamphlets about sustainable drainage.
2. How much money did the district board give Zhou for his trial in 2014?
A. 30,000 yuan B. 240,000 yuan C. 60,000 yuan D. 240 million yuan
3. The word 'interweaved' in 'some with pressed leaves interweaved between pages' is closest in meaning to:
A. removed completely B. woven together C. hidden away D. torn apart
4. What can be inferred about the official reopening ceremony in 2018?
A. It was attended by Wei, who gave a speech. B. It honored Zhou for his contributions to the canal. C. It failed to recognize the person who initiated the recovery. D. It was cancelled because of Zhou's death.
5. Which of the following best serves as a title for the passage?
A. How Property Values Rose Along the East Bank B. The Return of Dragonflies to Qinglong Canal C. The Tanner Who Poisoned His Own River D. A Government's Successful Cleanup Project