The 36-year-old boyfriend, surnamed Lin, alerted local police after receiving the messages, Wuhan Evening News reported on Tuesday.
Lin said his girlfriend disappeared from their dormitory at the Huangpi Jiahai Industrial Park where they worked on the night of February 21, shortly after the couple returned from Lin's hometown in Yichang city for Chinese New Year.
Minutes later, Lin's phone rang. It was his girlfriend telling him she had been kidnapped.
'Come and save me, my ex-husband has kidnapped me, come quickly. I think I'm on the highway already,' she cried, before the line went dead.
Following the call, Lin received several messages from someone claiming to be Yu's ex-husband, threatening to murder his girlfriend.
'Call the police and your wife is dead,' one of the messages read.
Lin finally reported the incident to Huangpi police the next day after failing to negotiate with the 'kidnapper'.
Following an investigation and checking surveillance footage, a team of 20 officers was finally able to locate the woman at a motel in Tenglong district.
However, when they arrived at her room, they were shocked to find the 'victim' resting on the hotel bed, unhurt.
When the police couldn't find any trace of the said abductor, the truth came out - Yu owned up and said it was all an act to break up with her boyfriend, Lin.
Officer Bai Xiangang from the Huangpi police department said the woman appeared 'surprisingly calm' when officers found her in the room.
'She was lying in bed and watching television,' he told Chutian Metropolis Daily.
The woman told police she found out Lin was 'really poor' after visiting his home during Chinese New Year and had wanted to leave him.
Her original plan was to trick the man into leaving the dormitory so she could sneak back in to pack her belongings and leave, but then she realised that Lin had the only key to the room.
By continuing the kidnapping act, she had hoped that her boyfriend would 'give up'.
The woman has been detained by police for 10 days for disrupting social order, according to Wuhan Evening News.
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