About two hours ago, Zola from twitter reported that he got a phone call from Guo Jian-loong saying prominent blogger and novelist, Xu Lai at ProState in Flame was stabbed twice in a book store, One Way Street, at Beijing when he was about to have a finished a public talk.

Xu is famous for his spoofing style in criticizing social and political issue and was a nominee for the best Chinese blog in 2005 BoB award organized by Deutsche Welle. He is currently an editor in the Beijing News and has recently written a book called Imagined Animal (published in Nov 2008 ). He has media working experience and according to Zola, they had visited Beijing Black Jail (for detaining protestors) together last year. (It is Guo Jian-loong who visited Beijing Black Jail with Zola.)

It is not yet known why Xu was being stabbed. Now he is in the hospital and may need to have surgery later (amended not in surgery) and fortunately, his life is not in critical condition, doubleaf reported from twitter:

chinese well-known blogger Prostate In flame 前列腺要发言 stabbed this afternoon, no threat to life

Many bloggers are outraged by such violence and express their anger at twitter:

txxx retweeted by axxx (message protected):

天呐，徐来被刺。这难道还是闻一多的时代吗？

axxx (message protected):

尽管不知道徐来何故遇刺，朋友仍然很肯定的总结：对一个ID实行封锁、判刑、骚扰、威胁，乃至刺杀。社会已经和谐到不能容忍一个虚拟的ID在虚拟的网络上发两句牢骚，骂两句娘。

Below is a list of topics that Xu has picked up in his blog in the past few days:

Feb 10: Du Daozheng no longer be the legal representative of Yanhuang Chunqiu (reposted from RFA)

Feb 10: A tester for corrupted official has successfully been invented (political spoof)

Feb 11: According to the state regulation, it is illegal to disgust Guo Jinming (making fun of Douban's deletion of group)

Feb 11: Defending for Mengnui Telunsu (spoof reposted from 163.com)

Feb 11: CCTV's lantern festival activities in Feb 9 (spoofing CCTV)

Feb 12: Beijing Daily attacked Southern Weekend for ridiculing Wei Kuangsheng (reposted from Hong Kong newspapers)

Feb 13: About CCTV Fire (reposted from http://singularitys.spaces.live.com)

Feb 13: Rumor about Lai Changxing's death (news from twitter)

Feb 13: Guangzhou Daily back up Mengniu OMP? (reposted from Guangzhou Daily)

Feb 13: Who feel so bitter about Southern Metro and Southern weekend? (reposting news from boxun about a secret document from CCP on the two southern papers)

Feb 13: StarCraft: Ghost's brand name IR rights application rejected as it contains superstition. (reposted from www.chinacourt.org)

Feb 13: Linking to Dushu (a short note about building hyperlink)

Feb 13: (news from BBC)

Feb 13: Notice for civilized self-regulation in Valentine day (political spoof written by Chiao Zhifeng)

Below is a most recent photo of Xu Lai:

Twitter Update: Xu was stabbed at around 4 o'clock today (Feb 14) after the public talk at the One Way Street Bookstore in the toilet. Now at 8 o'clock, he is sent to the surgery room.

More Update from doubleaf: There were two men following Xu in the public toilet, one stabbed him twice and one threaten to chop off his hand.

Update from Beifeng (at 10:30pm): The surgery has finished, the doctor fixed a hole in Xu's stomach.