Chapter Three: The Romance Scam

At first, I was stunned, but then it dawned on me—it had to be my sister!

“All right! Now I’ll show you the operations hall!” With that, Brother Can led us back to the elevator, returning us to the customer service department he’d just mentioned.

As a pair of grand wooden doors swung open, I was greeted by rows upon rows of desks. Each row boasted thirty workstations, and there were over a dozen such rows stretching out on either side. Every station held a desktop computer, and seated before them were people clad in the same work uniforms as us, typing endlessly at their keyboards. They looked like the living dead, their faces numb and lifeless. When I glanced down, I realized every one of them had manacles clamped around their ankles, chaining them to the table legs.

Between each row, henchmen patrolled the aisles, wielding whips and machetes. Every so often, they would glance at the monitors of the workers seated nearby. As the girl had said, most of the people in the customer service department were men. The few women present were plain-looking, and among the handful who could be considered attractive, it was only by comparison.

As I was taking this all in, a commotion erupted at the back door. I turned to see several masked men herding five or six people toward us. Unlike us, these newcomers were in far worse shape—one had a swollen eye, another a broken leg, and the most unfortunate among them had an arm twisted completely backward, hanging by nothing but a strip of skin.

“See that? This is what happens when you don’t obey!” Brother Can declared, grabbing the poor man’s mangled arm and giving it another brutal twist.

A wail of agony reverberated through the hall, but the workers at their computers didn’t so much as flinch. They kept typing away, as if such horrors were commonplace.

Suddenly, Brother Can gave a sharp yank, tearing the broken arm clean off. The man collapsed, fainting from the pain.

All of us newcomers were visibly terrified. The girl next to me was so frightened that tears streamed down her face.

“Old Song! These newbies are yours now!” Brother Can shouted.

At his call, a bald man—clearly summoned—stood up from the end of a row and hurried over. He looked about forty, his face pockmarked, with no manacles on his legs and no numbered vest like ours. He seemed to be someone in charge.

He gave us a quick once-over, then pointed to the end of the row. “There are seven or eight stations at the back. Those are reserved for you. Each computer is labeled with your staff number. Find your station immediately!”

Hardly had he finished speaking when two guys beside me lunged for the desks, afraid of being whipped if they hesitated. I rushed forward as well, imitating them, but as soon as I took a step, my whole body went weak. Colors danced before my eyes, and my ears buzzed—I recognized the signs of hunger.

I’d only eaten a piece of dry bread and a bowl of thin rice soup in two days, and on top of that, I’d been beaten twice. Even a god would struggle to withstand that.

Luckily, the girl with the twin ponytails grabbed my hand and, taking advantage of the slick floor, dragged me to my workstation.

Sure enough, the computer bore my staff number: 2048.

The stations were numbered in order, so the girl sat next to me at 2050.

Old Song handed each of us a small booklet. Its cover read: “Employee Manual.”

“Let me introduce myself. I’m your team leader. You can call me Brother Song.”

“See those manuals? Inside are the key points of your work and the standard scripts for daily tasks. You have the morning to study. This afternoon, you’ll get your accounts and start working live.”

“You’re new employees. For your first month, you only need to hit ten thousand in sales to meet your quota. From the second month on, it’s twenty thousand. Let me explain the rules here.”

“First: No talking during work hours. If you need something, raise your hand and ask. You may only speak out loud if you’ve closed a deal.”

“Second: The manual is just a reference. The company doesn’t limit how you make money. As long as you deliver results, you can use any method you want. If you recruit someone to the company, that’s a hundred grand per head, with a ten percent commission.”

“Of course, if anyone tries to send unauthorized information outside on these computers…”

At this, Old Song suddenly looked straight at me. Groggy as I was, I instantly sobered up, meeting his gaze.

“Kid, the last person who sat where you are tried to send something he shouldn’t have. That’s why the company ‘let him go.’”

Old Song gave a sinister smile. I knew full well what he meant by “let go.”

After that, he said nothing more, letting us read the manuals on our own.

I opened to the first page and saw the table of contents: Romance Scam Scripts, Phishing Scripts, Fake Transaction Scripts…

My heart sank, followed by a wave of shame. I’d studied at the police academy, and though I hadn’t managed to join the force, now I’d fallen to this. If my parents found out, they’d surely be so furious they’d die on the spot.

And if my sister knew, she’d probably hate me for being such a disappointment.

Thinking of my sister filled me with sorrow. I’d come to this lawless place to find her, only to end up trapped myself.

But one thing was certain: my sister was somewhere in this compound. And besides telecom fraud, there had to be darker things hidden here.

That masked man I’d knocked down earlier—he hadn’t seemed human at all.

And the “Amber” my sister left with me—what was that?

My mind was a tangled mess, but I pretended to read the booklet. I flipped through several pages, but not a single word registered.

In truth, I already knew a bit about all this. The so-called romance scam was just a term for cons that used social apps and fake relationships to trick people out of their money. In this underworld, platforms like QQ and WeChat were called “pigpens,” and they created fake identities—“feed”—to lure in targets, whom they called “pigs.” They’d build up trust, pose as mentors or lovers—this was the “fattening” phase—then invent some urgent need for money, make off with the cash, and disappear. That was the “slaughter.”

Outsiders often sneered at these scams, thinking only fools would fall for such crude tricks. “Just don’t do online dating, don’t invest, don’t transfer money—how hard can it be to stay safe?” they’d say.

But that’s no longer true. In the era of big data, the skilled scammers don’t even need you to send money. Just chatting casually, they can extract huge amounts of your personal information. With a few selfies from your social feed, they can use street view maps to find your address, then dig up your name, details, even your family situation…

The morning drifted by in a daze, until a sharp bell snapped me out of my thoughts. The clock on the wall read eleven-thirty.

I knew it was the lunch bell.

Excited, I started to stand up, but the girl at 2050—my companion—quickly kicked me under the table.

Then I realized I’d nearly made a disastrous mistake. The hall was dead silent. Even though the bell had rung, not a single person stood up.

A few minutes later, Brother Song finally rose slowly and called out, “Group One! You can go to lunch!”

He turned to us newcomers. “Follow the others to the cafeteria. After you eat, you can stretch your legs in the plaza. Be back here before one o’clock.”