My dearest son, Zhengfeng,
Do you still remember that ten years ago when the Tomb-sweeping Day was coming, you returned home from the boarding high school at the weekend, carrying your school bag? When you walked across the street in the town, you found some people were "practicing Gong." You were so curious that you elbowed your way through the crowd to have a clear shot. One of the practitioners asked you to join them and gave you a book named Zhuan Falun in a mysterious manner.
You were kind-hearted from childhood; whenever the beggars came, you always gave them some food. Once we met a beggar on our way to the city, you asked two Yuan from me to give him. After you read Zhuan Falun, you were fascinated by "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance," but lost interests in your study gradually. You didn't want the teachers and your classmates to know what you were doing, so you read Zhuan Falun, studied it, or even recited it under your quilt secretly. At last, they discovered your secret. The teachers talked with you, your classmates tried to persuade you. Besides, I was asked to go to the school helping you. However, all we got was the silence from you. Yet when you met your fellow practitioners, you were always full of energy, talking about "Consummation" and "ascension in broad daylight," eager to know whether Master Li Hongzhi published any new scriptures. We tried everything to cut the connection between you and Falun Gong, but you still managed to attend the Fa conferences or Fa study gatherings with others. Your classmates told us, you looked like a drug-taker every time you came back from these activities, excited, claiming "the Earth is doomed" and how mighty the Master was, and you practitioners would soon reach Consummation. This made your mother and I extremely worried. But we did not want to influence your schooling, so we planned to wake you up during the summer vacation.
When the vacation came, I went to the school to take you back home. I found that you became more depressed and looked primness in your eyes, without the interest to address me. I felt so upset, but did not blame you, placing hopes on the possible change during the summer vacation. When I helped you with packaging, I found the book Zhuan Falun and some tapes. I opened that book and to my first sight was the "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance." This action made you excited; you told me these were the scriptures of Li Hongzhi and worth of studying, and I should practice Falun Gong with you. I was very angry, but I asked you cautiously where you got them. You answered "the instructor" gave them to you and the he admired your "enlightenment ability."
During the vacation, you were away from the "scriptures" and tapes of Falun Gong, but you murmured all day long, reciting your Master's "scriptures" fluently. I never heard you reciting your texts like that. You didn't talk with your mother or me, whispering with yourself; sometimes, you looked like talking with someone invisible. You would never know how badly that hurt us. To help you out, we decided to send you to your eldest uncle who lived in Shanghai and changed the environment for you. At first, little progress was seen; your angry uncle threw Zhuan Falun and tapes out of the window. After one year of isolation from Falun Gong, your situation got better. Then you finished the third grade of the high school and had the university entrance examination of 1999 with the result of 329 scores.
The test score gap between your normal result and what you really got was at least 200. You were not qualified to enter any state university. When the offer from a private college in Hunan Province came we refused, for fear that you would continue to practice Falun Gong when you were away from home. One of your cousins was a section chief in a cotton mill at that time, so we went there with you and asked him to give you a job as well as to take care of you. It's a nice job indeed: you got more than 1,000 Yuan every month and all kinds of social welfare. We were satisfied; but never imaged you would meet other fellow Falun Gong practitioners there. And this time, you fell deep into the cult, and were absent from work to practice Falun Gong. The factory finally fired you since you were hopeless.
After leaving the cotton mill, we found you another job at an electronic plant in Shanghai. Busy with preaching and rectifying the Fa, again you failed in your work and were dismissed.
To cut the connection with Falun Gong, your mother and I decided to change you by arranging a marriage. We selected two girls for you. Both of them were nice, and your 180cm height and handsome face conquered them, too. But they broke up with you because you could not stop practicing Falun Gong.
We tried to persuade you thousands of times, talking with you about Chen Guo who burnt herself at Tiananmen Square, showing you the pathetic end of the Falun Gong addicts. But you smiled coldly, reciting your master's scripture, "There is no difference in terms of the realm of Consummation and the progress towards Consummation – wherever you're supposed to reach Consummation, you're sure to go there." (The reporter found these words came from Li Hongzhi, Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North America on December 9, 2000). And then you told us Chen Guo had entered the Paradise! We were hair-raising by hearing this.
Totally despaired, we sent you to the Restriction Class for obsessed Falun Gong followers. But you didn't get any better after more than a month there.
You were still dispirited and murmuring all day long. That made us suspect you got sick. After examination in a hospital, the result confirmed our suspect: you got schizophrenia. Like being struck by lightning, we were all knocked down.
Sadly, we had to brace ourselves up for the shock. We accompanied you all the time, so you could not do anything silly. I tried to talk with you, but you would not have any word with me. You always murmured, "Mom, dad, your son will go to Paradise, but how will you do?"
Time dragged by. On the 25th of the 12th month 2005 in the lunar calendar, or January 24 in 2006, came the day I would never forget. I left you for a while, because I had to do something in the village. About half an hour later, an exhausted neighbor run toward me and told: "Something goes wrong with Zhengfeng!" I hurried home and found you fell in the pigpen, died from burning. My son, why must you spill the gasoline of the rice planter on your body and burn yourself when I wasn't at home?
My son, I regret that I have not guarded you properly. However, how could you cruelly abandon your mother and me? It's too painful that the old is left by the young.
My son, if you could hear my words, I would tell you: It was Li Hongzhi who killed you and ruined our family! "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance" turned my dear son into a fool, a puppet, and a corpse at last! The so-called "Consummation" kept my little son away from human love and family affections. It's Li Hongzhi who killed my son and destroyed the happiness of our family.
My dearest son, your mother and I are missing you so much...
(Kaiwind.com, April 19, 2008)
