The past year was a peaceful one. Whether it was the transition of the system or political changes, nothing could be called magnificent. At least compared to the past, I didn't feel anything peculiar.

The reason I can say this is solely due to my background. As a Ph.D. student in the philosophy department, currently studying history, I completely locked myself in the library. Thick walls isolated the dampness, isolated the cold or heat. All measures that could prolong the storage life of books were taken, as if I myself could be isolated from society by such protection.

My grandfather, Mr. Wang Guowei, was very prestigious at Peking University. His students, as long as they are still alive today, are all well-known figures in the literary and historical circles. Including Marshal Wang Shan of the Republic.

The editors of the New York Times asked me for a draft. I knew they had a special "affection" for the families of the so-called "high-ranking intellectuals" of the Republic, because those who survived the revolution would attack China's ruling party and Chairman Chen Ke. So I really wanted to submit to them, not to attack, but holding a fantasy that they would publish my article word for word. My grandfather said that history always needs to be recorded by someone. As a person engaged in history, one must write one's own things. This is the duty of a historian and the duty of a historical recorder.

But I cannot recount too much, because I haven't experienced much. By 1963, my twenty-two years of life hadn't left me with many memories.

The first time I saw Chairman Chen Ke was in 1945. I was four years old that year, meeting him for the first time. Marshal Wang Shan and my father visited Chairman Chen Ke together during the New Year, and incidentally, they brought a manuscript written by my grandfather, Wang Guowei. Chairman Chen Ke's wife, Ms. He Ying, treated me with handmade pastries. The pastries were delicious; one piece couldn't satisfy my appetite at all. But besides me, there were Chairman Chen Ke's three children in the living room. There were six pastries in total, and the four of us couldn't divide them evenly. So the eldest sister, Chen Xiang, voluntarily gave up her right to a share, while her two younger brothers hoped even more that I would give up my expectation for the pastries. For me at that time, this was unacceptable.

Hostility turned into animosity, animosity turned into a quarrel, and then it alarmed the adults in the room. When Chairman Chen Ke smiled and handed a piece of pastry to me, my father scolded me uneasily, so I cried. Then Chairman Chen Ke wiped away my tears with a hot towel brought by his wife, and smiled at my father, saying: "It's natural for children to want to eat." My father said something else, which I have long forgotten, but Chairman Chen Ke's clear and gentle voice remained in my impression: "If you make them not want to eat, that is anti-human. There is no such logic in history." This was the first time I heard the word history, and also the first time someone directly expressed such firm support for me. Perhaps for this reason, I became interested in history.

Later, I was never able to see Chairman Chen Ke again, except on television. In early 1963, which was the last time Chairman Chen Ke attended the National People's Congress before he passed away, I don't know if it was recklessness or bravery, or some other reason, but during the public Q&A, a young CPPCC representative asked Chairman Chen Ke such words from the podium. "Chairman Chen, I want to ask you, in the revolution, land reform, movements, rectification, suppression of counter-revolutionaries, and so on that you led, there are so many people who have now been proven to be innocent victims. What do their deaths mean to you? Millions of people lost their lives for what? Even before dying, many of these people were even shouting 'Long live Chairman Chen'. As far as I know, you also privately wrote many notes trying to save many people, yet these people were still executed. What do these people mean to you? Are you China's savior? Or China's disaster?"

As far as I learned later, the broadcast at that time was completely delayed, but Chairman Chen Ke stopped the director from switching. On that young face, where time's carvings could hardly be seen, was a terrifying calmness. I happened to be watching the televised meeting at that time because rumors had been circulating outside that Chairman Chen Ke was about to pass away. And the source of what seemed to be this rumor at the time was Chairman Chen Ke himself. He did indeed tell the people around him that his life was coming to an end. My interest at that time was the same as everyone else's: to see how this source of the rumor approached death. Regarding this leader of the Republic, one cannot help but study him carefully; if this motive, which does not stem from sympathy, were applied to another person, I might be blamed by my own conscience. But a Chairman of the Republic, Chairman of the Party, a National Representative of the Republic, it seems he himself should be like his power, always above the law, and perhaps even the cycle of life and death should be transcended. This seventy-eight-year-old man had a composed attitude, an upright torso, and a loud voice, enough to make physiologists marvel in admiration. There were many such people during the revolutionary period, all befitting that era. From this person, we can imagine the kind of people who have been tempered by fire. Even at this age where death is close at hand, he still completely maintained a healthy state. His piercing gaze, firm tone, and robust shoulder movements were all enough to make the Grim Reaper stand in awe. And on television, I simply couldn't see a single wrinkle, a single strand of white hair. Except for being slightly fatter, compared to photos from his youth, he had not changed.

"Regarding the matter of killing, I have never approved of it. I don't believe I have the right to execute a person based on my own likes and dislikes; but I feel I have the obligation to eliminate that evil force. The comrades and I announced the doom of that old society, which means eliminating the prostitution system for women, eliminating the slavery system for men, and eliminating unfortunate lives for children. While leading the socialist revolution, I also promoted all of that. I sponsored freedom, fraternity, and the dawn! I exerted effort to break heresies and fallacies. The collapse of heresies and fallacies created light. We people overthrew the old world. The old society was like a water vat filled with suffering; once it is overturned, it opens up the joy of the people."

The venue was silent. A friend of mine was a guard at the time, standing outside the venue door. He told me that at that time, apart from Chairman Chen Ke's voice inside the venue, no one was speaking. So much so that when Chairman Chen Ke paused, he even suspected the venue was empty.

"The revolutionary cause is never accomplished overnight, I admit; we destroyed the old system in practical matters, but we failed to completely uproot it in the ideological field. Eliminating bad habits is not enough; we must also shift the ethos. The windmill no longer exists, but the wind still exists. When someone tells me that land reform only harvested hatred and did not receive the people's support, what I want to tell them is that the suffering created by the old land system is what gave the people hatred. If the new system cannot be promoted, we cannot harvest happiness. Some people say that the backbone of the grassroots cadres are those small landlords and middle peasants, and land reform only left them with painful memories. I want to say that they were merely born as small landlords and middle peasants. When they shouted 'Comrades, follow me and charge', they were just members of the Party and the revolutionary army, not some small landlords and middle peasants."

Chairman Chen Ke's voice was high-pitched and clear, yet it seemed as if there was a metallic scraping mixed in his voice, like his consistent fortitude and firmness, "There are quite a few people who always deliberately emphasize the background of our comrades, as if this background created everything about them. This deliberate prejudice and misleading only demonstrate their fear. Revolution is anger against the old society, and righteous anger is a progressive factor. It doesn't matter. No matter what the world says, the Chinese revolution is a revolution unprecedented in history. It smashed everything, and then created everything. It is the most effective step forward for mankind. Incomplete, of course it is, but how superb. It exposed all the dark curtains in society. It washed away people's bad habits; it played a stabilizing, calming, and civilizing role. It once caused the torrent of culture to spread across the world. It is benevolent. The Chinese revolution is the supreme glory of mankind."

"After the land reform, some people within the Party talked about saving the country through industry, some talked about saving the country through education, and some talked about saving the country through science and technology. But what I want to tell them is that revolution is the only way to save China. Their so-called saving the country is merely them trying to use some rigid old things to bind and enslave the people. Using certain standards that can ensure their status to distinguish the people, and finally the trick to let them rule and enslave the people. Industry, education, science and technology are merely tools, tools for the people to explore and realize the path of liberation, not existences that override the people."

"Later, some people preached populism, hoping to act as the people's conscience, and then seize power and status. And another part of people claimed that the people's nature is lazy. If the people are allowed to voice their demands, then it must be that we want to reap without sowing, we must want comfort and pleasure. No matter which side, they first regard the people as lazy, and then use various systems they expect to establish to induce, deceive, and anesthetize the people. In 1840, the British used opium to poison the people, and domestically, things left over from that old society were confusing and poisoning the people spiritually. Those families that once gained power, without exception, selected members within the family who had shaken off laziness and ignorance. Then these people expelled, demoted, and even killed members who could not meet their requirements. To them, if they were so cruel to their own blood relatives, the lives of the people were even less worth mentioning. What they looked forward to was to select their own kind who could be as cruel as them through establishing the system in their ideals, and then let them enslave and rule the people forever."

"As I said before, background does not represent the stance of comrades within the Party. The positions of comrades within the Party also do not represent their stance. We all come from the old world, and we all carry traces of the old world. It's just that some are closer to the new world, and some are further from the new world. Like fascism, bureaucracy, state capitalism, they are all just differences in degree, not differences in essence. This was originally the norm, and what I have dedicated myself to is to push the pace of the times, which they tried to halt, constantly towards the future. This is not just establishing a new system for China, nor is it just establishing a new system for the entire Western Pacific. It is not even the new system currently being established in the Middle East and Africa. It is a new system for all mankind. Anyone who tries to halt and solidify the existing social form, and tries to make it last for generations, is what I want to overthrow. Even if they wave my banner, quote my words, or as you said, shout 'Long live me' before being shot, it is all the same. What we need to see is that in the previous two thousand years, more people died under the operation of this system, and it was meaningless. History has drunk enough blood, yet there was no propulsion. What is the significance of such tragic sacrifice? The deaths of those people were precisely the sacrifices that promoted the development of Chinese history. Their deaths were precisely the declaration of the end of the old era. For those who adhered to the old era, they themselves instead became representatives and banners. They became sacrifices on the altar of the era's end."

Speaking of this, Chairman Chen Ke paused. He stared with a sharp gaze at the representative whose face was already pale, whose arms were stiff, and whose palms had unconsciously begun to spasm. Then he smiled, "Young man, look at you. If it were in the era I look forward to, your questioning of me should be calm and composed, because you have no fear, no panic towards something you cannot resist. Because you are free. You wouldn't gamble for some reward given to you by outsiders, and naturally, there wouldn't be punishment corresponding to your gambling for benefits. This world is balanced. When you submit to the old system, you also lose freedom. No matter what you do right or wrong for that old system, they will eventually punish you. You alone, originally had no way out; yet why join them. The old system relies on devouring human lives, enslaving, and driving people to run on the track of devouring lives. What things can't those man-eating systems do? They can't touch me, but they will eat me. Within a gang, they will also eat themselves. I never believe that doing something right can make up for past mistakes. Just like a white wall, as long as you draw a stroke on it, even if you repair that wall so that the trace of the drawing cannot be seen, does that stroke not exist? So-called repentance has always been self-deception. But as long as you turn a step, that thing no longer exists, then learn everything from new things, start everything from new things. New systems are always like this, so we can also no longer fear."

The broadcast was interrupted. Rumors about various subsequent events were diverse, but what I can be sure of is that Chairman Chen Ke passed away a month later, and that CPPCC member who questioned him in public committed suicide five days after Chairman Chen passed away.

This last matter was what I heard from Marshal Wang Shan. At the moment Chairman Chen passed away, numerous high officials of the Republic waiting outside poured into the room. Marshal Wang Shan did not join that grieving crowd. He only noticed a copy of Zizhi Tongjian beside the Chairman. Among the open pages was a sentence: "If there were no lone one in the world, one wonders how many would call themselves Emperor, and how many would call themselves King."