On a Saturday afternoon around 2 PM, I was alone on the No. 70 bus heading to Sichuan Road. While I was on the phone with my husband, I noticed someone tapping my shoulder. At first, I thought it might be someone I knew saying hello. But when I looked, I saw a man in his forties standing beside me, someone I didn’t know. I figured he might have accidentally touched me while finding a seat, so I didn’t think much of it. After finishing my call, I looked around and realized there were plenty of empty seats. Why wasn't this man sitting down, and why was he so close to me? That’s when I started to feel uneasy.
After a moment, the man tried to start a conversation with me. He said, "Young lady, are you a college student?" I ignored him. A little later, he said, "Young lady, there's a strand of hair on your neck." It then occurred to me that I might be dealing with a pervert. I replied, "What hair? It's none of your business," while instinctively pulling up my collar. After a brief pause, the man claimed to be a professor from Fudan University who was researching human hair. He commented on how black my hair was and wanted to "exchange ideas" with me. He also mentioned not having his business card but offered to give me his phone number instead. I responded, "I'm not interested." Yet, he persisted and asked if he could take a closer look at my hair. Before I could respond, he had already touched my head. Within seconds, I felt numbness in my limbs and tongue, and my vision became blurry. Realizing something was wrong, I quickly drank a lot of water (I had read an email from a colleague about a similar situation, suggesting drinking water to dilute any toxins).
My first reaction was to distance myself from the man. I left my seat and stumbled towards the middle door of the bus. I told a young girl nearby that I didn’t know the man, but after he touched my head, I started feeling unwell. The girl became tense upon hearing this and helped me sit down. She then informed a man in his thirties sitting nearby about the situation. By this point, I felt like I was about to faint. Standing up, I walked to the man and told him that if I passed out, he should take me to the police station because I didn’t know the man who had touched me. I also gave him my home phone number and asked him to call my husband. The kind man dialed the number for me and placed the phone near my ear, but I couldn’t hear anything, even though the call was connected and my husband could hear me speaking.
When the bus reached its final stop, the kind man helped me off the bus. By this time, I felt somewhat better, but due to the earlier stress, my hands and feet were still cold, and I had a slight headache. The bad person had fled as soon as possible.
An auntie on the bus commented, "Thank goodness I sought help. If I had fainted, that bad person might have taken me away, and no one would have thought it strange, assuming we knew each other."
Dear friends, please be cautious when traveling in the future. Scammers today use all sorts of tricks.