In Remembrance of the Sages of the Past

The wind brushed my face, and the rain nourished all living things. Looking back, I seemed to see the revolutionary martyrs giving their lives and shedding their blood for their country and its people, willingly facing death and setting their own lives aside. They dyed the earth red with heroic blood, forged an everlasting monument with their great lives, and lifted the hopes of a new China with their unyielding souls. History would surely remember them.

The sun rose amid the rosy dawn, and dewdrops refracted a rainbow of colors. Breathing in the fresh air and quietly savoring the beauty of all things in the world, I felt how fortunate it was to live in such a peaceful country. I understood that this was bought with their lives, though they had never enjoyed such happiness themselves. Two streams of tears fell, and sorrow welled in my heart. I couldn't help remembering these words: "Before true heroes, any sorrow or pity is an insult to them. All we can do is admire them." Indeed, this was your choice, your faith, and what you did for the happiness of more than a billion Chinese people.

"Life is what I desire, and righteousness is also what I desire. If I cannot have both, I will give up life and choose righteousness." Whenever I read stories of the red martyrs, I think of how Mencius made this choice thousands of years ago, and how thousands of years later, when the Chinese nation stood on the brink of extinction, the martyrs resolutely made the same historic choice. Amid the cries to charge, there were the solemn oaths aboard the Red Boat of Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing and the steadfast figures of young students in the May Fourth Movement. There were the long trails of footprints left by soldiers crossing snowcapped mountains and grasslands, and, more than that, the patriotic spirit of countless people of noble ideals who put the world before themselves. This was the righteousness you passed down, a righteousness filled with patriotic fervor, the precious spiritual legacy you left to generations to come.

A single spark can start a prairie fire. Building a new socialist China was the lifelong ideal for which the Chinese people, after a century of humiliation, struggled. It was this revolutionary ideal that urged countless martyrs to endure the countless hardships and dangers along the Long March, withstand the Kuomintang reactionaries' White Terror, and set the Chinese nation on the path to standing tall in the East. Under the leadership of the great Communist Party of China, even as we faced the ceaseless harassment of hostile Western forces, even as we faced all kinds of irresistible natural disasters, and even as we faced sudden epidemics, we remained undaunted. Standing at the forefront of reform and opening up, we sang the "Story of Spring," raised high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and strode toward the goal of becoming a powerful socialist country. Without your sacrifice, how could any of this have been achieved? With your own sparks, you kindled a blazing fire across the whole of China.

Time will not forget, history will not forget, and the people will never forget. They will not forget those shining names, the sparks that kept burning in the darkness until they became a prairie fire, or a single hero who shed blood for the revolution, each drop, and did not hesitate to give up their life. On the centenary of the Party's founding, may the spirits of the revolutionary martyrs find solace. And we will take up your torch and use the power of our lives to fulfill the dreams you left unfinished!

The author's note