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During the Jin Dynasty (266-420), there was a child called Che Yin. He was smart and loved to read. He grew up in a poor family and couldn't lamp (灯) oil to study at night.
One night, he fireflies (萤火虫) outside his house and came up with an idea. He caught some fireflies and put them a cloth (布) bag and hung the bag up as a lamp. It was said that he all of his summer nights reading like this.
Another child named Sun Kang lived during the same . At that time, a lot of people loved reading very much. One night during , Sun used up all of his lamp oil and couldn't study at night. When he suddenly up at midnight, he noticed the thick snow reflecting the moonlight. His first thought was "Oh, I can use the reflected light to read!" He still took out his books and read, even if it was very .
Both of the kids later became government officers. People were touched by their hard-working . Their stories inspired (启发) the Chinese idiom(成语) nangying yingxue, or "to read by the light of bagged fireflies or the reflected light of snow".
