How to Subscribe to Sanlian Lifeweek

21 Apr, 2026

To start, receive a link to a magazine article, from a friend.¹ The article is in Sanlian Lifeweek, the fourth most circulated magazine in China.

Click into the article. Read two minutes. Hit a paywall.

Click a link in the corner to register for an account. Enter your phone number, and wait ten seconds for text message verification.

Follow the link to purchase a monthly electronic subscription for three dollars. The link is on Taobao, the largest online retailer in the world.

Successfully find all pictures with three open suitcases. Fail the captcha. Taking extra care, find all the pictures with exactly five pomegranates. Fail again. Attempt three more captchas with no success.

Access the Taobao link via your Android phone. Download the Taobao app when redirected. Sign up with email and password. Ten seconds into account setup, get logged out of the app. Log back in, to be presented with a notification that the account has been shut down for security screening. Create a second account with a second email. Face an identical situation.

Try to log in with phone number instead. This time, make it through account setup and navigate to the magazine subscription store page. Click add to cart, but read that your account presents a security risk, and needs SMS verification. Wait 60 seconds for text to arrive. It doesn't. Request another verification code. Wait ten minutes for the text to not arrive. Request a third verification code. Your account has been locked for twelve hours for requesting too many verification codes.

The next day, complete three captchas to log into Taobao via phone. Add Sanlian subscription to cart, and receive text verification after two tries. Read that your account presents extra heightened security risk, and needs to be verified in the Alipay app. Remember both apps are developed by the formerly richest man in China, who has since disappeared. Install the Alipay app, which is 300MB.

Return to Taobao app, and complete text verification again. Click verify with Alipay to be redirected. Read a popup that the wrong account is logged in, please switch accounts. Sit, puzzled, for a few minutes, before realizing you must create an Alipay account first. Create an Alipay account with email. Immediately, your account presents a security risk, and needs SMS verification. Complete SMS verification.

Return again to Taobao app, and follow the steps to be redirected to Alipay notification. Re-read popup that the wrong account is logged in, please switch accounts. Confused, navigate back to the Alipay app, and eventually piece together that complete SMS verification is not the same as bind number to account. Select security settings menu item to bind number to account. Fail to receive SMS.

Create a second Alipay account with phone number. Attempt the immediate SMS verification, but your account has been locked for twenty-four hours for requesting too many verification codes.

On the third day, log in to Alipay again. Discover a Taobao mini-app embedded in Alipay. Find the magazine subscription in this mini app. Add to cart. An overlay pops up, indicating that your account is suspected of automated or bot-like activity. Notice that rapidly spamming the back button will clear the overlay. Attempt to check out, but don't have a payment method.

Add payment method to pay. Manually type in your credit card number, expiration date, and CVV. The credit card needs video verification. Click through to the video verification screen. It is completely black, so you go back and try again. It is still black. You tap a few times and nothing happens.

Open the Alipay customer support chat. Give a description and screenshot of the credit card verification problem. Stare at the LLM responses. Attempt to prompt inject, to no avail. Type I want to chat with a human for ten consecutive messages. While I can't transfer you directly to a human agent, I am here as Alipay's Intelligent customer service, fully dedicated to helping you find a solution.

Call the 24/7 Alipay customer support phone number. Struggle to understand rapid-fire Mandarin. Eventually the representative understands your problem, and transfers you to the international payments verification division. The division runs on China time, and is closed for the day.

The fourth morning, wake up at 6AM to call within China working hours. Press 2 for English. Wait ten minutes on hold. Attempt to begin a conversation while parsing the representative's indecipherable accent. Quintuple communication bandwidth when you switch to Chinese. Listen as they confirm the black screen is a known issue. As a workaround, send pictures of your credit card, front and back, via chat message. At the representative's instruction, wait for two hours for the manual verification to complete.

Return to the Taobao mini-app within Alipay app. Attempt to check out, now that your payment method has been added. Read that bind number to account must be completed. Like two days ago, select security settings menu item to bind number to account. Echoing two days ago, fail to receive SMS.

Search the web for alternate subscription methods. Trawling through forums, learn there is a Sanlian Android app. Search the Google Play Store for Sanlian app. It isn't there. Search the web directly in Chinese for Sanlian app. Discover that it can only be installed through the proprietary QQ app store. Download an installer for the QQ app store. Enable install from unknown sources in Android settings. Dismiss a warning that the installer is unsigned. Dismiss a second warning that Google has not scanned the app. Through the QQ app store, find the Sanlian app. Accept a similarly old and unsigned installer for the Sanlian app.

Log in to the Sanlian app with phone number. Complete four captchas. See an option for in-app digital subscription. Inspect payment options. Alipay is the only one. Successfully pay three dollars with the credit card you verified this morning.

Forget what article you wanted to read in the first place.