Free lunches: man, 65, falls for China ‘university girl’, splurges US$13,800 on ‘her’ including meals over 2 years, discovers ‘she’ is jobless man

One message said: “Hubby, I’d like to eat meat. I haven’t had meat for a long time.” Another said: “Hubby, I am thirsty. Please buy me some beverages.”

Xia spent a total of 32,000 yuan (US$4,400) on takeaway food for Feng and also transferred 70,000 yuan for expenses like buying a mobile phone or paying for medical treatment and tuition fees, the court found.

Xia learned he had been duped when his nephew grew suspicious and suggested that he report the relationship to the police. Officers arrested Feng in a psychiatric hospital.

Many people on mainland social media mocked the bizarre relationship.

“It proves that only men can understand men,” one person joked on Douyin.

“It cracked me up when I saw he called him ‘hubby’, haha,” quipped another.

It is not the first time a fraud of this nature has caught public attention in China.

In May, Shanghai police caught a man who was dating three women simultaneously and who had defrauded them out of a total of three million yuan (US$410,000).

Last year, also in Shanghai, police arrested a 29-year-old married woman for being romantically involved with 18 men and having conned them out of a combined two million yuan.

The woman was nicknamed the “master of time management” because she dated so many men simultaneously.