https://www.cnet.com/news/mi-8-explorer-edition-teardown-reveals-truth-about-transparent-back-panel/

It looks like the cat, well chip, is out of the bag.

A teardown of Xiaomi's beautiful Mi 8 Explorer Edition, which features a transparent back panel that lets you supposedly peek into the phone's innards to see stuff like a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, has revealed that the chip you see isn't actually a sticker, but it's also not the actual processor either.