Shengliver’s Note: This real-life drama, which unfolded on a spring evening of 2018, re-inspires my confidence in humanity.

 

On the evening of April 30, my buddies and I hung out at a cinema in Liuyan. After the film, on the way home we hit upon a phone by the road. Picking it up, we found it was an iPhone 8 Plus. We counted ourselves lucky, because the Apple device, which is pricy, could be traded for cash.

It is well known that you can talk to a smartphone even when it is locked. We decided to try to track down the owner this way. Facing the device, I said, “Please give a call to Mother.” Scarcely had I finished when the phone dialled a number tagged Mum, and the next moment it got through.

I started, “We picked up the phone on the street. Is that the owner’s mother?”

A female voice came over, “Yes, speaking.”

Then I asked, “How can we return the phone to your son? Could you come and take it back? We are in Liuyan.”

Hearing that, the female on the other end was obviously startled. “Oh, my son has been on a business trip to Shiyan these days,” she hastened to say. “We live in Xi’an. Let me try to contact him, but if I I can’t reach him, will you please be kind enough to note down my address and post the phone back?”

I agreed before I hung up. While waiting, we compared notes. It was agreed that if no one came and claimed it, we would sell the gadget on the spot. We would not bother to send it back to the woman at our expense.

About ten minutes later, the phone rang. The caller said that it was his phone and that he would come and collect it right away. To help him to locate us by GPS, I added the man to my contact list on WeChat on my phone.

Five minutes later, a sleek yellow SUV pulled over and stopped next to us. Out of the car hopped a smartly dressed man. After checking and double-checking his identity, we returned the phone to the anxious owner. Immensely relieved, he thanked us profusely. He dug a wad of cash out of his wallet and tried to put it into my palm.

We declined it, saying that no one else in the same situation would have done otherwise. We asked if he could take us back home in his sexy car. Since there were the five of us and his vehicle was too small to seat us all, he hailed two taxis for us and paid the fare in advance.

Before we parted, the phone owner promised to give us a treat should we go to his home city, Xi’an, someday.