Very soon, Zhang Xiaofan realized where the ringtone had come from… It was that very same phone wrapped inside the baby's swaddling clothes the night he found her in the snow—the phone that had been powered off all this time, with no SIM card!
It was just an ordinary Redmi Note 4X. Hoping to uncover Xue's origins, Xiaofan had once brought the phone to an official Xiaomi service center. But the staff couldn't even find its ID in their database. They told him it was likely a counterfeit model, outside their repair scope, unless he could produce a purchase receipt.
When Xiaofan insisted on paying for repairs himself, the technicians ran some diagnostics. Their conclusion was grim: the motherboard and chips were all fried. Completely beyond repair.
He tried a few other shops, but they all gave the same answer. Eventually, he gave up, stored the phone away in a cardboard box together with Xue's swaddling cloth, and forgot about it. He never expected it to suddenly power on tonight—and even ring.
Placing Xue gently in her crib, Xiaofan walked to the corner, opened the box, and picked up the phone.
The screen was glowing, but the ringtone had already stopped. When he checked the call log, there was no record of a missed call.
How could a phone with no SIM card receive a call?
This was far too strange.
Just as he was puzzling over the device, a burst of baby laughter rang out behind him. The sound startled him, and he spun around—catching the vague outline of a dark shadow standing right beside Xue's crib.
"Who's there?!" Xiaofan lunged forward. But when he reached the crib, nothing was there.
Xue blinked around the room innocently, then looked back at him with wide, guileless eyes.
"Am I seeing things?" Xiaofan muttered, scanning the room. He found nothing unusual. Reluctantly, he turned his focus back to the mysterious phone.
The device's screen was packed with apps, most of them bizarrely labeled with the word 外挂 (hacks): "Training Hack," "Fighting Hack," "Shooting Hack," "Maze Hack," "Puzzle Hack," "Treasure Hunt Hack"—dozens of them. Yet when he tapped any of them, nothing happened.
Among the clutter, only two apps were familiar: QQ and QQ Browser.
If this phone held any clue to Xue's identity, it might be hidden there. He decided to start with QQ.
He opened the app. It didn't auto-login, instead prompting for an account and password. After some thought, Xiaofan typed in one of his lesser-used accounts, one with no important information.
The login succeeded. Nothing unusual appeared.
Shaking his head, he returned to the home screen and tapped QQ Browser.
The browser opened—not to a search page, but directly into the homepage of a mobile game called Terror City. The tagline claimed it was "the scariest game ever made." The bloody promotional images were unsettling, though Xiaofan, having seen countless horror films, wasn't easily disturbed. What bothered him was the browser's strange behavior—it launched straight into this game site as if it were locked there.
The page displayed a long list of customer service QQ contacts—dozens of them, most showing "online." Out of curiosity, Xiaofan tapped one. The screen instantly switched into a QQ chat window.
"Earn three hundred yuan a day from home. Interested?" The message appeared immediately, sent from a user named Don't Play Mobile Games.
"So it really is some scam website," Xiaofan thought. "Could it be… that Xue's parents were conned by these people? Lost everything, couldn't raise her, and abandoned her in the snow?"
With over an hour left before eight o'clock, Xiaofan decided to play along. Maybe he could dig up some clues.
"How do you make money?" he typed back.
"Hello, I'm a scout for Panic Studio," came the reply. "Our studio's main work is playing mobile games. We're currently recruiting players with potential. Daily pay of three hundred yuan, settled the same day. Are you interested?"
"Oh, sure. Pay me the three hundred upfront, and I'll join," Xiaofan shot back.
"We can do that, but only if you pass our test first," the user replied.
"A test? What kind of test?" Xiaofan smirked. He had seen these tricks before. Scammers often dressed them up as "credit checks," asking victims to transfer a few yuan to prove their honesty—then refunding it, even adding a little extra to lower suspicion. Step by step, they'd draw larger sums until finally disappearing with everything.
As long as you weren't greedy, it was hard to fall for such cons.
"The test is just a small game. I'll send you the file. Install it, and if you can clear the game, you'll receive a verification code. Send it back to me, and that proves you've passed. After that, we'll advance you a day's pay. The higher your score, the higher your base pay. An S-rank guarantees three hundred yuan per day. With higher ranks—2S, 3S—you can earn even more."
"S-rank? That sounds tough," Xiaofan replied, feigning interest.
"Not at all. For experienced players, S-rank is easy. Higher ranks are the real challenge."
"Alright, go on."
"Once you join, you'll run quests and dungeons in-game. You'll also receive commissions on top of your base pay. As long as you complete your daily tasks, we'll advance the next day's base pay to you every midnight and also settle your commission from the day before." The messages came rapid-fire, clearly pre-written, ready to paste.
"Verification code, huh…" Xiaofan frowned. Scams these days all boiled down to two goals: either tricking you into transferring money, or stealing your bank verification codes.
Then another message popped up:
"One more thing I should warn you about. The game we're recruiting for is extremely frightening. If you scare easily or lack strong nerves, I advise you not to try. Some… unexpected things might happen."