At 7:08 pm, Zhang received a final text message from Fan's mobile phone, asking him to bring more charcoal and alcohol, but Zhang ignored it.

At about 10:50 pm, Zhang called the hotel's reception desk to tell them about the pair's plan and when staff went to check they found Fan dead, the report said.

Fan's parents claimed that Zhang asked Fan to commit suicide, while Tencent did not delete or block information about suicide pacts, so it was further disseminated online. Therefore, both were responsible for their son's death. They asked for 279,028 yuan ($41,900) in compensation.

Tencent maintained that it was not liable for Fan's death. Their lawyers said the company had more than 500 million users who send an immense amount of online information every day. Moreover, QQ is an individual communication tool, which is almost impossible to monitor or supervise.

They also said that use of the word "suicide" is not illegal and that screening out such words might infringe on user rights.

Fan's family said they had not heard of any similar case being handled and thought they had little chance of winning it, but they insisted on going ahead with the case to raise public awareness of the danger of possible suicide pacts being arranged online.

Nonetheless, Fan's death was not an isolated incident. In March 2010, two young men, both 24, killed themselves in a hotel in Lishui after planning the suicide online via a chat group.

In May 2010, three other young men in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, planned to commit suicide together online, via an instant messaging service. Two of them died as a result.

As of Sunday, no verdict had been reached in Fan's trial.