Nowhere to Run: From Deliveryman to Survivor in Northern Myanmar

I’m Chen Xiaohai, an ordinary delivery rider. An ad promising a “monthly salary of 18,000” lured me into a pig-butchering scam compound in Myanmar. On my first day, I was slapped more than a dozen times and lost the hearing in my left ear. In my first month, I personally conned a factory girl out of all her savings. Her name was Su Mei, and her profile picture was a flower. In my fifth month, eighteen-year-old Ashui died beside me. He said, “Bro, if you ever get out, tell my mom I never did anything bad.” I tried to call for help, but my roommate betrayed me. They broke three of my ribs and locked me in a dark cell for three days. After that, I stopped trusting anyone. I used the simplest methods I could think of: hiding coded messages in my scripts, writing on the backs of yuan notes, and deliberately “slipping up” during voice calls, sending out pleas for help bit by bit. The night the gunfire erupted, I was shot in the calf and dragged into a ditch. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in China. But I was deaf in one ear, had three cracked ribs, and couldn’t get Ashui’s face out of my mind. The doctor said, “Write down what you went through. That’s the only way you’ll survive.” So I wrote this book. It isn’t a novel. It’s a real survival guide I paid for with eight months in hell. If you’re reading this, congratulations, you’re still safe. But remember: the job offering you a “high salary,” the online friend who claims to be “deeply in love” with you, the platform promising “guaranteed profits”: behind them could be my blood. I never gave up trying to get help. Neither should you. Anti-fraud hotline: 96110 | Witnessed by tens of millions online | An ordinary man’s desperate fight to survive