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Teenage boy in China who was rejected twice by birth parents and then bullied online found dead in apparent suicide

  • The boy was found by people who started a search after seeing his social media posts but he could not be saved by doctors
  • He wrote a 10,000-word post online detailing the cyberbullying he received after his story went viral

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The body of Liu Xuezhou was found on a beach in Hainan province by a search party on Monday. Photo: Weibo

The body of a teenager who was sold by his birth parents as a baby and deserted by them again after a recent reunion was found on a beach in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan early Monday morning.

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Liu Xuezhou, 17, apparently committed suicide and left a lengthy note on Weibo, alarming people who had become concerned about his personal safety. Police in the city of Sanya launched a search for the boy after they were alerted by the public that he could be in danger.

Liu was found by people who had started a search after reading his social media posts. He was rushed to hospital, but doctors could not save his life.

A Weibo photo shows Liu and his biological mother, who he tracked down in December 2021. Photo: Weibo
A Weibo photo shows Liu and his biological mother, who he tracked down in December 2021. Photo: Weibo
The teenager had become the source of national attention in China after his initial story went viral online. It all started earlier in January when he posted on the social media platforms Weibo and Douyin saying that his birth parents had decided to cut ties with him after they were reunited in December 2021 with help from the police.

Liu was sold by his biological parents at birth in 2005 but became an orphan at the age of four when his adoptive parents, two farmers from Hebei province in north China, died in a home explosion. Liu spent most of his life getting passed between relatives after the accident.

He was able to track down his birth parents last month after he launched an online search, but both his parents, who had since divorced and started new families, refused to accept him back into their lives.

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In the past week, Liu had publicly argued with his parents. In his 10,000-word suicide letter, he said he had been “abandoned twice by his biological parents”.

A photo shows Liu at a restaurant with his father. The two would later quarrel over a property dispute. Photo: Weibo
A photo shows Liu at a restaurant with his father. The two would later quarrel over a property dispute. Photo: Weibo
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