The Trolls Who Divided China | Chapter 3

Yìhán, a Chinese woman with big eyes, doubled lids, and no slant gave birth to Mǐnxīn, the exact opposite. Yìhán was ashamed of her child's face, embarrassed for her child in her own words as soon as she processed the child.

It was no longer 2036, but 2045, just nine years after 2036, and yet she still felt ashamed of East Asian facial features regarding the eyes. Being from South Jǐn yáo Timville, she was baffled that she even had a child with such rare eyes.

Yìhán's newborn daughter, Mǐnxīn's eyes were very narrow and very slanted like the woman in this photo's eyes, this was seen as an extreme rarity even among those with eyes that naturally slant. Because the people in South Jǐn yáo Timville were taught that most east Asians don't have Slanted eyes, but that it's usually black people.

It was taught that it is common for African people to have slanted eyes naturally. Therefore, very young neighbors had hoped people would assume the child was half-black because Jǐn yáo had ordered it be taught in schools that it was shameful for any Chinese person to artistically depict slanted eyes on a Chinese person or even have slanted eyes as a Chinese person.

Hàoyǔ, the child's father, had slanted but wide eyes like the Chinese woman in this photo's eyes on the big screen, and was generally respected by Chinese Immigrants as attractive; His face was why Yìhán fell in love with him.

Yìhán, however, while finding his eyes beautiful, also saw them as embarrassments. Yìhán wondered how white people would see the Chinese due to the education system in the town always making her feel like his eye shape would reinforce stereotypes that would in turn cause white people to discriminate against the Chinese more.

Yìhán was also slightly jealous of them, but was taught that it was a look she couldn't attained for the betterment of the Chinese by the town's education system.

Present day, she regretted marrying him because he passed down his slanted eyes to their daughter. Yìhán told him "It'd be different if we were Caucasian or black, but you had to pass it down to a Chinese child. Now, she's going to have to get plastic surgery. It's your fault." The marriage was already doing terribly Because he cheated on her with his sister, Yuèchán, impregnating her with his son, Xī.

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Yìhán remembered how By 2036, the internet no longer behaved like a machine.

It behaved like a weather system.

A fungal bloom.

A red tide of human cruelty drifting between continents through glowing screens and augmented lenses and the wet electric fog of endless feeds.

The trolls came first.

Not as soldiers.

As tourists.

As commenters.

As little laughing profile pictures with flags in bios and synthetic smiles and AI-generated faces. Many came from parts of Spain, others from scattered corners of Europe and the United States, swarming Chinese social media like flies around an infected wound. They did not need guns at first. Words worked better.

The algorithm rewarded blood.

So they fed it.

They found the old arguments about eyes.

About faces.

About what the CCP said a Chinese woman on T.V. was “supposed” to look like to a Chinese Company.

And they turned it into a religion.

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Yìhán hated her husband for this. She was looking forward to having her own child, but her education system trained her to hate people with slanted eyes who refused to do what they called "correcting them."

Yìhán was born in 2026, a Gen Beta baby born in China, at 6 in 2032, her parents moved to what was named Timville at the time since it was before the 2037 split.

In 2036, when she was 10, that was when the Mayor, Tim's wife, had started teaching the children of the town, Chinese and more, those ideologies as those were her ideologies that she genuinely believed.

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In 2036, Ruòlán was her aunt who moved through it like a ghost trying to survive inside a hurricane.

Her eyes were long phoenix eyes from northern China — elegant, upward-slanting, sharp as brushstrokes in ancient paintings. In the region her family came from, old women once called them blessed eyes. Poets compared them to orchids opening in snow.

But online they became a target.

Her modeling agency stopped calling.

Then came the message:

“Western Chinese people do not like when we have our own race in our media if the woman has slanted eyes, and you have small eyes, meaning people will not only hate your depiction but hate us as well for hiring you.”

And beneath every repost, every article, every archived thread from fifteen years earlier, the same diseased liturgy crawled forward again:

“Ugly as fuck to be honest.”

“Stop trying to be white!”

“She’s gorgeous just the way she is.”

“Chinese still believe in Phrenology, what do you expect?”

“The western beauty standard is wider.”

“China has such stupid and nonsensical beauty standards.”

“Just because my eyes are small, I'm not good enough to be a Chinese person?”

“Good on her for fighting back.”

“Fucking glass hearted nation.”

“She is absolutely gorgeous.”

“Models aren't supposed to look beautiful.”

“It's pretty bad when a western nation looks at you like 'damn your beauty standards are wack.’”

“She’s not the ‘right looking’ Chinese.”

“Some people are just jealous.”

“Chinese don't like political correct.”

“They all strive to look the same.”

“Her eyes are beautiful.”

“Stop messaging me with personal attacks.”

“Western beauty standards.”

“Slanted eyes.”

“辱华.”

The comments bred like maggots.

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Present day when Yìhán was 19 in 2045, Yìhán resented her husband for how the baby came out and treated him like he was filth because of the borderline brainwashing effects .that schooling had on her psyche.

Yìhán would slap him and accuse him of being cursed because of his incest because that's how the schools would treat those eyes -- like a curse.

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Yìhán remembered how a small few White women online with surgically sharpened “fox eyes,” although most white women with surgical fox eyes didn't do this, mocked Chinese women for having the same features naturally. Chinese teenagers beat other Chinese teenagers bloody in school bathrooms because trolls convinced them their victims' own faces were humiliations to the bullies who didn't share those features. Westernized Chinese live streamers screamed at girls with monolids, calling them “outdated,” “rural,” “embarrassing.”

Some women were told to marry white men to “breed out” their eyes.

Some underwent surgery.

Some vanished in television media.

Others with said features became angry.

The angry ones marched.

Then the beatings started.

A white man in Los Angeles smashed Ruòlán’s face against a concrete divider outside a metro station after filming her without permission when she was visiting for a modelling gig she got up there. He laughed while people recorded.

He would yell the words "Slant eyes!” Over & over. This is because her phoenix eyes were big and did hold a slant.

The video reached hundreds of millions by dawn.

Then came the riots.

Chinese neighborhoods erupted in both United States and China. Streets became oceans of shattered glass and burning delivery drones. Protestors with said eyes carried banners painted with eyes — phoenix eyes, narrow eyes, monolids, every variation trolls had spent years trying to erase.

But the trolls kept feeding the fire.

They posed as Chinese users online.

They forged screenshots.

They spread fake posts claiming northern Chinese hated southern Chinese, that southern Chinese hated northern Chinese, that monolids were “genetically inferior,” that double eyelids were “colonized,” that one region was “more European,” another “less civilized.”

Tourists arrived to film the chaos like safari hunters.

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Present Day, Yìhán would cover her baby's eyes because she was scared that the baby would be forced into plastic surgery.

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Yìhán remembered how in China, Some women with sharply slanted eyes were shoved from cliffs in remote hiking areas by European trolls -- gangs who called it a joke.

The feeds consumed everything.

Even death became content.

Eventually, in China, many Chinese families fled the cities entirely. In isolated regions of inland China, new towns appeared — quiet places built by people tired of being dissected alive by strangers. They planted gardens. Covered cameras. Banned foreign tourism.

Ruòlán disappeared into one of them for 5 months after months in a hospital from the L.A. incident.

Her final modeling photograph remained everywhere.

The trolls still argued beneath it.

People were posting & rioting:

“She’s gorgeous.”

“She’s ugly.”

“She looks Chinese.”

“She looks racist.”

“She looks human, leave her alone.”

Outside the walls of the new towns, the internet continued screaming into itself like some colossal dying god buried beneath the ocean floor, dreaming endlessly through wires and satellites and glowing human eyes.

And somewhere in the electric dark, the trolls were still laughing.

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Present day, Yìhán had mostly recovered from the bitterness surrounding the baby, though there were still moments when the town’s media slowly pulled her back into old fears and insecurities. Propaganda broadcasts, advertisements, and endless online discussions constantly pressured people into judging her daughter's Chinese features as a shame to the entire race of China.

By this point, white residents made up about 70% of the town’s population, Black residents made up 10%, and Chinese residents made up the remaining 20%.

Before the split, however, the demographics had been very different. The town originally had a population of 20,000 people, and 40% of them — around 8,000 residents — were Chinese.

When the conflict over beauty standards, discrimination, and online harassment escalated, roughly half of the Chinese population left. Many relocated to the northern district, which later became North Shī jìng Timville, while others fled entirely to Yǎtíng or nearby regions where they felt safer and more accepted.

After the division, the population became unevenly distributed. South Jǐn yáo Timville declined to around 16,000 residents, while North Shī jìng Timville reached to only about 4,000 Chinese residents.

Hàoyǔ had loved his baby, but while Yìhán had loved her as well, she saw her daughter, Mǐnxīn, as a potential target for bullying and as an encouragement of bullying & racism. She treated her as such, often pressuring her to cover her eyes, leading to Mǐnxīn at the age of 5 in the year 2050 to view hiding her eyes as morality and feel as though she was blind since she always had to wear a blindfold. Her father found it was "Absolutely ridiculous!" He just ranted at the dinner table one morning.

Yìhán ignored him because SHE DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING wrong with the situation, and just viewed it as a precaution, saying nothing in response.

Mǐnxīn didn't understand her father, and was trained by her momma to see this as a good idea. Mǐnxīn saw her eyes as gorgeous, but hazardous to Chinese people's reputation.

Most neighbors had no issue with this and saw this as progressive.

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To be continued...