Struck by grief at Yu Menglong’s passing, longtime manager Dapeng writes a raw tribute: “Keep him in your heart always — never let him be forgotten” — a quiet message that has broken the internet. TH

“Keep Him in Your Heart Always — Never Let Him Be Forgotten”: Dapeng’s Heart-Wrenching Tribute to Yu Menglong

The day Yu Menglong died, Dapeng — the manager who had once been his anchor in an industry that chews up newcomers — froze. Hours passed before he could bring himself to write anything at all. When he finally did, the words were few but carried the weight of years of shared struggle: “Keep him in your heart always — never let him be forgotten.”

Dapeng had been there from the beginning: coaching Yu Menglong through his first awkward auditions, making sure he ate between shoots, pulling him aside when exhaustion showed in his eyes, scolding him when he pushed too hard. Yu Menglong repaid that care by treating Dapeng like family, confiding in him, laughing with him over late-night snacks after long days. The bond was never transactional; it was human.

Once the letter leaked, it spread faster than any official statement could have. On Douyin, users read it aloud over montages of Yu Menglong’s brightest moments; on Weibo, thousands reposted it verbatim with crying emojis and broken-heart symbols. Many wrote the exact phrase on handmade signs and stuck them in public places — a quiet, stubborn act of love in a story otherwise filled with unanswered questions and censorship.

In the shadow of ongoing controversy around Yu Menglong’s death, Dapeng’s message offered something rare: purity. No agenda, no finger-pointing, just a plea to hold onto the good that Yu Menglong represented — his warmth, his quiet kindness, his relentless work ethic. It gave grieving fans a single, unifying sentence to cling to amid the chaos.

Yu Menglong’s story may remain unfinished in the public eye, but Dapeng’s letter has already achieved something profound: it has turned individual sorrow into collective memory. Every time someone shares those words, every time they appear on a wall or a screen, Yu Menglong is remembered exactly as Dapeng promised — forever, never forgotten. In that small act of writing, a manager grieving his lost “little brother” gave an entire community permission to keep loving him out loud.