Fatal blaze

Mohe Ballroom, written in March last year, is based on the old man's story.

On May 6, 1987, about 200 people were killed when a fire that broke out in mountains near Mohe tore through the city. The fire, which lasted 28 days, destroyed more than 10,000 square kilometers of forest. Direct economic losses were estimated at 500 million yuan.

The elderly man, who uses the pseudonym Zhang Dequan, lost his wife to the blaze. He has not remarried and has no children, so he often visited the old ballroom and danced alone to remember the times he and his wife spent there.

Liu said: "Both the article and the song have been fictionalized, and I added some additional details. To me, the most important part of the song is the lyrics. I wanted to dedicate Mohe Ballroom to those who lost their lives in that big fire."

Last month, footage of the man dancing alone was posted online anonymously by a netizen, and the Mohe Ballroom video and the story behind the song was also shared on the internet.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been touched by the story and the song's sentimental melody and romantic lyrics. Videos featuring elderly men dancing alone have appeared on social media platforms.

A number of people curious about the ballroom and the old man have even traveled to Mohe to locate him and the venue.

One listener said, "The song is meant to be heard alone, preferably through headphones."

Another listener said: "It's easy to see why Mohe Ballroom resonated with listeners when it did. Full of emotional detail and poetic lyrics, the song, with Liu's whispery vocals, fulfills people's imaginations about a tragic love story."

Liu said, "Many media platforms contacted me and my team to ask for detailed information about the old man－requests which we turned down.

"Videos of Mohe Ballroom have been viewed millions of times, but few of them are legal. I really appreciate that people love the song, but I never expected it to become a talking point like this. It's way too much."

Liu is also upset when people refer to him as a singer who gained overnight fame on the internet.

Born and raised in Kuqa city, Aksu prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the self-taught singer-songwriter graduated from People's Public Security University of China with a major in public security traffic management.