When Zhang saw the ad on social media, he felt like he’d been offered a chance to turn his life around.

Unemployed and drowning in debt, he needed cash fast. And the company was offering just that — if he could complete a simple-looking “self-discipline challenge.”

All Zhang needed to do was spend days inside a small hotel room rigged up with several surveillance cameras. If he could stay there for 26 days — without covering his face at any point — he’d win a jaw-dropping cash reward of 859,000 yuan ($118,000).

Zhang signed up and paid the 6,900-yuan registration fee without hesitation. But what seemed like a lifeline soon turned into a nightmare, as Zhang failed the challenge within hours.

Desperate, Zhang made a second attempt, then a third. But each time, he was quickly disqualified. After days of effort, he had paid over 20,000 yuan in fees and won nothing. He found himself even deeper in debt — and feeling like he’d been conned.

“A relative told me that this is an outright scam,” Zhang told domestic media outlet Huashang Daily. “The rules sound simple, but the challenge pushes the limits of human endurance and is essentially impossible to complete.”

Zhang had become a victim of a dark trend that has emerged on Chinese social media in recent months, which has eerie similarities to the Netflix series “Squid Game.”

Companies are luring the poor and unemployed to take part in dubious “challenges” with the promise of winning a hefty cash prize. Most are isolation challenges similar to the one attempted by Zhang, with participants spending days inside small rooms under the gaze of clusters of CCTV cameras.

If the contestants win, they can earn life-changing sums that often run into hundreds of thousands of yuan. But they rarely do. Instead, like Zhang, they often find themselves handing over registration fees only to be disqualified for minor violations of the competition rules.

To cap things off, the companies will often broadcast livestreams, short-videos, and photos of their attempts via their social feeds to attract more future contestants.

It’s unclear when the trend first started, but it has rapidly gained popularity this year. A quick search on China’s version of TikTok, Douyin, produces dozens of accounts promoting so-called “self-discipline challenges.”

Posing as a potential participant, Sixth Tone spoke with the operators of several such challenges to gain a better insight into how the industry functions. In each case, a member of staff inquired about the participant’s age, city of residence, and health status, before sending over a document outlining the competition rules.

Registration fees typically ranged from 6,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan, with the challenges lasting between 20 and 30 days. The rewards generally topped out at 300,000 yuan to 600,000 yuan.

One company appeared to be targeting middle-aged people in particular, with the staff saying that the challenge was open to anyone aged between 45 and 50 with a clean bill of health.

The challenges were generally similar to the one Zhang experienced, with participants expected to stay in a small room for as long as possible without violating a series of rules — while the staff monitored their every move via camera.

The rules appeared simple. The contestant must stay in the room at all times, must not use any form of electronic device, must not communicate with anyone else, must not cover their face at any point, and must not move or cover the cameras, according to the documents.

The online ads for the challenges try to make them appear easy, with one post stating “you can read books, draw, knit, or enjoy the view out of the window.”

But as Zhang discovered, these rules are incredibly difficult to obey in practice. During his first attempt in September, he was disqualified within 24 hours for covering his face for more than three seconds.

The second time, Zhang failed for briefly turning away from the camera while making his bed. The third time, the staff accused Zhang of breaking the rules by covering a can of beer — part of the “self-disciple challenge” involved not touching or consuming the alcohol left in the room.

Zhang — who is from the northwestern province of Shaanxi — was left furious by these disqualifications, and has since filed a lawsuit against the company in the hope of forcing them to refund his registration fees.

Media coverage of his case has triggered public outrage against the operators of self-discipline challenges in recent days. Legal experts have urged Chinese authorities to take action against the industry. Xia Hailong, a lawyer at Shanghai Shenlun Law Firm, told local media that the challenges resembled gambling, with contestants encouraged to take risks in pursuit of a quick reward. Consumers should collect evidence and take legal action if they feel they’ve been lured into a “consumption trap,” Xia added.

Zhang agreed that the challenge felt like a form of gambling. “There was a gambling mentality at play,” he told media. “After failing the challenge for the second time, I borrowed 7,000 yuan from a friend to try again. At that point, I had a thought: I’d already invested so much money, I couldn’t walk away empty-handed.”

The Shaanxi native is not the first victim to sue a self-discipline challenge operator. Earlier this year, a man surnamed Sun filed a similar lawsuit, arguing that he’d been unfairly conned out of his registration fee.

Sun reportedly signed on to participate in a 30-day isolation challenge that promised a 250,000-yuan reward. He paid 6,000 yuan to take part. But on the third day of his attempt, Sun was told he’d violated the rules because he’d covered his face with a pillow while sleeping.

Believing he hadn’t broken any rules, Sun took the company to court in the eastern Shandong province. The judge ruled partly in his favor, but only ordered the company to repay him 5,400 yuan.

(Header image: Visuals from Douyin and Xiaohongshu, reedited by Sixth Tone)