During and after hydraulic fracturing, fluid-shale interaction has a prominent impact on liquid retention and thus on gas phase permeability and gas productivity. By providing a low surface tension or wettability alteration, surfactants are widely used to decrease liquid retention after fracturing. To evaluate the liquid intake of a rock sample, an imbibition experiment is commonly used, especially when it is treated by a surfactant. However, conventional imbibition experiments with gas shale could not quantitate the imbibition behaviors as it does with conventional rocks because of the low porosity and extremely low permeability of gas shale. In this paper, a comprehensive experimental method was successfully developed to study the liquid imbibition in shale samples. Bulk shale easily fell apart during imbibition experiments. However, samples prepared with the coating method decribed herein remained intact except for fractures generated in them during the first imbibition. On each imbibition curve with imbibed mass as a function of time, two imbibition rates were identified: first imbibition rate at early stage and the second imbibition rate at later stage. For each sample, the imbibition experiment was performed three times. The sample was treated by surfactant between the second and the third imbibitions. All fractures were generated during the first imbibition. The characteristics of these fractures, such as quantity and distribution, are described in detail. In order to avoid the microfracture impact, the second and the third imbibition data were used to study the surfactant impact on the liquid intake in shale. The surfactant worked well to reduce the mass gain in shale. The effects of the existence of fractures, sample length, surfactant concentration, and treatment methods on the first and second imbibition rates were all studied in detail.