Li Qiaochu: May Xu Zhiyong Come Home Soon

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, a holiday for family reunions.

On February 2 this year, Zhiyong’s mother passed away. It was not until their meeting on August 25 that he learned the news. For him, that day may have been the first day of mourning. After learning the news, he wrote a letter on August 27 expressing his inner regret and grief. He also wrote about his mother’s life as her son: “Mother was born in 1936 in a village beside the old course of the Yellow River in Minquan County... Mother spent her life helping people who went unnoticed. Her son, like her, has spent his life helping people who go unnoticed, and she received so much love. Thank you, everyone.”

He could not attend her funeral or see his mother off, and learned of her death only after a long delay. Writing a letter was the only thing he could do for his mother; that letter was his farewell ceremony for her in his heart.

Last night, I received a letter he wrote on September 10. The main text was only one page, and in the final paragraph he wrote: “My situation—the letter mourning my mother was incomplete. I am very sad, but once again I held back. I don’t know if that was right.” The sentence that followed was completely blacked out. The correspondence censorship at Lunan Prison has intruded into one person’s most private mourning. They have not completely deprived him of his mourning, but they have made it incomplete. I feel a pain and heartache I cannot put into words—a son’s tribute to his mother, and yet he is not even allowed to say in full, “What kind of person my mother was.”

Can he see the moon tonight from inside those high walls? This is the first Mid-Autumn Festival since his mother passed away, and also the first Mid-Autumn Festival since he learned of her passing. Amid the family reunions, there is his absent mother, and there is him, absent too. What I can do is remember these words about his mother that he wrote in his letter, and speak the missing parts for him, so that more people will know that inside those high walls, a son is mourning his mother alone.

Wishing everyone peace this Mid-Autumn Festival. May every family waiting for a reunion be together again soon. Zhiyong asked me to once again thank his friends on his behalf for fulfilling his filial duties in his place, caring for his mother, and seeing her off.

Li Qiaochu

September 25, 2026

(Attached: hand-drawn pictures sent before the Mid-Autumn Festival)