have been executed, and Mao claimed that the decision to kill Wang was made by local security organs, not the central leadership. Dai Qing's seminal work in exhuming the case of the writer Wang Shiwei brings into focus perhaps the single most important case for gauging repressive dimensions of the movement. Wang as a writer Wang began writing at the age of 19, when he was studying at Beijing University. He took the pen name of "Shiwei" (), and his talent was greatly appreciated by Xu Zhimo, a contemporary Chinese poet. Xu often ran Wang's writings in the Features section of the Morning Post when he was editor-in-chief. From 1930 onwards he started to use other pen names, still pronounced "Shiwei" but using different characters (詩薇 and 石巍). His novella Xiuxi (休息, meaning "rest"), talked about how young people should fight against the darkness of a country and was published in Xu Zhimo's "New Literary Collection" in 1930. His work outlined an "ideal society" where equality of opportunity was emphasized; he also incorporated some Marxist thought. "Wild Lilies" Wang attempted to demonstrate two basic elements of journalism in "Wild Lilies." The first was that "its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience." An example used to illustrate this is how one day Wang overheard two girls criticizing the apparently inconsiderate behavior of senior leaders towards the public. He later wrote that he was shocked after overhearing the dialogue, and took note of it, later referring to it to make known his concern about the state of the country. He was supposed to have "finally realized" what was lacking in everybody's life at that time, and attempted to dig further to what was behind the complaints. The second was that "it must provide a forum for public criticism." Wang explained that his piece of work was called "Wild Lilies" because wild lilies grew abundantly in Yan'an, could stand symbolically for the place and because they had higher medical value than other lilies, though they were bitter to taste, and in this connection criticized unhealthy phenomena in society so remedies could be found. This was also not so discreetly attempting to turn a remark from Mao Zedong on its head. Explaining the crackdown on freedom of expression, Mao said that the party's actions were "like that of a doctor curing a disease. The whole purpose is to save people, not