Although he is just a mailman in Wuhan, Xiong Guilin went beyond what his job required when the Hubei provincial capital was hit hard by the novel coronavirus earlier this year.

"When the city was reeling from a hard blow by the coronavirus outbreak, there was no online shop willing to mail books to Wuhan," he said.

The city was put under lockdown on Jan 23. Public transport stopped, as did express deliveries and retail businesses.

But in some of the remote villages in the city's suburban Jiangxia district where he works, children left in their grandparents' care by parents who earn a living in other cities needed the books to keep studying at home.

So Xiong decided to drive to the city's downtown, over 65 kilometers from the district's postal station, to buy the books for them.

"I was afraid. What if I got infected? But I couldn't give up because the seniors and kids needed me," he said.

"The kids really hankered for books at the time, and we can't discourage them and their desire for knowledge."

With over 30 years' work experience in the city's remote areas, the 48-year-old was recently honored as a national model worker on Tuesday at a ceremony attended by President Xi Jinping.

In the eight villages he serves, most of the dwellers are childless seniors and left-behind children. These groups are highly sensitive to the coronavirus and lack supplies to protect their health.

Xiong tried every possible way to buy supplies for the seniors and children amid the pandemic. He allocated all the masks and disinfectants and wrote down the villagers' names with care.

"I've known some of these seniors for about 20 or even 30 years. They always come to me when facing any problem," he said.

"Usually, I write down whatever they want, like rice, salt or cigarettes, and bring them their stuff when I deliver their mail or parcels."

"I usually buy 20 or 30 items a day, but that reached 78 during the pandemic," he said. "I started work at 6 am and finished around 10 pm. It's okay for me, as long as the villagers need my help."

Xiong said that he and his family lived a very hard life when he was a child, and he received lots of help and care from neighbors and the government.

"I got help from warm-hearted people, and now it's my turn to pass down the warmth to those who need my help," he said. "My mother also told me to be a good man and do good things to benefit people around me."

In the past 30 years, Xiong has traveled about 585,000 kilometers delivering a total of about 355 metric tons of mail to the villagers.

"Whatever I've done is worthwhile because of the villagers' trust and recognition," he said.