BEIJING - A man hired an assassin to kill him but survived, despite being stabbed multiple times in a bizarre case reported in China.

Mr Zhu Jiang, a paraplegic, had hired the alleged killer via Chinese messaging app QQ, promising to pay him 70,000 yuan (S$14,600), local media reported this week.

The depressed Mr Zhu, who is from Zhengzhou in Henan, wanted the hired killer to help him commit suicide.

However, Mr Zhu survived despite being stabbed more than 10 times, and is now in a coma after he was saved from the brink of death.

On Oct 11 last year, a hotel employee found Mr Zhu on a bloodstained bed in a hotel room.

He had more than 10 stab wounds in his abdomen, and a knife was found in the room.

The hotel manager said that he was wheeled into the hotel by another man.

After scouring CCTV footage, police identified the man who wheeled Mr Zhu to the hotel.

The man picked Mr Zhu up from a hospital in a van. He posed as Mr Zhu's cousin and said he was taking him out for an excursion.

They went to withdraw money from an ATM, then went to buy two mobile phones, a notebook, a pen and a fruit knife before arriving at the hotel.

Mr Zhu had lost the use of his limbs after a traffic accident a few years ago, and apparently lost the will to live.

Police also found conversations on QQ between Mr Zhu and the alleged killer, who is known as "Lone Wolf" online.

The police arrested "Lone Wolf", whose real name is Xu Jun, in an Internet cafe in Jiangsu in November.