A relay communication method and a relay communications apparatus and system for receiving, by a relay terminal, a first message sent by an access network device, where the first message includes configuration information of a first bearer; and configuring, by the relay terminal, an adaptation layer logical entity for the first bearer based on the first message, where the first bearer is a bearer between the relay terminal and the access network device, and the adaptation layer logical entity is used to distinguish between data of the relay terminal and data of a remote terminal or between data of different remote terminals.