After the sudden death of Chinese actor Yu Menglong, also known as Alan Yu, fans across China have continued to question the official story — despite heavy censorship and even arrests of those who speak out demanding accountability. Under China’s tightly-controlled internet, where posts about Yu are deleted almost instantly, some supporters have turned to creative methods to express their doubts.
Yu died after mysteriously falling from a high-rise building in Beijing on Sept. 11. Authorities closed the case within 24 hours, ruling it an “accidental fall” following a “night of heavy drinking.” But a growing number of industry peers, fans, and human rights’ advocates have called for an independent investigation, citing the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death and the government’s swift suppression of anyone who speaks about about the case.
RELATED: Whistleblower Claims Top Security Chief Shielded Suspects in Yu Menglong’s Death
Coded messages
One fan recently went viral for what netizens dubbed a “divine incident.” A screenshot circulating on social media shows an online food delivery order placed on Oct. 13.
Though the order itself, a mild “golden soup fish with pickled cabbag, seemed ordinary, it came with delivery note that was anything but: “Please follow the case of the actor who played Bai Zhen on Bilibili — after discovering evidence of company money laundering, he was tortured to death,” the note read, adding, “80 billion yuan in pension funds vanished. Thank you.”
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Fans instantly recognized the reference: Yu Menglong had famously portrayed Bai Zhen, a celestial deity, in the hit fantasy drama “Eternal Love (Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms).” The screenshot spread rapidly before being censored, with users praising the fan’s ingenuity in bypassing keyword filters. Comments began flooding in, including:
- “This is speaking out for Yu!”
- “Brilliant — even food orders are carrying the truth now.”
- “They banned his name, but not our creativity.”
One user summed up the sentiment: “Whoever wrote that order found a way to keep the conversation alive. Inside the Great Firewall, most people still don’t know what really happened.”
‘You can silence the hashtags, but not our hearts’
Following Yu’s death, Chinese social media platforms such as Weibo and Douban began systematically removing posts, hashtags, and discussions related to the case. Searches for his name returned no results, and users who posted tributes or raised questions found their accounts suspended or flagged for violating the app’s guidelines. Authorities also detained at least three netizens, accusing them of “spreading rumors” and for discussing inconsistencies surrounding Yu’s fall.
RELATED: A Curse and a Reckoning: A Psychic’s Predictions on Yu Menglong and Song Yiren
Despite the clampdown, fans have kept the story alive through symbolic gestures and coded messages. As one commenter wrote, “You can silence the hashtags, but not our hearts.”
The mystery surrounding Yu Menglong’s death has sparked one of China’s largest online grassroots movements in years. On international platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, thousands of fans have shared memorial videos, timeline reconstructions, and even open bounties seeking clues to what really happened. Even in New York’s Times Square, large digital billboards were displaying tributes of Yu by playing silent images of the actor every hour.
An online petition titled “Justice for Yu Menglong” has now surpassed 600,000 signatures worldwide, demanding an independent and transparent investigation into his death. Organizers are urging supporters to keep sharing the link in hopes of pressuring authorities to reveal the truth, or at least proceed with an impartial investigation surrounding the actor’s demise.
For many, the campaign has grown far beyond a celebrity tragedy. It has become a symbol of resistance against censorship and the courage of ordinary citizens to speak out, even under the watchful eye of China’s powerful internet police.
As one fan wrote beneath a reposted image of the delivery order: “They can delete our words, but they can’t delete what we remember.”
