An intricate mushroom drawing by Wu Xipeng. [Photo/lsnews.com.cn]

Although he dropped out of school at the age of 9 due to poor family finances, he kept learning new things and showed great interest in mushrooms at an early age.

Qingyuan has a long history of mushroom cultivation and he was helped by the cultural hall in the village, which had many books on the subject.

As a boy, when he saw mushrooms while herding cattle, Wu would draw them on the ground with twigs and look for references about them later in the cultural hall.

At the age of 15, he finally got the chance to work in a mushroom cultivation testing center. After that, nothing could stop him and he never ceased researching and developing mushrooms.

"As long as I can move, I'll keep studying," Wu says.

Last year, his book on mushrooms in Qingyuan was published, containing 352 intricate illustrations of wild mushrooms, all drawn by Wu. The original manuscript contained 1,355 pictures and more than 700,000 Chinese words and he is stilling adding more material.