Having interviewed his family and dug through historical documents, Liu Tao and Zhang Hongwei have unearthed more details of the life of Zhang Jianmin that correspond with his financial records.

Zhang Jianmin was born to a poor family in 1926, and his father had to borrow money to pay for his primary school tuition fees. In the 1930s, Zhang entered middle school having topped the entrance exam.

The family of his deskmate paid for his tuition and made it possible for him to continue his studies.

Perhaps influenced by these early experiences, Zhang was very generous with lending money to those in need. In the book, Liu cites many records of him lending money to neighbors, friends and relatives. Liu even believes that Zhang's habit of keeping financial records from the age of 36 had much to do with the fact that he couldn't afford textbooks, so he had to copy them out on paper.

Despite the tight economic conditions during his employment, the Communist Party of China official remained on the straight and narrow. In 1973, when Zhang received a delegation of Buddhist monks from Japan who visited a local temple in Shanxi province, there were records of him paying the temple money for every meal he had there. This was a common practice for officials at the time to reduce costs for grassroots organizations.

Other records that frequently appeared in Zhang's little notebooks from the 1950s to the 1980s were repair costs. His own shoes, mostly the heels, had been repaired many times; the zipper of his handbag was repaired at least twice; and two umbrellas were repaired in the 1950s. His children's socks and shorts were repaired, too. Liu concluded in the book that Zhang would wear clothes until they were so worn-out as to no longer fit his body.

This was common for Chinese people at that time because new items were very expensive, so repairs were a lower-cost alternative.

Even amid the tight economic conditions, Zhang spared money for his family's cultural activities.

From July to December 1952, for example, his family visited opera houses and museums 10 times, almost once every two weeks. In October 1956, his family watched films and operas three times within a month. He was also fond of buying the paper programs for the films and operas his family watched.

The official was also a book lover because there are quite a number of records of purchasing books — as many as 125 books — every year in the four decades. His purchases always followed the trends of the decade, as he bought a report on addressing Yellow River disasters in the early 1950s echoing the national leadership's call for curbing natural disasters, and some pamphlets on contraception echoing the national policy of family planning.

His love of books must have been a habit for life, as during the wars before 1949, he traveled without quilts in the army for months but kept a set of dictionaries by his side.