The Feline Warrior

Note from The Feline Warrior: This short story by Ms. ServalCandle is first published on her own blog on March 5, 2020. The original author retains copyright over the original Chinese writing; the following English translation is the work of The Feline Warrior.

The word yaoniang (藥娘) (literally, “medicine girl”) is commonly used on the Chinese internet to refer to trans women, especially those who are undergoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT), i.e. “medicine.” Tsökhröl (Цөхрөл) is the Mongolian word for “despair.”

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It was a run-of-the-mill, slice-of-life kind of account no matter how you looked at it. If you opened her profile and began scrolling down, you’d immediately get a screen full of random thoughts and the occasional retweets of anime drawings.

“Got kicked out by my parents… I — I just wanted to be a girl… Is that wrong?”

“So bored today… Would anyone be willing to hang out with me?”

The casualness of the tweets, along with the one or two likes that they sparsely receive, seemed to indicate that the account’s owner was only interested in using Twitter as a platform for venting and ranting.

Gu Shan continued to scroll down, finally encountering some tweets with photos attached: an ice cream cone colored pink, blue and white «TN: color scheme of the Helms transgender flag», held in a hand whose body was attired in a blue-and-white Japanese schoolgirl-style uniform. And the next photo was a number of small blue pills.

“Wish I could be with someone I like…”

The tweets thus far made it evident that the account owner was an MtF individual living within China proper. Gu Shan opened that familiar computer program (with an admittedly bland-looking user interface) and began typing in the account’s username and basic profile.

This was when the system would randomly generate an AI-powered bot account, which would only retweet in Chinese and follow the surveillance target — this was commonly referred to as “preventive surveillance.”

Any China-based user deemed to be unlawfully accessing foreign websites would be subject to such surveillance, by one or even multiple AI accounts. They were to automatically collect and record information from the tweets, for the purpose of creating behavioral profiles of the targets…

Ding-dong.

The rare sound of the notification chime prompted Gu Shan to open the Twitter window right away. The system showed that the target account had followed back and sent a direct message:

“Well, thank you for following me…”

The AI account was not programmed to be capable of replying to direct messages, especially since Twitter wouldn’t even bother telling the user that they were followed by a default-profile-pic dummy account. Indeed, many tend to be totally oblivious of their new “followers.”

Gu Shan wasn’t sure whether to reply.

“Looks like you’ve read my message…”

The other person went on, continuing what felt like a monologue.

“No one has followed me on Twitter before… I really appreciate you…” “Ever since I got kicked out of home, I thought no one would ever notice me again till I die…” “No response? That’s alright, sorry to bother you…” “Thank you…”

“Hello.” — By the time Gu Shan realized it, his hands were already on the keyboard, sending out the first message.

“Wonderful… Thank you for replying to me…”

Internet surveillance agents mostly worked night shifts, and Gu Shan found himself engaged in night-long conversations with his surveillance target. Thankfully, as a rookie, he did not yet have a demanding quota to meet.

During the long conversation this night, Gu Shan began piecing together in his mind a rough sketch of the other person — a frail, feeble girl who had been self-administering HRT since middle school. She had carefully and delicately kept this secret from her family, who did not find out until, by happenstance, that fateful day after she finished high school.

She was then met with her mother’s curses and swears, while enduring her father’s fists and feet, before she and her dress were both thrown out of the house.

Penniless and without an ID, she had to rely on the generosity of her fellow trans women to be able to stay in a cheap motel, surviving only on stale bread while still needing to save money for HRT.

The sky grew redder as daybreak approached, and at last, she’d finished telling her story just as the morning alarm rang. The last thing she mentioned is that she’d stocked up enough sleeping pills and, having already swallowed quite a few, she was “ready to finally become a real girl”…

“Goodbye… Thank you for spending my last night with me.”

Naturally, this made Gu Shan incredibly anxious. But Twitter was an American website after all, where he couldn’t directly extract the user’s registered phone number and IP address. He could do little else but sigh, quietly worrying about her fate.

Deep down inside, he understood that he was merely a tiny screw in a vast machine commonly known as “the state.”

A sleepless day.

The next evening, as soon as he started working, Gu Shan couldn’t wait to check that MtF person’s account from the day before. He was pleasant to find out that the account had posted two new tweets during the day, indicating her suicide attempt was unsuccessful.

“Ramen doesn’t taste very good…”

“I’m so bored…”

Gu Shan rushed to send a message — “Glad to see that you’re OK.” Though this time, he went by all night without getting a reply.

Still, seeing that her suicide attempt was not successful, Gu Shan let out a sigh of relief. The account continued to post new tweets, at the rate of two texts every day and one photo every week.

“The weather in Kunming city is really nice…”

“I’ll run out of ‘candies’ «TN: on the Chinese internet, especially within trans circles, “candy” is a common euphemism for the hormones used in HRT» tomorrow… But I don’t have money for any more…”

“Maybe just for once, I should also be like Qu Yuan…” «TN: 340–278 B.C. Chinese poet and aristocrat, celebrated as a man of honor and integrity; his final words before committing suicide — “the whole world is crooked but I’m upright; everybody is drunk but I’m sober” (擧世皆濁我獨淸，衆人皆醉我獨醒) — are particularly well-known»

“Nobody wants me…”

As the tweets increased in number, the AI-analyzed behavioral profile also grew more detailed, and the geofencing program was eventually able to succeed in pinpointing her exact location. Nearly simultaneously, a direct message reply came through —

“I’m feeling so cold…”

“I’m feeling so sick…”

“I’m begging you, please come and save me…”

Without time for hesitation or second thoughts, Gu Shan picked up his phone and reported the AI-pinpointed location to his superiors, claiming that was the hideout of a fugitive political criminal.

Within five minutes, two black Volkswagens from the strike team parked outside the rundown motel. Police officers began banging on the door and, hearing no response from the inside, they obtained the key directly from the motel’s manager. As soon as they opened the door, though, an overflowing stench of cadaverine poured out of it instantly.

Several officers bent over and began to vomit.

There was no political criminal to be found anywhere in the room — only a male corpse dressed in female clothing.

Gu Shan was immediately fired from his job and jailed on charges of treason. In private, he asked an officer guarding the prison to find out more about the incident’s aftermath. The lady behind the Twitter account turned out to be not as cute or attractive as he’d imagined; despite all those years of HRT, her only feminine features were the slightly plump breasts and the long hair…

Disappointment was written all over Gu Shan’s face; perhaps he felt someone like this wasn’t worth losing his job for. Think about it — being the eyes and ears of the Big Brother, how could Gu Shan or his colleagues be allowed to have any trace of humanity, after all? The sole reason for Gu Shan’s foolish sacrifice, if anything, was only attributable to his unusual sexual preference and impulsive youthful hormones.

As the investigation progressed, police officers were shocked to find out that, three days prior to her first conversation with Gu Shan, that MtF person had already killed herself.

She’d written a computer program to automatically send the tweets. It would delete all the previous tweets once a full cycle had been completed; and should the account gain a new follower, it would also automatically send the pre-written story in direct messages…

“Perhaps, just like the Glorious Supreme Leader, she also didn’t want to be forgotten by the world…”