His daughter Du Meiru recalled that the distribution was roughly like this: each wife got 1 000, the eldest son got 1 000, the unmarried daughter got 6,000, and the married one got 4,000. Prior to this, Du destroyed all the IOUs written to him by others over the years. He said to his children, "I don't want you to ask for debts everywhere after I die."
After distributing the inheritance, Du gave everything to his favorite students, and then settled down to die. On the afternoon of August 6, 63-year-old Du swallowed his last breath. His ashes were buried in Taiwan Province Province, but his last wish was to be buried in his hometown of Gao Qiao, Pudong, which has not been realized so far.