[4] In response to this, Wang Yeqiu asked the Ningxia authorities to train people in the Tangut language, but there was nobody who could teach the language in Ningxia, so in May 1973, Li Fanwen was sent to Beijing to study under Luo Fuyi (羅福頤), the son of Luo Zhenyu, the founding father of Chinese Tangut studies.
Although the dictionary was initially accepted for publication by the Cultural Relics Publishing House, it was eventually rejected after expert review of the manuscript concluded that it was not yet mature.
For the next few years, Li Fanwen made detailed studies of primary Tangut sources such as Wen Hai (文海 "Sea of Characters") and Tong Yin (同音 "Homophones") in order to fill in the missing gaps in the dictionary coverage.
In April 1984, on his way to visit the renowned Japanese Tangutologist, Nishida Tatsuo, he was knocked off his bicycle in a traffic accident, and spent eighteen months in bed with a fractured thighbone.
In addition to his work on Tangut language, Li Fanwen has also published a comprehensive history of the Western Xia and a study of the Song dynasty Chinese dialect spoken in the north-west of China.