The story of a cellphone that traveled from Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, to Shanghai for a day without its owner has brought a smile to thousands of Chinese netizens.

The owner, Wang Yueyue, did not expect to see the cellphone again after she lost it on Monday. A supermarket employee, Wang was packing vegetables into parcels to be delivered to Shanghai to help with the city's food supply while it undergoes a citywide lockdown.

Owing to wearing a loose-fitting sweater with small pockets, she had already dropped her phone on the floor three times on Monday, before the fourth time when the phone disappeared. After looking around, Wang couldn't find her phone on the floor or in the trash can.

"I guess that I dropped it in one of the parcels," said the 26-year-old, who told her older sister what had happened later that day.

The sister, who goes by "AnyiMiantiao ah" on Sina Weibo, posted on the social media platform the same evening: "Anyone in Shanghai who got a cellphone in a delivery parcel of vegetables please contact me. My sister was busy packing the supplies and left her phone in one of the parcels. I just couldn't help but laugh."

The post was quickly shared online. Wang Yongyong, a supply chain manager in Shanghai's Hongqiao township, saw the post on Tuesday.

She dismissed the post as a joke until she received a call from the supermarket in Yangzhou, asking for her help in finding the cellphone. She and her colleagues, together with some volunteers helping to distribute the packs of vegetables, managed to find the cellphone in a truck that had arrived in the Lanzhu neighborhood.

A volunteer first noticed the cellphone when he heard its ring－the sound of a chicken crowing－among the packs of recently delivered vegetables.

"We mustn't fail the people who are helping us," said Wang Yongyong.

"Many local residents said in their WeChat groups that we should try our best to find the cellphone."

Before sending the phone back, the neighborhood committee wrote a note to the related department in Yangzhou to prove that the cellphone, and not Wang Yueyue, had traveled to Shanghai so that her health code wouldn't change from green to yellow and cause her inconvenience in her daily life.

On Tuesday night, the cellphone was returned to Wang Yueyue by the same truck driver who'd driven it unwittingly to Shanghai the previous day. He passed the cellphone on to Wang and expressed the gratitude from the people in Shanghai.

"I had no idea if I would ever see the cellphone again," said Wang Yueyue.

"It was an interesting experience for me, and my cellphone."

Apart from Yangzhou, anti-pandemic supplies have been sent to Shanghai from across the country to help the megacity cope with the current COVID-19 surge.

On Tuesday, Jiangsu delivered 891 metric tons of fruit and vegetables to Shanghai, 205 tons of meat, 442 tons of poultry and eggs and 316 tons of rice and flour, according to the Jiangsu Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

On Monday, 62.3 tons of medical supplies were delivered from Wuhan to Shanghai.

A total of 1,250 tons of milk, instant noodles and drinks were sent from Hebei province.

Guo Jun contributed to this story.