Wangwu Mountain in Henan province is seeing more tourists as awareness of the "Yugong spirit" increases. [Photo by Yang Feiyue/China Daily]

"The Yugong (name of the man in the fable) spirit is what visitors look forward to here," says Gu Luyu, a local tour guide.

The fable's author Lie Yukou, from the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), was inspired by a real-life story of a man who helped build a road in the area.

The story was widely popularized after being quoted by Mao Zedong in 1945, in a call for collective action against imperialism and feudalism.

President Xi Jinping has also proposed the story and gave it a new era spirit since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012. Xi also mentioned the story when talking about connectivity at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing in 2014, as well as while talking about poverty alleviation in 2015.