Thank you everyone for coming with us to bid farewell to our beloved mother.

  My mother was born on January 6, 1922 and passed away at dawn on December 9, 2012. She lived a full life of ninety years in this world, which is considered to be of advanced age. In her final days, my mother did not suffer from any pain but lost consciousness due to cardiovascular disease caused by old age. We, the younger generation, took turns accompanying her every day and she left peacefully.

  So I ask a few younger brothers, at today's memorial service, don't be too sad and don't cry out loud.

  Sorrow and wailing, it's easy to fall into a common pattern, which is what Mom dislikes. I remember ten years ago we were also here mourning Dad, from start to finish, Mom didn't cry at all, everyone thought she was too grief-stricken to be aware of her surroundings. But when we got home, in front of Dad's small desk, she suddenly burst into loud wailing, crying like a little girl. Malan hugged her and stroked her back, she cried for a very long time. From then on, for ten whole years, until she passed away herself, she never cried again, not one more tear. Her lifetime of crying and tears all stopped with Dad.

  Mom refused all kinds of collective sorrow, avoiding all sorts of patterned emotions. Today, we will follow her lead. Let's sing a unique farewell song for this one-of-a-kind life from the bottom of our hearts.

  Mom's uniqueness can be seen from a small thing. A few days ago, we were guarding mom's bedside, and the nanny Xiao Xu, who had served her for ten years, was moved to say that in ten whole years, she hadn't heard a single word of blame or scolding from her.

  I said: "You're only ten years younger than me, I'm her eldest son, how many years has it been? From young to old, I've never heard of you."

  Actually, all the uncles, aunts and elderly relatives who are present today can attest to whether there is any memory of my mother getting slightly angry in your long life memories.

  I see you all shaking your heads, yes, definitely not. In my lifetime, I've only seen my mother smile, listen, be shy, and at most, be silent. Until half a year ago when we had dinner together, I said her calligraphy was better than mine, and she blushed bright red with shyness.

  However, I want to tell the young people present today not to underestimate smiles and shyness. The old man in front of you has left a series of profound puzzles.

  For these puzzles, I had asked my mother face-to-face many times, but she just hastily brushed them off with a few words. Each time, I thought there would be another chance to ask in detail. Perhaps on a quiet afternoon without anyone else around, she could answer me bit by bit. But that opportunity never came again, and she took all the answers away with her.

  So, the puzzle in my heart became an eternal puzzle, with no one able to solve it.

  The first puzzle

  She, a rich family's daughter from a big city, in order to support a small family during the war years, actually agreed to part with her husband who worked in Shanghai and spend her beautiful youth in one of the poorest villages, where every detail of life returned to a primitive starting point that was completely unfamiliar to her. To her, it was like suddenly falling into the Stone Age. How could this be possible?

  The second puzzle

  Back in her village, within a radius of several miles, she was the only one who could read and write. She single-handedly shouldered the entire burden of enlightening civilization. She set up literacy classes, wrote letters for every household, read letters, kept accounts of firewood and grain... She was busy from dawn till dusk, but no one asked her to do so, nor did she receive any payment. How is this possible?

  The third problem

  She and Dad, this young couple, how did they venture to decide that I, their eldest son who had just been born, would enter the crucial early education in such a remote rural area? Was it taken care of by Mom alone before the very simple elementary school was established? At the age of seven, my mother decisively decided that I would no longer do homework and write essays every night, but instead replace her to write letters and keep accounts for all the villagers. She made this decision, apparently to cultivate my sense of responsibility in life, but did she not consider my studies at all?

  The fourth problem

  Some relatives and friends used to think that my mother had completed my early education by chance. This is indeed very likely. However, after I went to Shanghai for middle school, I quickly won the first prize in the city's essay competition and the grand prize in the math competition, because I had written hundreds of letters to my fellow villagers and remembered so many accounts. When my mother heard the news of my winning, she didn't feel surprised at all. Wasn't she just chance, but had expected it early?

  The Fifth Problem

  After arriving in Shanghai, I encountered famine and the "Cultural Revolution". The greatest hardship my family suffered was food, which was all taken care of by my mother. During the "Cultural Revolution", the living expenses for all the people who were "overthrown" were 26 yuan per month per household, while at that time, there were eight mouths to feed in my family, including a child who had been adopted because he had lost his parents. The family had long since run out of any extra money, and everything that was even slightly valuable had already been sold. So, how did my mother manage to make ends meet with 26 yuan for eight people? This completely unsolvable math problem, how did she get the answer day after day? All we saw was a result, which was that our whole family didn't starve to death. How exactly did she do it?

  Unlike the previous few difficult times, this difficulty occurred when I had already grown up and left some fragmented memories.

  For example, on a day during the "Cultural Revolution" disaster, my mother walked to the college where I was, and found me who had not eaten a full meal for a long time. Amidst the loud noise of the loudspeakers, she stretched out her warm palm tightly against mine. I felt that there was a banknote in between. She said that I should immediately go to the place where my father was detained. When I looked at my palm, it was a two-yuan note. Where did this money come from? I couldn't figure it out no matter how hard I thought.

  However, after a few days I found out. It turned out that my mother and several aunts were washing iron sheets in a small factory together. On such a cold day, they still had bare feet, and their whole body was drenched with water. A few dollars, this is how they earned it.

  A few days ago, my mother had lost consciousness, and I sat beside her bed for a long time holding her hand. Suddenly, like lightning, I remembered the warmth of her palm when she held mine with two yuan notes that year. It was still this same palm, now in my hands. Then, I hastily went to stroke her feet, the cold iron plate from over 40 years ago still making me shiver today.

  Mother's hands, mother's feet, our eternal life support. Are these days going to gradually cool down?

  As soon as I moved Mom's hands and feet, the quilt on her shoulders slipped a bit, and Malan hurried to tidy it up. Shoulders, Mom's shoulders, are also my family's wind and rain ridgepole.

  There are even more memories about my mother's shoulders. For example, I once wrote that during the "Cultural Revolution", when I returned home from a farm, I was shocked to see an ancestral worship table moving on its own. Upon closer inspection, I found that my mother had crawled under the table and was using her shoulders to carry it. With some family members imprisoned, others driven to death, and others exiled, there were no extra hands to help her, so she could only do it this way.

  "After the end of the 'Cultural Revolution', justice was restored, and my wrongly accused family members were all rehabilitated. I was also selected as the youngest university president in the country. However, no matter how illustrious my reputation became, the burden of providing for me still fell on my mother's shoulders. To this day, the old neighbors from our collective dormitory still remember that every few days, my mother would come to cook for me with a grey food bag slung over her shoulder, followed by my father."

  Now, many of my former colleagues are still praising my work efficiency in those years, and several publishers are rushing to publish the academic works I wrote at that time. However, only I know that half of all this was shouldered by a pair of old shoulders until Malan appeared.

  By now, I think everyone has understood that my mother's lifelong smile and shyness are not about being afraid, evading, being incompetent or mediocre. On the contrary, she has accomplished a special kind of strength.

  My mother made me understand that there is another language in the world. I remember when my father's unit "revolutionary masses" would come to threaten my mother every few days, saying that if my father did not confess his "anti-party crimes", he would "die without a burial place". My mother always listened with her head down, never refuting a word, thinking only about what she could find for the children to eat at the next meal. Later, when my uncle was forced to death in Anhui, my mother accompanied my grandmother to handle the aftermath, and the local "revolutionary masses" again loudly scolded them on the side, but my mother just held the ashes box with her head down and remained silent, letting them say whatever they wanted.

  Decades have passed and now we all know that Mother's silence was right. Those "revolutionary masses" are not worth debating. Once you debate, you enter their logical system and will be deceived for sure. What Mother insisted on is another basic principle of being a human being, which is the heavenly way and heavenly reason. Only by keeping silent can we make room for the heavenly way and heavenly reason, and leave space for history to judge.

  The moral principles in my mother's heart are higher than the conventional notions of right and wrong. My mother did not deny the importance of right and wrong, for example, during the "Cultural Revolution" disaster, she and I both knew that if I had gone to make concessions with the rebels and showed obedience, my father's situation might have changed, but I resolutely refused to do so, and she supported me in doing so. Another example is that she knew I had single-handedly confronted the "Worker's General Headquarters" thugs at a publishing house, and had also secretly presided over Shanghai's only Zhou Enlai memorial service, but she did not stop me, only saying "do things quietly, finish and leave".

  But these things are still not her ultimate goal. Her ultimate goal sounds ordinary: no matter how others make trouble, she just wants to live a good life.

  At this point, my mother was obviously superior to my father. My father was a typical Confucian who believed in the idea of "cultivating oneself, regulating one's family, governing the state, and bringing peace to the world". He would stand up for justice every day and suffered greatly as a result. Until ten years ago, he was still being slandered by three newspapers in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Tianjin, which eventually led to his death. The trembling handwriting on those newspapers at his bedside was his last will. In fact, my father and mother were of the same age, but my mother lived for another ten years because she simply didn't listen to those malicious words. Therefore, these malicious words could only torment my father, but not harm my mother.

  In contrast, I once said that as a Chinese person, I will never forget the hatred for killing my father; but I am also a son of my mother, and I understand that I must not let myself be controlled by evil words. I think friends will agree with me, I was more influenced by my mother.

  Many readers are puzzled as to why I have been surrounded by so many rumors in the media, yet I never explain or rebut. Once you've seen my mother, you'll understand.

  Finally, I would like to use a distant past event as the conclusion of this eulogy.

  When I was six years old, on a summer evening, my mother crossed over two mountains, Wu Shi Ridge and Da Miao Ridge, to visit her maternal uncle's family at Shanglin Lake. She had to return that night. To surprise my mother, I went alone to meet her by crossing the mountain. At that time, there were still many wild beasts on the mountain, but I was not afraid at all. Later, on the top of the second mountain, I met a beggar family who lived in a broken pavilion and advised me not to go any further, but I didn't listen to them. Finally, after crossing the second mountain, I saw my mother. Now that I think about it, my mother was also very brave, so young and beautiful, walking alone on the dark mountain road at night. However, what's more interesting is that when my mother saw me on the mountain road, she wasn't surprised, didn't scold me, didn't ask questions, but just happily said a sentence "Autumn rain has come", then held my hand tightly and walked back with me warmly. This scene fits perfectly with the title of Brecht's play: "The Brave Mother and Her Children".

  Yes, my lifelong boldness, from the root, comes from my mother. More than a decade ago, I traveled tens of thousands of kilometers to explore human ancient civilization ruins filled with terrorist dangers, and was praised by international media as "the bravest humanities professor in the world today". In fact, every step of the way was still led by my mother's warm hands years ago.

  Mom, you know, the place I've chosen for your final rest is just by that mountain road. Dad is already resting there, and on the other side of the mountain road are Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle, and your father - our grandfather. So, you won't be lonely.

  You spend this cold winter in Shanghai first, and next spring, I will lead my younger brothers to send you there.

  Mom, this is our mountain road, our valley. Now, the beasts can't be found anymore, the pavilion on the top of the mountain has long collapsed, and the beggar's home is gone too. What remains are still those mountain winds, that moonlight, those flower trees.

  Mom, I really don't want to see you go. But what I even more can't bear is to keep you in this world any longer. This world has been a bit too much for you. Ninety whole years, the more I think about it, the more heart-wrenching it gets. Then just rest there, mom.

  Thank you everyone for chatting with me and mom for so long.

  At 4:30 pm on December 13th, 2012, at Mom's memorial service.