A schoolgirl who went to a cake shop to break up with her Internet "lover" died after being taken hostage and stabbed by the man.

The man was shot in a police attempt to save the girl and is recovering in a hospital.

The girl, believed to be about 16 years old, met the man in a cake shop near her school around 5:30 on Monday in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

"I was told Fang¹ (the school girl) was there to meet her Internet 'lover', who came to see her from Shenzhen," said a schoolboy surnamed Wang who goes to the same school as the girl. "Don't know what went wrong."

According to police, the man stabbed the girl because she wanted to break up with him.

Fang had previously² skipped school to visit the man, said her teacher, who rushed to the scene after receiving a call regarding the incident.

The girl had already been stabbed several times before the emergency call was made, but she was still alive when police arrived. All three shop employees and customers had escaped.

The man held Fang close to his body and pointed³ the knife against her throat to resist arrest. Fang had several stab wounds and was bleeding heavily, according to police.

When police were unable to arrest the man, two snipers in position outside the cake shop fired two shots at him around 6:50 pm. Both the schoolgirl and the stabber were then taken to hospital, but Fang was confirmed dead due to excessive blood loss.

Her Internet "lover" was still hospitalized. No other information has been released about him.