An online message posted by renowned writer Zhou Meilan on Sunday following the mysterious death of her daughter has attracted much attention and been retweeted hundreds of thousands of times.

The message posted via Zhou's Weibo account said that her 12-year-old daughter, Fu Meisijin, went to buy food from a market not far from her home in Beijing's Dongcheng District at around 4:10 p.m. on Saturday. After two hours, she hadn't returned.

Zhou and her husband went out to find her, only for the security guard of a local residential community to direct them to the mortuary. The guard had called the police after hearing a crash and finding Fu Meisijin's body at around 4:30.

Local police said the girl fell from the building and preliminary investigation at the site showed the death might be a suicide.

"She was lying in the mortuary peacefully and neatly, with little injuries on her head and arms," Zhou wrote via Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblogging service, adding that she and her relatives don't believe Fu Meisijin would have killed herself.

Fu Jianqiao, the girl's father, said his daughter was an optimist who had shown no signs of wanting to commit suicide.

"She was so excellent. She was good at English and writing at school, and classmates and teachers liked her so much," Fu said.

"The girl was so nice and kind, and I would often tell my child to learn from her," said a woman who lives in the same building as Zhou.

Fu noted that imagery recorded by a monitor in the building's elevator was unclear and couldn't be used to establish whether the youngster had entered or met anyone in the elevator before she died.

Dongcheng District police are investigating, but no further information has been released so far.

Zhou and Fu posted Weibo messages and wrote blogs seeking more help from the public. They have also put up posters around their neighborhood, appealing for witnesses to offer clues to them and the police.

A Weibo user named "Happy Greedy Fish" commented, "We cannot comfort the mother with our words, but I hope the message can be forwarded as many times as possible to draw the police's attention to investigate the case thoroughly. Please give the truth to the parents so that the child's soul can be comforted in heaven."

"We really hope the police can solve the case and tell us what happened on that day," Fu said.

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