 Madame Chen taught Zhou to read and write at an early age, and Zhou later claimed to have read the famous vernacular novel "Journey to the West" at the age of six.By the age of eight, he was reading other traditional Chinese novels, including "the Water Margin", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and "Dream of the Red Chamber".Zhou's birth mother Wan died in 1907 when Zhou was 9, and his adoptive mother Chen in 1908 when Zhou was 10.