BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The secretary of the People's Republic of China's first Premier Zhou Enlai published a memoir on the last eight years in Zhou's life on Wednesday.

　　"Memorable Eight Years" was written by Ji Dong, one of the secretaries working for Zhou before his death.

　　Ji worked with Zhou from 1968 to 1976 when Zhou died at the age of 78.

　　The book collected 42 stories in around 120,000 words, most of which were about the daily life of Zhou.

　　"I tried to recall the stories untold before or add unknown details I remembered to those already written about," Ji said.

　　He wrote about a kiss between Zhou and his wife Deng Yingchao and why the always elegant premier once uttered a profanity.

　　Being close to a key political leader like Zhou, Ji was destined to witness some critical moments in the country's politics.

　　In the book, he recalls what happened around Zhou in the three days after Lin Biao, one of the Ten Marshals, died in a plane crash in Mongolia while fleeing China on Sept. 13, 1971 after an alleged failed coup attempt.

　　"The last words Premier Zhou said to my colleagues and me were 'I am tired.' It was the first time I heard him complaining. He died eight days later," Ji said, adding that the scene impressed him so much that he never forgot in the past three decades.

　　Ji said he had not planned to write a memoir because "it was a very special period of history and there were some events I didn't know how to write about".

　　In the eight years, China had been through the Cultural Revolution.

　　"Meanwhile, as the youngest and least experienced of the secretaries working for Zhou, I did not think I was in a place to write such a book," he said.

　　But over time, he felt an increasing sense of responsibility to share his memory with others.

　　Encouraged by experts from the Party Literature Research Center and research center on Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao, he began writing the book in 2006, Ji said.

　　Zhou, born in 1898, was one of the key political figures leading China's revolution and founding the People's Republic of China.