Mountain

1. Read it through in one sitting without looking things up midway, to preserve the experience of the premise being revealed.
2. Afterward, reflect on how the author establishes the rules of a world in a small number of pages, then decide whether to reread.
3. Read it alongside other Liu Cixin short stories to see his recurring techniques for handling grand premises.
4. If using it for discussion, have each person write down their interpretation of the ending first, then exchange views on the differences.

Founded in 1988 and affiliated with China CITIC Group, CITIC Press focuses on business and economics, social sciences, literature and children's books, with common categories covering social sciences, finance, literature, Eastern philosophy and literary appreciation. Its library holds 91 titles, including Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens trilogy, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Wu Xiaobo's Thirty Years of Strife: Chinese Enterprises 1978–2008, Nelly Sachs's The Weight of Butterflies: Selected Poems of Nelly Sachs, as well as New Interpretations of the Analects and Chiang Hsun's lectures on Dream of the Red Chamber. Its authors and translators include Lin Junhong, Ba Shusong, Chen Li and Chang Fen-ling. Overall, the press introduces influential works in finance and social sciences while balancing classic translation and local appreciation in literature and Eastern philosophy, combining academic depth with accessible reading.