"As for that villa, let's talk about it later." No matter how sweet the promises, Zhang Xiaofan wasn't going to fall for it. Once he went, his freedom would be gone, and he would be at the mercy of a pyramid scheme.
"Five hundred yuan a day just to play mobile games? Who are you kidding?"
"…Fine then, let me add you to our group. You can think about the villa for another day. We've reserved a room for you at Azure Garden, Building 16, Huanghe City. If you don't come within 24 hours, the room will be given to someone else. As for the full version of Terror City, the installation file is in the group's shared folder. Please read the rules carefully after joining. Breaking them could get you kicked out." Don't Play Mobile Games explained.
"Wait—if you're a mobile game studio, why is your ID 'Don't Play Mobile Games'?" Xiaofan asked.
"Because mobile games are addictive. Especially ours. Once you play, you won't stop. Also, the game we've developed is terrifying—most ordinary players can't even bear to try it. That's why I chose this ID."
"What a lousy excuse… fine, just add me." Xiaofan didn't bother pushing further. If it turned out to be a scam, he could leave anytime. If, after careful observation, he confirmed they weren't frauds, and the villa wasn't a trap, then maybe—just maybe—500 yuan a day could secure him and little Xue a stable living.
But… could such a thing really be true?
"You have been added to group 'Panic Studio #153' by Don't Play Mobile Games."
"Group 153?" Xiaofan checked the profile. It was a 2,000-member group.
Did that mean there were already 152 other groups before this? Two thousand members each—over 300,000 people?
Surely just another scam tactic. Make the victim believe they were joining a large, legitimate company. Exploit herd mentality to lower defenses.
The group already had over 1,000 members. Yet unlike other large QQ groups, there was no noisy chatter, no greetings, no demands for red envelopes or silly jokes. The place was eerily silent.
"They must all be bots," Xiaofan thought. "A new kind of scam. Haven't seen this exposed in the media before." His mind raced. Against a large, sophisticated fraud ring, he needed to stay sharp every second—or risk being brainwashed.
Soon, a group admin messaged him privately with the rules. Skimming through, Xiaofan saw nothing unusual: no spamming, no off-topic talk. Violators would be fined 50 yuan per message, kicked after three strikes. Members were forbidden to discuss salaries or personal lives. Within one day, they had to change their group nickname to their real name, and use a real photo as their avatar—or be expelled.
Looking around, Xiaofan saw that indeed, every member's name was real, every profile picture a real person.
"No wonder it's silent… though maybe that's the trick, to keep me from suspecting they're all bots," Xiaofan thought grimly.
The admin also sent him the full-version Terror City installation link. Xiaofan clicked it—and froze.
Over 20 gigabytes.
A mobile game… over 20G? Ridiculous.
A 1G mobile game was already equivalent to a 10G PC game. But 20G? That was like a 200G PC game. Could this old Redmi Note 4X even handle it?
Mobile games usually unpacked or generated additional data during installation, often several times the size of the original file.
"This game can force-install parts of its data on an external SD card. If you work at the villa, you'll receive a free 128G SD card with the files preloaded. No need to download, just install," Don't Play Mobile Games messaged, as though reading his mind.
"…I'll think about it overnight. I'll give you my answer tomorrow." Xiaofan shut him down before the pestering continued.
Exiting to the main screen, he opened the settings to check the phone's specs. What he saw stunned him.
Internal storage: 100 terabytes.RAM: 8 terabytes.Processor: unknown model.
This was supposed to be a low-end Redmi Note 4X. A phone like this couldn't possibly exist.
One terabyte equaled a thousand gigabytes. Most modern PCs barely had 1T hard drives. Yet this phone had 100T storage? 8T RAM? Impossible.
No wonder Xiaomi's repair staff couldn't detect its ID or hardware—assuming it was completely broken.
This wasn't a Xiaomi phone at all. It only looked like one.
And thinking back, there had been other oddities. Like booting up automatically after three months. Like ringing on its own.
And the battery indicator—always 100%.
What phone stayed fully charged after three months? What phone had 100T storage, 8T memory? None on the market, not even close.
There were only two explanations. Either this was a future technology device. Or someone had tampered with the settings to display fake specs.
But the second theory didn't explain how it could auto-boot after months, or keep full charge.
A future-tech phone… hidden in Xue's swaddling clothes?
Who exactly was Xue's family?
And the QQ browser opening straight to Terror City's homepage? That wasn't coincidence.
None of this was coincidence.
This game. Panic Studio. Xue's mysterious origins.
It was all connected.
Things were becoming very strange indeed.
And Zhang Xiaofan… couldn't resist following the trail.