There is no such thing as a free lunch, but a popular scenic spot in central China has been offering lunch for just one yuan (15 U.S. cents) to tourists for four years during the "Golden Week," the week-long National Day holiday that falls in October every year.

And this year, staff in Laojun Mountain in Luoyang City, central China's Henan Province, surprisingly found that they had received an extra amount of money after offering the special treats to tourists. They sold 23,000 meals while getting 23,458 yuan back.

Tourists who visited the scenic spot were filled up with traditional local meals of corn noodles, buns, tomatoes, cucumbers, quail eggs, and even mooncakes, since this year's National Day holiday coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, all for a tiny sum of money. 

The act of goodwill is also a test to people's honesty. A transparent donation box was placed there for tourists to put money into it, with a QR code attached to it for people who used digital payments.

Weighing scales were also placed at the entrance and the exit to encourage people to control food intake within 1,500 grams.

Instead of making profits, the act aims to provide tourists with better experience. Xu Lei, staff from the scenic spot, said that he used to see lots of tourists eating cold meals while traveling here, so they decided to offer 1-yuan lunch to ensure every tourist can enjoy hot meals, reported Hangzhou Daily.

Organizers at the scenic spot noticed that many tourists would pay extra or forget to take the change, so the total amount of money they received was much more than the actual price.

The campaign has sparked heated discussion on social media and won overwhelming praises from netizens.

"Thumbs-up to both the scenic spot and the tourists," commented a user on China's Weibo.

"The 1-yuan lunch worth much more than 1 yuan," said another Weibo user.

(Top image: Organizers prepare the lunch at the scenic spot. /CFP)