SHANGHAI, Jan 30 — Li Yapeng has spent years being roasted online as a “greasy uncle”, a “serial failed entrepreneur”, and, occasionally, “that ex-husband of Cantopop queen Faye Wong”. 

But the former actor, now 54, has unexpectedly become the internet’s new favourite comeback story — and all it took was a hospital on the brink of collapse, a tearful confession, and a very persuasive donation link.

According to South China Morning Post (SCMP), Li stunned fans on January 14 when he revealed that the Beijing Smile Angel Hospital, the charity facility he founded with Wong in 2012 to support children born with cleft lips like their daughter Li Yan, was drowning in debt and facing imminent closure. 

The hospital has performed free surgeries for 11,000 children, while treating another 500,000 patients through its paid departments.

Li blamed the crunch on a rent agreement that doubled costs from 2020, combined with the brutal Covid-era downturn. 

“We just couldn’t keep up,” he admitted — a stark confession from a man whose many business ventures, spanning dating sites to nightclubs to real estate, had already earned him the label of “loser businessman”.

But the internet can be unpredictable — and occasionally, kind. 

After Li went public, online users surged to the hospital’s donation page, raising 20 million yuan (RM11.34 million) in just a few days, enough to clear overdue rent and keep the doors open. 

Li’s own social media saw a similar boom, picking up 1.5 million followers in a week. A five-hour live-stream on January 17 pulled in 10 million yuan in sales.

In the eyes of many, the narrative shifted almost overnight. The man once memed for looking stressed and oily suddenly became — as SCMP reports — a “philanthropist”, even a “hero”. 

The irony isn’t lost on longtime fans. Li, born in Xinjiang in 1971, made his name playing brooding romantic leads and wuxia heroes in late-90s and early-2000s TV hits like Eternal Moment, The Legend of the Condor Heroes and The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. 

Some viewers are now joking that life has imitated art — likening him to Linghu Chong, the wandering swordsman he once portrayed, weathered by hardship but ultimately righteous.

Even his romantic past — relationships with Qu Ying, Zhou Xun, and most famously Wong, who reportedly continued to donate to the hospital long after their split — has been dusted off as part of a collective re-evaluation: perhaps the “greasy uncle” was trying his best all along.

For a man who confessed last year, in tears, that he’d been living in debt for more than a decade, this new chapter feels improbably hopeful. 

Whether Li’s business luck has turned remains to be seen — but in the court of public opinion, at least, he’s enjoying a rare and unexpected plot twist.