Third bombing victim was graduate student

BOSTON -- Earlier this week, Lu Lingzi sent an exuberant email to a professor after learning she had passed part of a major exam. She had spent the entire year preparing for it.

"I am so happy to get this result!" she wrote. "Thank you very much."

Less than 24 hours later, the graduate student from China was one of the three people killed in the Boston Marathon bombings. She was standing near the finish line with two friends. One, Zhou Danling, was seriously injured.

Boston University confirmed Lu, who was in her early 20s, was studying mathematics and statistics at the school and was due to receive her graduate degree in 2015.

More than 19,000 people left messages or digital candles on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, in memory of Lu, who came from the northeastern city of Shenyang.

"Can't God hear the prayer of so many people? Why make so many people heartbroken? I wish it were a dream," wrote one university schoolmate, with the Weibo identification "Vera Yu Yuanyuan."

Lu was an exceptional student and bright young scientist, said Tasso Kaper, the chair of BU's mathematics department. He remembered how she loved flowers and the springtime.

"The word bubbly -- that's kind of a corny word -- but that describes her very well," Kaper said.

She was a foodie, eager for culinary discoveries. In her last microblog update Monday morning, she posted a photo of ciabatta-like bread chunks and fruit. "My wonderful breakfast," Lu wrote.

She shared photos of her home-prepared meals on her Sina Weibo account -- a blueberry-covered waffle one day, spinach sachettini with zucchini on another -- and also posted snapshots of her dog, Dudu.

According to Lu's profile on the professional networking site LinkedIn, she was awarded "excellent student" at the Beijing Institute of Technology, where she graduated last year. It said she held jobs or internships at the Beijing offices of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu consultancy and at Dongxing Securities Co. during her undergraduate years and spent a semester at the University of California Riverside.

Her former neighbor in Shenyang, Zhang Xinbo, lamented how the news brought home the tragedy of what he had considered a faraway event.

"I saw her grow up, and a few scenes from the past are flashing through my mind. Now, she's becoming a girl, a bit Westernized, but a loud bang has changed everything," he wrote in a blog. "I think of her loved ones, and I don't know how they are coping with this painful news, while still searching for any thread of hope."