CATDOLL: Young cartoonist Shen Liu passed away in a rental house and no one knew about it for many days

Shen Liu, whose real name is Liu Xueshen, was born in Shenzhen in 1982. He moved to Huidong in the second half of 2010 and began to create the comic series "Liuli Ye" under the name "Shen Liu". He uploaded it to the domestic original comic platform "You Yaoqi". With rich characters, compact plots and stable update frequency, "Liuli Ye" quickly became popular and attracted a large number of fans.

On January 8, a male body that had been dead for seven or eight days was found in a rental house in Duozhu Town, Huidong County. He was lying on the bed, as if he had just come down from the workbench and was about to take a nap, but his life was frozen at this moment. His friends were speechless after seeing this scene. The police arrived and cordoned off the empty rental house and took the body away for an autopsy.

"I've been feeling unwell lately, and I feel weak all over. I'll postpone my update until New Year's Day." This message was followed by an emoticon "--". On December 27, 2014, the 33-year-old young cartoonist Fukagawa left his last message and disappeared without a trace. After New Year's Day, readers discovered that the usually diligent author had not updated on time. Later, everyone discovered that no one had contacted him since Christmas. After a few days of searching, Fukagawa's friends confirmed that the cartoonist, who had been missing for nearly half a month, had died suddenly in his rental house. "The scene was horrible."

Young cartoonist died suddenly in a rental house: "We wanted to send him off for the last time"

On January 10, Shen Liu's funeral was held in Huidong. At the funeral, there were editors who came from Beijing overnight, and fans from all over the country. They were Shen Liu's loyal readers. Some of them had known Shen Liu for many years and had met him several times. They were used to calling Shen Liu Liu Da, which is the abbreviation of "Shen Liu Dashen". "Liu Da was very lonely, and we wanted to send him off for the last time." The body was cremated and placed in an urn. The urn was very large. When it was sent to the storage point, readers Hyde and Lan Qie from Guangzhou each carried the urn for a while, in silence.

"Liu Da colors every picture. It's rare to see such a serious author." Lan Qie is from Jiangxi Province. He just graduated this year and works in an animation company in Guangzhou. When he heard the news of Shen Liu's death, he immediately rushed to Huidong. He started to follow Shen Liu's comics when he was a sophomore and was a die-hard fan of "Liuli Ye". Another reader, A K, came all the way from Hong Kong. By chance, he saw this comic on his girlfriend's mobile phone APP, even though he never read comics. "Many details in "Liuli Ye" are based on facts. What surprised me most was that there was a talisman in one episode. I searched it and found that the author drew it exactly the same as in the ancient book." Many readers wanted to come but the journey was too far, so they formed a QQ group. In the group, they entrusted people who came to the scene to help send flowers and burn incense to help them thank the hardworking author for bringing joy to readers.

Everyone on the platform can upload their own original comics. There are now more than 40,000 works. Shen Liu's works stand out and become the most popular comics that often top the "unsigned" list, with over 500 million clicks. This also brings income to Shen Liu. Paid readers vote for their favorite comics every month and can send virtual gifts to the author. At the same time, the platform has "Editor's Choice Awards" every month. These three discounts allow Shen Liu to live a good life in Huidong and provide a more stable environment for creation. "Liuli Night" is very popular, and sometimes the income may exceed the contracted works." A Fei told reporters that Shen Liu has not yet signed a contract with the platform, but only signed an "exclusive" contract, that is, the work will only be placed on this platform. After signing the contract, the platform will pay royalties based on the number of pages, and the income will be more stable.

During every holiday, Shen Liu would create chapters based on holiday stories to give back to his fans. He suffers from diabetes and needs to inject insulin every day. Before Christmas, the local hospital was out of insulin, so the doctor asked him to go to the city hospital to get it. "He might be in a hurry to update, or he might be in good health recently and didn't go to get it because he was lucky," said Zhu Wen, a friend of Shen Liu. On Christmas Eve in 2014, Shen Liu updated the 180th episode of "Liuli Ye" "Christmas Eve". The cover was a dark red sky with crystal snowflakes floating, and a pair of arms holding a flame. After leaving a message "I am not feeling well, the update will be postponed to New Year's Day", he died suddenly without fulfilling his last promise to update on New Year's Day.

Pursuing comics with a pure heart, the original comic series "Liuli Ye" has received over 500 million hits

Hyde is a comic book author and storyboard artist. He has known Shenliu for ten years and is his earliest reader. In 2005, domestic original comics had not yet received attention, and comic forums did not last long. In a forum, he saw a basketball comic titled "1/2 Territory". "The characters are very individual and cute, and the story is also very interesting, with many funny plots. The manuscript has a strong sense of handmade, the dialogue is handwritten, and you can also see traces of tape, etc. Even so, it has a different feeling. Those pure paper paintings with gouache coloring are very charming." He was interested in the author. Once he saw the author left his QQ number in another forum, he added him as a friend and communicated with him intermittently.

Shenliu's online time was irregular, sometimes he would reply after a few weeks, sometimes after a few months. From the conversation, he learned that Shenliu lived in Shenzhen, seemed homeless, slept in the park at night, and occasionally went to the Internet cafe. "1/2 Territory" was only serialized for five chapters, and the forum also closed down. Hyde learned some technology from the Internet and saved those five chapters. Later, Shenliu said that his original manuscripts were lost, and Hyde told him that he had preserved the works. Shenliu was very surprised and uploaded it to another website again, and continued to create the sixth and seventh chapters...

In 2010, Hyde came to Shenzhen for work and met Shenliu for the first time at Dongmen. "He was wearing a black T-shirt and black trousers, holding a black bag, with a thin figure, a weather-beaten face, and his hair combed back. He really looked like a hidden master." Shenliu's life was difficult. Hyde invited him to dinner, but Shenliu had a strong sense of self-esteem and insisted on buying him a drink. "I know he seems to sleep in the park all the time, but he never tells us which park he is in, and he doesn't have a mobile phone. He doesn't want others to see his miserable side."

Two painting enthusiasts gathered together to talk about comics. Shenliu took out a worn-out thick notebook and showed his recent creation to Hyde. "It was filled with dense writing, pictures and texts, and some clippings were sandwiched in it." Hyde was amazed. Those pictures were drawn with ballpoint pens, very delicate, and the settings were clearly written in a lot of words. He took pictures of these contents with a portable DV, scanned them after returning home, and saved his works for him. Shenliu also gave Hyde the first chapter of the manuscript of "Liuli Ye", which later became famous, but now the first chapter manuscript is gone. Hyde couldn't help laughing when he said this. He said that on the day he met Shenliu, several unlucky things happened. First, his mobile phone was stolen, and he had some bad luck after returning home. "I told Shenliu about these experiences and joked that I was so unlucky. Unexpectedly, Shenliu asked me to burn the manuscript seriously, saying that the manuscript was moldy. I listened to him and burned the manuscript."

From 2005 to 2014, for nearly ten years, he was not only the earliest fan of Shenliu, but also one of his few friends. At the funeral, there was not even a single photo of him in the small hall temporarily set up by fans. "Shenliu didn't like taking photos, and almost never took photos with people. But when we met that time, he actually agreed to take a selfie with me." Hyde still has these photos saved in his computer. Because the incident happened suddenly, there was no time to print them. They bowed and burned incense in front of the hall without any photos.

Wandering on the streets of Shenzhen for nearly 7 years, wrapping his manuscripts in two layers of cloth

"Shenliu didn't have a cell phone, and he didn't mention moving from Shenzhen to Huidong. We went through many twists and turns when we were looking for him." After New Year's Day, the group of authors that Shenliu was with first noticed something was wrong and started looking for him. Then they contacted the editors, and they learned that the editors were also looking for him. "He didn't reply to the messages he left online, nor did he reply to the messages he left on QQ. No one answered the phone number he had registered before." Hyde found the remittance slip that Shenliu had sent before, and narrowed the search area to Duozhu Town, Huidong County. On the 8th, they finally got through to that phone number, and it turned out that Shenliu had registered the number of his friend Zhu Wen. Zhu Wen immediately went to Shenliu's house, but it was too late.

"I knocked on his door but no one opened it. I thought he was eating downstairs, so I asked the owner of the noodle stall, and he said he hadn't seen him for many days." Zhu Wen witnessed the scene. He was the one who took care of almost all of Shenliu's funeral arrangements in the past few days, including contacting Shenliu's father.

Most people have the impression that he is taciturn, introverted, and stubborn. Shenliu's mother died early, his father remarried, and due to personality differences, the conflicts between Shenliu and his father became more and more serious. In 2006, Shenliu left home and never spoke to his father again until his death.

On January 9, Zhu Wen found the house where Shen Liu lived when he was a child. The house is now under the name of Shen Liu's stepmother and is rented out to someone else. Through the tenant, he learned that Shen Liu's father and his family had moved to Hong Kong a long time ago. Zhu Wen asked for Shen Liu's father's phone number and spent a long time persuading his father to go to Huidong to handle the funeral.

During the interview, the reporter found that everyone's understanding of Shen Liu was fragmented. Readers thought that he was mysterious, knowledgeable, humorous, and often said "excellent replies" in the group; editors thought that Shen Liu was hardworking, desperate, serious, and talented. What they saw was Shen Liu in Huidong after 2010. Many people don't know that before that, for nearly seven years, Shen Liu had no residence in Shenzhen and slept in parks for seven years. The park he lived in most often was near the house where he lived as a child, and he had a deep attachment to it.

Zhu Wen is Shen Liu's only real friend. They are neighbors who knew each other in childhood and studied in the same class until high school. They dropped out of school together during their rebellious first year of high school. When Shen Liu was the poorest, the only person he turned to for help was Zhu Wen. Shen Liu knew Zhu Wen's mobile phone number better than his ID number.

He left home at the age of 24 with only a high school education. He slept in the park at night and hid in a nearby building when it was cold. He had done various jobs, including being a painter in Dafen Village, a salesman, and working in an animation company, but none of them lasted long. Shenliu said to his friend, "I think only drawing comics is the best for me." Zhu Wen replied, "Then you have to believe that you will succeed." In order to hone his painting skills, he read books and paintings in bookstores during the day, thinking about painting methods, and sometimes sat on a chair on the side of the road, watching all kinds of people and copying them.

At that time, Zhu Wen had just entered the society and worked in a game room in Luohu. He didn't have much spare money. His working hours were from afternoon to two in the morning. There was no last bus when he got off work, so he took a taxi home. Zhu Wen thought of a way and bought a mountain bike. Every morning at two in the morning, Shenliu would ride from the park to the game room and take him home. He saved the money for the taxi to help Shenliu. The 7-kilometer journey, in the quiet night, the two brothers rode for twenty minutes each. Zhu Wen told Shenliu jokes, which made him laugh so hard that he couldn't ride the bike. Together, they imagined the future on the dark road. "Everyone has his own line. I can tell it, and this line grows on my mouth. Ah Shen is different. It grows on his pen." Zhu Wen called that period the "dark period", which was their most difficult and bitter time, but Shenliu didn't think so. After moving to Huidong and having a stable residence, Shenliu often said that it was very interesting at that time. It was fun to ride a bike together at night, and friends' jokes were also fun.

"Ah Shen never cried, no matter when." After the funeral, according to custom, the people attending the funeral had a dinner together. Zhu Wen kept talking at the dinner table. As he said, he was very lively. "Don't feel sorry for Ah Shen. He never felt sorry for himself. He loved to laugh." After saying this, Zhu Wen paused and suddenly covered his eyes. "His life was so interesting. You should laugh after listening to his story." Zhu Wen's suppressed crying sounded in the private room. Hyde and Lan Qie drank tea and their eyes were red.

In 2010, Zhu Wen's work in Huidong improved, so he ran back to Shenzhen, intending to bring Shen Liu to Huidong to live. After waiting for a night in the park where Shen Liu often lived, he saw Shen Liu the next day. The two of them had a big meal, and Shen Liu agreed to go to Huidong. "I asked him not to take anything, but he said he would only take one thing, his drawings." Shen Liu took him through several alleys and came to the rooftop of a building. He moved a few bricks and found a hole in which Shen Liu carefully wrapped two layers of drawings. They left Shenzhen, where Shen Liu was born, grew up, and wandered, and started a new life in Huidong; it was also after arriving in Huidong that they created the work "Liuli Night".

The manga animation will continue to be adapted to fulfill the manga artist's last wish

Two years ago, Shen Liu felt unwell, didn't get enough sleep, was often weak, and sometimes couldn't even hold a paintbrush. After going to the hospital for a checkup, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. "Both my parents have this disease, don't worry, I will live well." In the QQ group, Shen Liu told readers this and took a photo of the insulin box and sent it up.

Diabetes requires daily insulin injections, but even after the illness, his update speed was not affected at all. In Huidong, he lives alone in a three-bedroom, one-living room house, and his activities are basically limited to the bedroom. There are two tables, one with a computer and the other with painting utensils. He devotes himself to his creation. The living room and kitchen are as clean as new, and he occasionally cooks in the room using an induction cooker.

Zhu Wen is busy with work, and usually visits Shenliu once every two days. Zhu Wen considers himself Shenliu's strategist, helping him plan everything in his life. From the beginning, he believed that Shenliu would succeed, and after experiencing countless ups and downs, his life has been developing in a better and better direction. The two brothers faced the scenery outside the window, and Zhu Wen analyzed that he helped Shenliu for the first thirty years, and after the age of forty, Shenliu would develop better than him, and then it would be Shenliu who supported him. When in Shenzhen, Zhu Wen helped Shenliu many times, and Shenliu recorded every account in his notebook, which was a thick book, and at a certain time he wrote an IOU. In Huidong, comics brought income to Shenliu, and he paid off the IOUs one by one, leaving only the last one. “I told him not to return the last one yet, in case he loses his purpose in life in the future. I asked him to return it when he is 40.” In November 2014, the animation project of “Liuli Ye” was confirmed, and new works were also being planned. All developments were moving in the direction of “great success at 40”, but it was interrupted at the end of 2014.

In mid-December 2014, Zhu Wen went to see Shen Liu, but because he was working on a comic, Shen Liu blocked Zhu Wen outside the door, saying that he was too busy and chatting would delay his progress. Zhu Wen came a few more times, but Shen Liu was working on a manuscript, so in order not to disturb him, Zhu Wen stopped coming. On New Year's Day, Zhu Wen went out for a trip and his phone ran out of battery. When he returned home, he saw dozens of missed calls and had a bad feeling.

"He didn't leave with despair." Zhu Wen said the most that "A Shen has already succeeded halfway." "One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes" is a hit in theaters and a big hit at the box office. This animation allows the audience to see a brand new animation suitable for adults. The author of "One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes" is also a member of the YouYaoQi platform. Shen Liu once said that he hopes to become the next person like the author of "One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes".

"What we regret most is that Shen Liu passed away when the environment of the domestic original comics industry was getting better and better." Yao Zheng, editor of YouYaoQi, sighed, "For Shen Liu, the work "Liuli Ye" will never be removed from the website, and our company will try its best to realize the animation. This may also be Shen Liu's last wish."

On January 11, it was drizzling in Huidong. "Liu Da is like a legend to us. He has come from the bottom of his life to where he is today. It's incredible to talk about it." Hyde said, maybe he is just unlucky. This sentence is like a sigh and a sigh, floating in the rain in the early morning.