A city-wide 17 hour search for a potentially suicidal teenager ended when police found the boy in a barber shop playing World of Warcraft.

The boy, named Xiao Wen, sent a message on Weibo at around 16:00 on December 11, that he would broadcast a live stream of him committing suicide at 20:00 the next day. By 18:00 on the same day, the information had been passed on to local police authorities who mobilized the police station for another district, the Police Tactical Unit and the National Security Brigade to find the boy.

The boy was eventually found after an all night search in a barber shop. Officer Liao, who was involved in the search said: “He seemed to be only around 14-15 years old, short and very thin. When we found him, he was playing a computer game called World of Warcraft.”

Xiao Wen said that his parents had migrated to Chengdu to work, and he had come to the area just a month ago to work in his cousin’s barber shop. His parents are apparently bad tempered, and would often shout at him and beat him. Some of the customers in the barber shop also weren’t very nice and unpleasant to listen to.

He expressed to his parents that he wanted to leave, but they wouldn’t let him, which he says made him very sad.

Xiao Wen had recently been spending a lot of time online reading suicidal messages on Weibo and watching other people’s suicide videos. He told the police that he didn’t actually want to kill himself, he just wanted attention.

After learning that the police had spent over 17 hours searching for him, he promised never to send that kind of message again.

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.

Keywords: Police Find ‘Suicidal’ Teenager Playing World of Warcraft