CONG FEI died in the Shenzhen People's Hospital at 8:40 p.m. Thursday, finally losing his one-year battle against cancer.

Cong, the man who moved the whole country with his benevolence, showed his steely will in the final struggle of his life.

When he was diagnosed with gastric cancer April 22 last year, doctors said he had only three or four months to live. But he vowed to fight against the disease most feared by mankind, receiving more courses of chemotherapy than doctors had prescribed.

After learning of his death, Shenzhen's Party chief Li Hongzhong and Mayor Xu Zongheng, who were in Guangzhou attending a meeting, asked Dai Beifang, secretary general of the General Office of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPC, to send their condolences to Cong's family later Thursday.

"You've lost a good son while Shenzhen has lost a good citizen," Dai told Cong's parents.

Cong was hospitalized again in February this year and his condition worsened since. By mid-March, he could not eat or drink, and had to be fed intravenously.

Ten days before his death, he asked the hospital to give up trying to keep him alive and administer only painkillers to him, saying as he had no hopes of recovery, drugs should be given to other patients instead of being wasted on him.

Doctors at the Shenzhen People's Hospital said they were impressed by Cong's strong will and courage in the face of a disease deemed incurable. "Most patients are desperate, some even collapse, when learning of a cancer diagnosis. But Cong fought his last battle with courage and will," said Peng Jinlian, head nurse at the tumor section of the hospital.

Doctors planned to perform six sessions of chemotherapy on him last May following an operation, which was terminated after doctors discovered the cancer had spread. Instead Cong received four more courses of painstaking chemotherapy that left him vomiting, aching and losing appetite.

Doctors recalled Cong as saying, "Cancer won't knock me down. I don't believe I will have only three or four months to live. I will defy the prediction."

While bedridden he continued to think of the 178 children who were only able to continue their schooling with his donations. "If I had three or five more years to live, I will do the things I've longed for but haven't done for the children and my family."

Even when he was receiving chemotherapy, he still appeared in public on several occasions to help students and promote charity, leading some to speculate he had been misdiagnosed. On July 6 last year, after the fourth course of chemotherapy, Cong left hospital and went to the Shenzhen Zhanhua Experimental School to give an ethics lesson to the students, along with a 30,000-yuan (US$3,743) donation.

In January 2006, when CCTV chose him as one of the people who moved China in 2005 with their deeds, Cong was very weak after the chemotherapy. Doctors recommended he turn down CCTV's invitation for him to fly to Beijing for the award. "I know I have limited days. I won't recover even staying at hospital. So I would prefer doing some meaningful things at a time when I can walk," he told his doctors and family.

On Jan. 15 in Beijing, he had to take a double dose of painkiller and received heavy makeup before being presented the honor.

When he gave a speech, audience members who saw his hearty smile and heard his upbeat remarks could hardly believe he was terminally ill at the moment.

Back in Shenzhen in February, he was too weak to receive more chemotherapy, and began to depend on transfusions.

Yet he always smiled to officials and residents who visited his ward. He was only sad when he held his 4-month-old daughter.

By mid-March, Cong's weight was reduced by half to less than 45 kilograms. "There are so many things to be done. Do I really have to leave so soon," he said, apparently understanding the end of his battle was approaching.

Even then he understood he could help others regain their eyesight. He reaffirmed his earlier wish to donate his corneas when Yao Xiaoming, an ophthalmologist, visited him.

He also donated his piano, the only expensive thing left in his home after he donated all his income and savings, and incurred a 170,000-yuan debt in order to help the needy children during the past decade, to the Rehabilitation Center for the Disabled in Lianhuabei community.

Editor: Wing