◎My Phone Became Come to Life!◎
When Zhong Yao walked out of the exam hall, the other candidates were still gathered in small groups, complaining about how twisted this year’s CET-6 questions were.
Lost in thought, she opened Yu Yin and checked her browsing history, spotting the last video she had watched before going to bed last night, a video predicting CET-6 questions and offering exam strategies.
Her hands trembled as she tapped to play it. The short three-minute video sent chills down her spine.
Suddenly, a hand tapped her shoulder. Zhong Yao nearly dropped her phone in fright. Turning around, she saw her friend Si Ning Qing. “Yao Yao, what are you spacing out for? Aren’t we going to get food?”
Feeling as if she had spotted a savior, Zhong Yao grabbed her hand and asked, “Do you think if I score full marks on CET-6, the police will come and arrest me?”
Heaven help her, she really didn’t understand how the predictions in that video she watched yesterday matched today’s exam paper perfectly!
The thought of being arrested for leaking questions or cheating made her head spin, wishing she could go back in time and give her past self a huge scolding: If you hadn’t procrastinated on studying and left it all to the last minute, you wouldn’t have ended up watching a CET-6 strategy video!
Si Ning Qing didn’t grasp Zhong Yao’s panic at all. Thinking she was just seeking praise, she beamed and patted her head, fulfilling her “wish”: “My Yao Yao is amazing!”
Zhong Yao had taken CET-6 three times. She didn’t know what bad luck had struck the first two times, but she only scored 424 each time. Zhong Yao herself didn’t mind, but Si Ning Qing had nearly had a heart attack on her behalf.
Now, hearing that Zhong Yao was confident, she was genuinely happy for her.
Zhong Yao looked up at the deep blue sky with worry, not sure if she would ever again breathe the air of freedom.
“Forget it. While there’s still time, I’ll enjoy one last meal.”
Taking a deep breath, she grabbed Si Ning Qing’s hand and started walking off-campus. “Ah Qing, let’s go to that most expensive Japanese restaurant at the gate, my treat!”
Si Ning Qing looked at her affectionately, nodding repeatedly, “Sure, sure.” After finishing CET-6, the end-of-term week would arrive soon, leaving no time to hang out. It was good to go have fun early.
The two of them, whose thought processes were completely different, somehow reached an astonishingly unified decision on this.
“Wait a moment, I need to use the restroom,” Si Ning Qing said, her expression changing as she turned and hurried toward the bathroom.
Zhong Yao waited in place, when suddenly a notification popped up at the top of her phone. She instinctively tapped it, it was a headline from Yu Yin.
“June 12, 1:27 a.m., Gas explosion at a BBQ restaurant in Donghu New Town causes massive fire, 1 dead, 4 injured!”
“Oh my god, that’s terrible… people actually got hurt.” She had been to that BBQ restaurant with Si Ning Qing before. The food was good, and she never imagined something like this could happen.
Frowning, Zhong Yao stared at her phone. The video showed raging flames, not only consuming the BBQ restaurant but also affecting neighboring shops. The injuries, though faces were blurred, were still shocking.
After finishing the video and sighing for a moment, she was about to scroll to the next one when she suddenly froze.
She looked up at the not-yet-dark sky. Orange-red clouds stretched across half the horizon, and the shy sunset peeked from behind them, as if saying to everyone, “I’m almost off work!”
If she remembered correctly, the CET-6 exam should be on June 11.
Zhong Yao quickly pulled out her phone to check, and the screen clearly displayed: 7:19 p.m., June 11.
That meant June 11 hadn’t even ended yet, so where did this June 12 gas explosion come from?
A sudden thought slipped through her mind: could it be that someone was fabricating disasters just to get clicks?
She swiped back to the video and opened the comments, only to find that no one had commented. Even the likes and saves were zero. Could she really be the first person to notice this video?
Without overthinking it, Zhong Yao typed a comment: “Fabricating disasters out of thin air and lying about casualties, how criminal of you!”
No sooner had she posted the comment than she looked up to see Si Ning Qing standing in front of her. Pocketing her phone, she linked arms with her friend and headed off-campus, perfectly missing the red notification dot that had suddenly appeared.
The two of them ate and played, and by the time they left the Japanese restaurant, night had fallen. They weren’t in a rush to return to campus and ended up going to a KTV, screaming and laughing for hours. By the time they returned to the dorm, exhausted under a starry sky, the moon was high, almost midnight.
Zhong Yao quickly washed off the smell of alcohol, put on her pajamas, and lay down on her bed, leisurely scrolling through her phone. That’s when she noticed the little red dot on her notifications.
Instinctively, she tapped it and found a reply from the account to the comment she had posted that afternoon: “Go save them quickly!”
The account had the Yu Yin icon, the nickname was just a string of numbers, obviously not a real account. Zhong Yao rolled her eyes and reported it.
Funny, did this person think she hadn’t downloaded the national anti-fraud app?
After reporting, she lay back on her bed, enjoying her phone, when it started vibrating repeatedly, private messages from the user she had reported.
This attention-seeking scammer actually dared to harass her?
Lying down wasn’t helping her think clearly. Annoyed, she sat up, ready to deal with it, when she caught sight of several photos sent by that person.
In each photo, the left side showed a man smiling brightly at the camera, while the right side showed people lying on stretchers, covered in blood, with large areas of severe burns or even charred.
Beneath the photos was a message: “If you don’t save them, they will end up like this in the morning explosion, and some may even die.”
The images were horrifying. Zhong Yao glanced at them and broke out in a cold sweat.
She furrowed her brows, thinking that this scammer had really prepared all their tricks.
After blocking the account, Zhong Yao lay back down. The others had long since fallen asleep, but for some reason, the moment she closed her eyes, those images replayed in her mind, leaving her restless.
She gave up on sleeping, put on her headphones, and absentmindedly listened to soft music to help her drift off, but today, a method that usually worked completely failed. After listening for a long time, she still felt wide awake.
Zhong Yao checked the time: 1:15 a.m., June 12.
If she stayed up any longer, she would probably regret it in the morning. Hastily, she tossed her phone aside, closed her eyes, and took deep breaths, trying to summon sleep.
One minute later, she turned over. Five minutes later, she turned over again. Ten minutes later, she quietly got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.
Sitting on the toilet, her eyes fixed on the large numbers “119” on the dial screen, she hesitated, conflicted.
She glanced at the time again, 1:24 a.m.
Just three more minutes, and that “explosion” would happen.
In the silent darkness, only the pounding of her heart echoed in her ears, thump thump, thump thump. Watching the numbers on the screen jump from 24 to 25, Zhong Yao gritted her teeth and pressed the dial button.
When the call was answered, a male voice came through the line: “Hello, Donghu New Town Fire Station.”
Only then did she realize what she had done.
Zhong Yao immediately smacked her forehead. Had she been brainwashed by that scammer? How could she have believed such ridiculous nonsense?
She stayed silent, but the voice on the other end grew anxious: “Hello, is there an emergency?”
Taking a deep breath, she thought, Well, a scammer or not, it’s done. There’s no turning back now.
She quickly recounted what she had seen: “The gas at Donghu New Town’s Meiwei BBQ Restaurant has exploded, causing a fire! Please come quickly!”
Without waiting for a response, she hung up and sat on the toilet, her hands and feet cold, biting her fingers as she nervously searched for the penalties for “falsely reporting a fire.”
Unbeknownst to her, the sudden alarm at the fire station woke many firefighters from their sleep. They scrambled out of bed, quickly put on their gear, and within minutes, a fire truck was speeding toward Meiwei BBQ Restaurant, sirens wailing.
Zhong Yao’s legs and hands went numb from sitting on the toilet. Watching the seconds tick by, her heart nearly jumped into her throat. She silently opened her phone’s notes app and slowly typed three heavy words: “Admit Mistake.”
As she tearfully wrote down her “crime” line by line, a news alert suddenly popped up: June 12, 1:27 a.m., Gas explosion at Meiwei BBQ Restaurant in Donghu New Town caused a fire. Fortunately, the fire department arrived in time. No casualties reported…
Zhong Yao finally felt her heart sink back into her stomach. She quickly skimmed the full news report. The video showed firefighters bravely charging into the flames, wearing orange protective suits and carrying people trapped in the fire through the smoke. In her eyes, they seemed to grow to nearly three meters tall.
The comments below praised the firefighters without reserve. Zhong Yao almost liked every single one, watching the rescue and firefighting video over and over, feeling a mix of joy and relief.
The relief came from knowing no one had been injured and the damage hadn’t been severe. The shock came from the undeniable truth: Zhong Yao was certain, her phone had truly come to life.