Thankfully, the world-saving heroes did "succeed."
"The world did not end as I have to work overtime this weekend!" Netizen "Num_9" said on Saturday morning.
"Hey guys, 'Doomsday' on the Mayan calendar was postponed because it had to give way to the winter solstice on the Chinese lunar calendar," "Xiaoxiao" wrote on Weibo.
Dec. 21 this year was the winter solstice, a Chinese festival with a tradition of more than 2,500 years when the sun appears at its lowest altitude at noon in the northern Hemisphere.
Ahead of "Doomsday" some people were looking to buy "tickets" to "arks" as depicted in the science fiction disaster movie 2012, which references Mayanism.
A ticket to board such an "ark" was "sold" for one billion yuan on some fake websites.
Even on Saturday, postcards of such tickets recorded sales on taobao.com, one of the country's leading online shopping websites. More than 1,800 kinds of postcards, including boat tickets, car tickets, train tickets and VIP cards were sold.