Technically, it is a stock ROM: a .pac or .mbn file containing the bootloader, the kernel, the system image, and the userdata. It is the device’s Platonic ideal—the perfect form of its software, straight from the factory in Vietnam or China. To flash it is to perform a technological séance. You hold down the volume keys, plug in a USB cable, and use a tool like SP Flash Tool (for the MediaTek chipset) to overwrite the corrupted present with a pristine past.