"He used to say a person has to be honest, and honesty can always last long. We will keep that deep in our heart... I wish in the future lives we can still be family."

Yin Muyun, the editor of Our Story and a close friend of Rao Pingru, recalls her visits to the elderly author at his home, and how he used to play the piano and harmonica and show her how he trained in the Huangpu Military School as a young man. Yin also spoke of the book tours she went on with Rao Pingru.

"He would take over my phone on the journey and read the news nonstop," she says.

"Every time I visited, Yeye (grandpa in Chinese) always asked me what had happened out there. He wondered how people lived and what was on their minds. He always cared about people more than anything else."