From Economic Observer Online:
When word came that Chairman Mao Zedong had passed away, Mao Yushi was hand-copying a file in his office at the Ministry of Railways. He heard the sound of hurrying footsteps and people weeping outside his door.
Mao put down his pen and went home immediately. “This was the biggest news I’d heard. I knew China would have a big change,” he recalled. At the same time, he said, he felt “a mixture of hollowness and sadness.”
An era had ended. A country had a new opportunity to start over. It was a turning point for Mao Yushi, too. From the emotional darkness that had enveloped him for many years, he began to walk out to find a new fate.