Zou Weiluo is a 13-year-old boy from Shanghai. Doctors said he would not live past his fourth birthday because of a rarerare/rɛr/L2罕见的；稀有的not happening often or not found in large numbers; unusual muscle disease. However, he recently graduated as a star student from his primary school. His classmates call him the "straight-A student who rides a Transformer." Zou uses an electric wheelchair, which his father helped customizecustomize/ˈkʌstəmaɪz/L2定制；按个人需求修改to change something to fit the needs or preferences of a particular person.
Zou's mother, Zhang Ying, has attended every class with him for five years. She was worried at first because he was frailfrail/freɪl/L2虚弱的；脆弱的physically weak and not very strong or healthy and had never been to kindergarten. But the principal accepted Zou without hesitationhesitation/ˌhɛzɪˈteɪʃən/L2犹豫；迟疑the act of pausing before doing something because you are unsure or nervous. "Every child has the right to learn," she said. Classmates soon became his friends. They help him with textbooks and repeat his answers for the teacher.
Zou loves reading and math. He often gets the highest scoresscores/skɔːrz/L1分数，成绩numbers that show how well you did on a test on exams. Writing is very difficult for him because of low muscle strength. In 2021, a medicine for his disease became much cheaper in China. It went from 700,000 yuan to 33,000 yuan per injection. Zou also had surgery to help his spine. While waiting for the operation, he recitedrecited/rɪˈsaɪtɪd/L2背诵；朗诵to say a poem, story, etc. from memory, usually in a formal way a poem to calm his nerves.
Next year, Zou will start middle school. The school promised to fix a door threshold so his wheelchair can pass. His mother says his education is about learning and making friends. She told him, "Kid, you'd better live longer so we can go take the national college entrance exam together." Zou has already gone further than anyone expected.
