Text | Li Yuchen
Recently, a major event occurred on the simplified Chinese internet. Some “thinkers who worry before the world worries” began to collectively sympathize with Americans.
It is said, or rather, according to them, the cause of this event was an unfortunate fellow named Jack on the streets of America. This guy, somehow, was hit by a truck, blood flowing everywhere. He squatted on the curb, refusing to get into an ambulance.
A kind passerby asked him why, and this guy, clutching his wound, tremblingly said a resounding sentence.
He said:
I’m not afraid of spending money, I’m afraid that this ambulance will directly push me over that ‘execution line’.
Good heavens.
Let me tell you, this sentence alone is comparable in literary value to the opening of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’. A country where people would rather bleed themselves dry than call an ambulance:
The textbooks didn’t lie to us, the US is evil!
This scene immediately popped into my head: Jack’s health bar is at the bottom, and here comes the Grim Reaper driving an ambulance, holding a $5,000 bill, smiling and asking him:
“Buddy, you getting in?”
This is not about saving lives, this is purely:
Merciful release.
Just like that, a term originally created by our Chinese netizens, which no one in the US has ever heard of—”execution line”—became a “dragon-slaying sword” that exposed the cruel truth of the US overnight.
Once this sword was unsheathed, the content factory masters got busy. Those guys, as if they had been injected with adrenaline, immediately dug out the “sacrifices” they had prepared long ago from all sorts of nooks and crannies, and lined them up to be sent to the blade.
First to be brought up was the annual tragic male lead presented jointly by Phoenix International and SNG Shenzhen Media:
A former senior Javascript software engineer who once earned six figures in US dollars.
In the interview, this guy was in rags, his face was weathered, but his eyes were unusually calm. The reporter asked him, how is it to go from a Silicon Valley elite to begging on the streets?
He answered lightly:
It’s easy, really.
Look at this state. Sleeping rough is nothing, the hardest thing right now is to keep the tent that has to be rebuilt every day. Just this one character, one detail, directly amplified the tragic feeling of “elite falling”.
Following that, the female lead of the “annual absurd drama” discovered by Guan Video appeared. An American girl wearing a green hat, crying with tears in her eyes in the car. Why? Because her monthly medical insurance of $150 suddenly skyrocketed to $686.
She kept repeating while crying:
Hilarious.
Funny.
I have to say, this is indeed quite funny. What’s even funnier is that the insurance company also gave her a “financial aid” in a perfunctory manner.
Guess how much?
Just $1!
One dollar, you can’t lose money, you can’t be fooled, but you can buy yourself to shut up. This is the warmth of capitalism.
The magic drama is over, and the family ethical drama follows. An unnamed Chinese female blogger in the US tearfully recounted “stories around her”: a friend who owned three properties, originally thought he could just lie flat and be a rentier class. What happened? When the pandemic came, the tenants didn’t pay rent, and were also protected by law, and couldn’t be evicted.
An even more outrageous operation was that the local government actually hired free lawyers for these non-paying tenants and sued the landlord.
I was amused when I heard this. This is not a landlord and tenant, this is simply:
Serfs turning over to sing.
The result is that this “bourgeoisie” who owns three properties was forced to the brink of bankruptcy by two “proletarians”. What was the final suffering?
According to his friend:
He wanted to kill himself.
The protagonists took the stage one by one, crying and suffering. In order to make this “Les Misérables in America” seem more lively, the “entertainment Wang Yuyan” also brought in a bunch of dancers: there were female students who were in tears because of their $90,000 student loan, and also Taylor Chase, a former sunny and handsome child star who is now on the streets.
That scene, that lineup, was just like the rickshaw pullers at the entrance of the Paramount, highlighting one thing:
Miserable.
The play has reached this point, the atmosphere has been set off almost. It’s time for the “official certified” drama critics to take the stage and make the final decision.
First, Cheng Xiao, the female anchor of Hebei Economic Television (citing Zhejiang Propaganda), wearing a formal suit, gave a grand and profound “official interpretation” of this drama from three dimensions: political division, wealth gap, and social Darwinism.
Following that, the Douyin glasses-wearing male blogger, who has the Wang Weiheng expression pack behind him, held a coronation ceremony for the concept of “execution line”, and sealed it as:
Destined to become an internet bible that will be popular across the entire network, just like “winning studies”.
Finally, please invite our “summary statement” representative—the female anchor jointly produced by “Big White Talk Media Unlocked” and CHINA DAILY. She used the sentence “The American dream supported by capitalism… once you lose your surplus value, you will be expelled from the system and directly ‘executed'” to draw a cold and perfect end to this “American Hell Transformation” drama.
Okay.
The play has reached this point, the theme is clear, the characters are full, the evidence is conclusive, and the official endorsement is in place. No matter how you look at it, this is a:
Realistic masterpiece of the year that deserves a standing ovation, even moved to tears.
1
A drama of “Les Misérables in America” co-starring various gods is being performed on the Chinese internet, earning enough applause and tears.
This play makes people’s blood boil and their national pride surge.
But as a person who likes to argue, I have a problem, I like to go up and ask when everyone is standing up and applauding:
Buddy, how much are the tickets for this play? Don’t tell me we’re selling ourselves as the ticket money?
Today, let’s do the most uninteresting thing:
Take the script of this “drama of the year” and compare it with our own reality.
The first act is called “the ‘execution’ of cash flow”.
The female anchor of “Big White Talk” used her standard broadcasting voice to describe the vicious cycle of the American “execution line” word by word:
In America, once you lose a fixed address, it means that bank transactions, background checks, and employer credit will all have problems. You can’t rent a house without proof of income, and it’s even harder to find a job if you can’t rent a house. When this closed loop is formed…
Listen, how incisive this is.
So incisive that I almost thought he was talking about us, those 35-year-old programmers who are “flexibly employed”, or the delivery riders who can’t pay their rent because their work stopped during the pandemic.
The Douyin glasses-wearing male blogger also added a comparison, he said:
“In China, if you lose your job, you can just lie at home for a while, and after a while, you’ll be a good man again. But in America, if you fall down, you may never get back up.”
Oh, is that so?
Are the landlords and banks here charitable organizations? You’re unemployed and lying at home, and the landlord not only doesn’t urge you to pay rent, but also brings you a bowl of hot fried noodles every day? The bank, seeing that you’ve defaulted, immediately calls to comfort you: “Buddy, don’t worry, just lie down, we’ll treat the loan as making friends”?
They say Americans can’t find a job without a fixed address.
That makes sense. But here, let alone a fixed address, if you don’t have a local household registration, have you figured out your child’s schooling? Without that paper, you don’t even have the right to sit at the poker table.
Isn’t this a more fundamental:
Address execution?
They say Americans’ mortgages will be foreclosed by the bank, and their houses will be taken away.
It sounds terrible. But here, on the court’s official website, those “foreclosed properties” are listed every day, who are they prepared for? After defaulting, do you think the bank will talk to you about “people first”?
Using the “cash flow execution” to educate Chinese people, I feel it’s like:
Showing off your skills in front of Lu Ban.
The second act is called “the ‘illusion’ of assets”.
The financial master holding the red mug of “crossing the cycle” threw us a set of high theories. He said that the reason why Americans are miserable is because they value “cash flow”; and the reason why we are stable is because we value “assets”, mainly houses.
I give this rhetoric a hundred points.
He cleverly used an information gap: not many of you present may have US dollar cash flow, but who doesn’t have a house?
In a word, it turns your anxiety into your advantage. Doesn’t it feel comfortable to listen?
But this master, probably just traveled back from 2017, hasn’t had time to update the version.
He said that American landlords are miserable and are being jointly strangled by tenants and the law.
That’s right. But here, those long-term rental apartments that exploded a few years ago, the tenants paid the money but didn’t have a place to live, and the landlords still had to continue to repay the loan. Those hundreds of thousands of young people and landlords who were trapped in it, who drew their “execution line”?
He said that American property taxes are harsh and are the last straw that crushes the middle class.
This is also true. But here, 70-year property rights, public area, unfinished pre-sale… this set of “Chinese characteristics” combined punches, which one do you think is more powerful than property tax?
Not to mention, the volatility of our asset prices. The experts who were still “thanking high house prices” a few years ago, why did they collectively change their tune in the past two years and start talking about “balance sheet recession”?
Using “real estate” as a “death-free gold medal” and using “asset illusion” to prove that we are safer than Americans. This is not called confidence, this is called:
Selective amnesia.
The third act is called “the ‘debt’ of education”.
All “execution line” videos cannot avoid the target of “American student loans”. The crying girl found by the “entertainment Wang Yuyan” and the inspirational story of Obama repaying his loan for 21 years depict American higher education as a scam of “bankruptcy upon graduation”.
It sounds terrible.
But I just want to ask the “patriotic bloggers” a question:
An American young person who relies on his own loan to go to college and repays his debt slowly with his own salary after graduation;
And a Chinese young person who has to rely on his parents, grandparents, and maternal grandparents’ “six wallets” to make a down payment, and then take on a 30-year mortgage to get a marriage “admission ticket”.
Who has a heavier “debt”? Who is tied up more tightly from the starting point of life?
America’s debt is your “education debt” that you invest in yourself. If you can’t pay it back, at most you’ll be credit bankrupt, and life will be a little difficult.
And our debt is the “property debt” that binds the savings of the entire family for several generations. If you can’t pay it back, it’s not credit bankruptcy, it’s:
The collapse of the family.
One is “read and pay back slowly”, and the other is “not qualified to get married without buying a house”.
These two things, I think, still have a little difference.
After a comparison, you will find an extremely embarrassing fact.
These “patriotic bloggers”, with magnifying glasses, spotlights, and microscopes, have spent a lot of effort to find a few stinky holes from the huge cheese of American society.
Then they pointed at these holes and happily said to us: “Look! They’re going to be finished!”
But when we get closer and smell it, we always feel that the taste is wrong.
太熟悉了。
这哪是批判美帝啊，这简直是在“曲线救国”——用骂美国的方式，偷偷摸摸地，给我们自己写了一本：
《当代问题实录》。
2
戏看完了，骨头也拆了。现在，咱该聊聊这出戏背后，真正的“戏眼”了。
那就是：这帮“爱国赛道”的选手们，为什么如此热衷于上演这出“指桑骂槐”的魔幻大戏？
难道他们真不知道，自己骂美国的每一句话，都像一个回旋镖，能精准地打回自己人身上？
当然知道。
但他们还是得这么干。因为“骂美国”，尤其是用这种“比烂”的方式骂美国，在当下的中文互联网上，是一门利润丰厚、且能“强身健体”的好生意。
这门生意的第一层，是卖“情绪按摩”服务。
咱再请出那位手持“穿越周期”红色马克杯的财经大师。
这位大师抛出的那套“资本输出vs劳动输出”的宏大理论，表面上看，是在为你提供一种“智识上”的优越感，让你感觉自己洞穿了中美两国不同的“国运密码”。
但你把这层“知识付费”的外衣一扒，里子是什么？
是赤裸裸的“情绪按摩”。
这哥们儿折腾半天，又是画K线图，又是引“彭博社2025年报道”，无非是想告诉你一件事：
别看你在A股亏得底儿掉，别看你买的理财产品说没就没。跟你说，你那套贷款还没还完的房子，可比美国人的现金流安全多了！
舒坦不？
太舒坦了。
这就是这门生意的精髓。它不解决你的任何实际问题——你的股票不会因此解套，你的房贷也不会因此减少一分钱。
但它能为你提供一种极其珍贵的“心理慰藉”。
它精准地抓住了当下无数人“资产缩水、未来不明”的普遍焦虑，然后给你开了一剂精神上的“大力丸”。这丸子的配方很简单：
找一个比你更惨的，而且这个更惨的，还得是你一直以来的“老对头”。
你看，那个天天欺负咱们的美帝，他们的人民过得还不如你呢！他们那儿，年入百万的工程师都得睡帐篷，你这每天挤地铁上班的，还有啥可抱怨的？
你那点儿个人得失，跟人家那“满血被斩”一比，简直就是：
凡尔赛。
通过消费这些内容，你获得的不是真相，而是一种廉价的、虚幻的优越感。你觉得自己赢了，赢麻了。
这种“赢”的感觉，就是这门生意的核心产品。
这跟你去洗脚城捏脚一个道理。老师傅把你按得龇牙咧嘴、鬼哭狼嚎，嘴里还得不停地夸你：“老板，您这身子骨，真棒！比我上一个按的那位强多了，他那肾，虚得都快没了！”
疼不疼不重要，听着舒服才重要。
如果说“情绪按摩”是这门生意的“术”，那么，它背后还有一套更高级的“道”。
这套“道”，叫“构建护身符”。
你再回想一下，那位宣布“斩杀线”是“互联网圣经”的抖音眼镜男博主，他是怎么说的？
他说，美国社会运行的底层逻辑是“弱肉强食”，是“不适应就活该被淘汰”。而我们不一样，我们“对社会弱势群体有特定的保护机制”，有“最基础的兜底工程”。
听听，这话，多正能量。
但你品，你仔细品。
这话的潜台词是什么？
是：
既然我们已经有了全世界最优越、最讲良心的“兜底机制”，那么，如果你在这套机制里还是混不好，那还能是谁的问题？
肯定是你自己的问题嘛。
你看，这套逻辑的厉害之处就在这里。
它通过树立一个“外部的、绝对的恶”（万恶的美帝），来反向论证我们“内部的、绝对的善”。
一旦“我们是全世界最好的”这个前提被你接受了，那么接下来的一切推论就顺理成章了。
你35岁被裁员了，不是因为经济环境不好，是因为你“不够努力”；你买的房子烂尾了，不是因为监管出了问题，是因为你“贪心”、“认知不够”；你不敢生孩子，不是因为养育成本太高，是因为你“太自私”、“责任心不强”。
所有系统性的、结构性的问题，都被巧妙地转化成了：
你个人的道德瑕疵。
“骂美国”，在这里，成了一张最好用的护身符。
它让那些本该被讨论的真问题，都被一句“你去看看美国”给堵了回去。它用对外部地狱的想象，来让你接受内部天堂里那一点点“无伤大雅”的不完美。
这就像一个浑身是毛病的人，天天指着隔壁一个癌症晚期病人说：“你看他！他都快死了！相比之下，我这点脚气、痔疮、高血压，算个事儿吗？”
不，这不叫乐观，这叫：
讳疾忌医。
所以，咱现在可以给这事儿下个最终定义了。
这场轰轰烈烈的、关于“美国斩杀线”的全网大讨论，从根儿上，就不是一场对外部世界的观察。
它是一场精心策划的、精准投放的、旨在对内进行流量收割的商业活动。
它用一种最廉价的方式，为大众提供“优越感”和“安全感”这两种最稀缺的“情绪价值”。
同时，它又为所有本该被正视的现实问题，提供了一个最便捷的“甩锅”对象和一个最有效的“消音器”。
美国“斩杀线”，专斩那些急于寻找优越感、又懒得独立思考的中国傻子。这是一条精准的、高效的、充满了商业智慧的：
智商收割线。
3
聊到这儿，肯定还有朋友不服气。说你这纯属瞎猜，是“诛心之论”。人家“爱国博主”们忧国忧民，拳拳之心，日月可鉴。你凭什么说人家是做生意，是搞流量收割？
得。那咱今天就不诛心，咱讲道理。
咱也“退一万步”。
咱就当这帮“爱国博主”们，个个都是活雷锋，没有一个是想挣钱的。他们批判美国，纯粹是出于国际主义精神，是为了帮助美国人民早日认清资本主义的丑恶嘴脸，奔向光明的未来。
这个动机，高尚不高尚？
太高尚了。
但问题是，就在这场“拯救美国人民”的运动进行得如火如荼，国内观众“同情”的泪水都快把太平洋给填满的时候，一个极其不合时宜的声音，出现了。
这声音，既不是来自被我们批判的“美帝官方”，也不是来自那些被打倒在地的“公知”。
它来自推特上一位名不见经传的普通网友。
一个叫Pascal Reed的哥们儿。
我不知道这位Pascal Reed是何方神圣。他可能是一个天天在网上抬杠的喷子，也可能是一个心怀不满的“恨国党”。
但这不重要。
重要的是，他用一个超长的排比句，像一把锋利无比的“照妖镜”，瞬间让所有“爱国博主”们那张充满国际主义精神的脸，显得尴尬无比。
他是这么问的：
你是说：一个一辈子要经历城乡户口分级/计划生育/分省高考/考研考公潮/天价彩礼/房产暴雷/裁员危机/社保分级的国家的人现在要去嘲讽欧美“斩杀线”这种概念？
这石破天惊的一问，像一道闪电，瞬间照亮了整个喧嚣的舆论场。
此前所有关于“同情”、“风景线”、“制度优势”的宏大叙事，在这句简单粗暴的质问面前，都显得那么不合时宜，甚至有点滑稽。
这把“回旋镖”，以一种谁也没想到的角度，从天而降，精准地击中了每一个正在“同情美国人”的看客。
它的厉害之处，在于完全不跟你辩论“美国到底烂不烂”。
它直接釜底抽薪，跳到了另一个维度，质疑了我们“同情”的：
资格。
这就好比一个天天琢磨着怎么躲开各种明枪暗箭、在刀尖上跳舞的杂技演员，去同情一个在旁边玩儿俄罗斯轮盘赌的哥们儿，语重心长地说：
“哎呀兄弟，你这活儿太危险了，简直是在玩儿命啊！”
这画面，怎么看怎么透着一股子黑色幽默。
Pascal Reed的这面“照妖镜”，照出了“斩傻线”叙事最根本的、也是最无耻的一个逻辑漏洞。
那就是：
双重标准。
你看，在“爱国博主”们的剧本里，美国人因为还不起助学贷款而破产，这是“制度吃人”，是“斩杀线”。
可咱们这儿，一个年轻人要是掏不出几十万的“天价彩礼”，结不了婚，这叫什么？这叫“传统文化”，叫“老丈人的考验”。
美国人因为失业，付不起房租，被赶出公寓，这叫“中产坠落”，是人间悲剧。
可咱们这儿，一个外地年轻人要是买不起房，租着“蛋壳”还暴了雷，最后拖着行李箱深夜被赶到大街上，这叫什么？这叫“奋斗路上难免的挫折”，叫“一线城市不相信眼泪”。
美国那边，一个白人姑娘因为医保暴涨而哭泣，这叫“资本的无情”。
咱们这边，一个农村老人要是没钱看病，只能躺在家里等死，这叫什么？这叫“我国城乡医疗资源发展不均衡的阶段性现实”。
你看，同样是“活不下去”，换个地方，连名字都变得这么有学问。
这不叫双标，这叫什么？
这叫：
会说话的艺术。
这面“照妖镜”一亮，此前那些看似义正词严的批判，瞬间就都变了味儿。
它们不再像是对一个外部世界的严肃观察，更像是一种集体的、选择性的、自我催眠式的：
向外甩锅。
通过声嘶力竭地控诉别人家的物业管理有多差，来让自己暂时忘记自家房顶上那个正在漏水的大窟窿。
通过放大别人家孩子考试不及格的窘迫，来让自己暂时忘记自家孩子连上考场的资格都没有。
This is a very clever survival strategy.
But it has nothing to do with one thing:
Honesty.
In the final analysis, what would a truly confident person, a truly patriotic person, do?
He would face the problem head-on, rather than pretending it doesn’t exist, or blaming all the problems on “foreign forces”.
He would say: “That’s right, we also have our own ‘killing line’, and it may be more complex and hidden than theirs. But we are not afraid, we dare to face it, dare to discuss it, and dare to find ways to solve it.”
This is called confidence.
And the kind that only dares to shine a spotlight on other people’s yards, but pretends not to see the mess in their own backyard, and even jumps up and scolds others for “insulting China” when their neighbors mention it:
That’s not called confidence, that’s called:
Guilty conscience.
4
When the “killing-the-stupid line” assembly line is efficiently producing various cheap “cool articles” of the “US collapse theory”, a voice from behind the scenes, full of pain and sincerity, unexpectedly provides a more thought-provoking footnote to this farce.
This voice comes from an ordinary Chinese female audience.
She watched a series of live streaming clips made by a medical student in the United States called “Lao A” on Bilibili. After watching it, she recorded a video, the title of which could be called:
“How a normal person’s worldview is smashed to pieces by reality”.
At the beginning of the video, this female audience appeared quite “rational” and “calm”.
She said that she first watched Lao A’s “masterpiece” “Seattle Ice Rain Night”. It tells the story of economic downturn and government shutdown, and a group of hungry children begging for food in the freezing rain of Halloween, under the guise of trick-or-treating.
Her evaluation of this story is:
I didn’t feel anything after watching it.
Why? Because in her opinion, with the US government’s governance ability and its ideology, this kind of thing:
Is bound to happen.
Then, she watched Lao A talk about “physical class segregation”, talking about how the rich and the poor in the United States live in the same city, but are completely unaware of each other’s existence.
Regarding this, she also expressed “can understand”, and it is still within her “threshold range”.
Even when she saw Lao A telling the most terrifying “American bone mound” – different institutions like vultures, bidding and sharing the bodies of homeless people – her reaction was only:
My san value, began to shake a little.
You see, this is such a typical “qualified audience” cultivated by the “patriotic track”.
She has a highly theoretical, detached “understanding” of the suffering of the United States. She can skillfully use grand words like “ideology”, “governance ability”, and “class solidification” to attribute all personal tragedies to an abstract “system” that is bound to do evil.
From this perspective, the sufferers are no longer individual people, but individual people used to prove the “evil of the system”:
Evidence.
You don’t need to put too much emotion into “evidence”.
Until, she clicked on the video called “American Good Boys Don’t Have a Good Ending”.
In this video, Lao A tells the story of an 18-year-old black teenager.
This teenager was born in the most typical slums, and shootings and drug trafficking are commonplace. But he is extremely inspirational, earning money by carrying large bags at the dock every day, vowing never to touch drugs for the rest of his life. He wants to go to college, become a lawyer, become a doctor, and become a “decent person”.
He found Lao A to tutor him in mathematics, from linear equations to being able to understand calculus.
He is very smart, and his grades also prove that he understands.
His efforts, his methods, are all correct.
The tragedy stems from his younger brother. His younger brother became addicted to drugs, and the drugs came from the gang leader in the neighborhood.
The teenager used all his savings to send his younger brother to a drug rehabilitation center.
This move offended the gang leader.
Then, just like what might happen every day in that neighborhood:
He was shot and killed.
Speaking of this, the female audience in front of the screen completely broke down.
In her own video, her voice trembled, her eyes were filled with tears, and she said:
I… I feel like my san value is empty, and I immediately pressed the pause button, I don’t want to listen anymore.
Why?
Why could she “understand” and “feel nothing” about those more grand, more universal, and involving tens of thousands of people’s systemic tragedies, but only the death of this teenager made her completely break down?
In the video, she gave her own answer. She said that this story made one of her beliefs:
Collapse like this.
This belief, we have all had, or at least, have been educated like this. It is simple, plain, and is our last line of defense against nothingness. That is:
As long as you work hard, you will be rewarded.
This moment of “San value clearing” is the most valuable piece of the “killing line” debate.
Because it unexpectedly pierced the core lie of the “killing-the-stupid line” narrative.
“Patriotic bloggers”, through repeated rendering of the “decline of the American middle class”, try to make us believe that we are safer than Americans.
But the breakdown of this female audience tells us:
The real fear is never about “falling”.
For a person who starts from nothing and climbs up, falling is just going back to the starting point. It’s no big deal.
What really frightens us is the truth revealed by the fate of the black teenager:
In a collapsing bottom system, the value of all the correct efforts of a “good boy” is reduced to zero.
This is a more profound despair than “financial bankruptcy”. It directly denies “hope” itself.
The content factory of the “killing-the-stupid line” uses a series of spectacles about “how Americans lost their houses and cars” to cleverly cover up this more universal, more real, and more empathetic ultimate fear.
They use the clamor of “comparing the worst” to make us temporarily forget to think about the most important question:
Does the story of the hardworking black teenager really only happen in the United States?
That female audience obviously thought of this. So she broke down.
So, what about those who are still cheering for the “American hell” and shouting “We won” in the comment section? Don’t they think of this?
Don’t be silly.
They don’t not think about it, they dare not think about it.
Admitting that “effort may also be ineffective” is an extremely painful thing that will shake a person’s belief in life. Therefore, the easiest way is to “outsource” and “blame” this fear that we may all vaguely feel in reality.
They choose to closely follow the direction of the “patriotic bloggers” and nail this universal predicament to the pillar of shame of “evil capitalism” in the United States.
By loudly and vigorously “cheering” for the existence of the American hell, they are actually conducting a collective self-hypnosis. The subtext of this hypnosis is:
“Look, the reason why that black teenager is so miserable is only because he was born in the United States. Although I also work very hard and am very tired, fortunately, I was born in China, so I won’t be as miserable as him.”
What is this called?
This is called spiritual “precise poverty alleviation”. By confirming that there is a more desperate “poor relative” far away, to gain a little illusory psychological balance.
So, when I say they “pretend not to see”, I am not referring to their inability to see the suffering of the United States.
On the contrary, they see it too clearly. They are just pretending not to see, in the tragedy of the black teenager, the possible existence of:
Our own shadow.
5
When the “magic mirror” called Pascal Reed has already revealed the double standards of the “killing-the-stupid line” narrative; when the story of the black teenager has already pierced the hypocritical bubble of “comparing the worst” schadenfreude.
Now, we can sit down and calmly talk about the essence of the problem.
That is:
If we admit that every society has its own “killing line”, then what is the difference between the line in the United States and our line?
The “patriotic bloggers”‘ script has already described the line in the United States very clearly.
It is a “cash flow killing line”.
Its core logic is that in an “atomized” society that is highly dependent on financial credit, your personal financial situation is like a precise but fragile perpetual motion machine. You need to constantly use future income (Paycheck) to repay past debts (student loans, mortgages, car loans) and pay current expenses (medical insurance, property tax, various bills).
This machine can operate very efficiently, allowing you to enjoy a life far beyond your current payment ability in advance.
But the price is:
Zero tolerance.
It cannot withstand any accidental impact. A job loss, a serious illness, an accidental rear-end collision, any link of “cash flow” interruption will trigger a domino-like chain reaction.
Without income, you can’t repay the loan, and your credit score will plummet.
Once your credit collapses, you can’t rent a house, can’t find a decent job, and even your car may be towed away.
Without a car, you can’t find a job.
Without a job, you have no address.
A perfect vicious cycle.
This “cash flow killing line”, its characteristics are:
Cruel, direct, and efficient.
It’s like a precise social “settlement” machine. Once you are judged to be “financially dead”, the system will take away everything you have in the shortest time and completely remove you from the list of “decent society”.
This is a war about “survival”. If you lose, you are directly out.
So, what about our own line?
Pascal Reed’s parallel sentence has actually given the answer.
It is an “identity/expectation killing line”.
Its core logic is not about the instantaneous collapse of “cash flow”, but about the layers of screening of “qualifications” and the constant deprivation of “hope”.
A small household registration book, at the moment of your birth, determines what kind of education, medical care, and social security resources you can enjoy in the coming decades. This line cuts off the possibility of “born equal”.
A provincial-based college entrance examination, with different score lines, divides young people into different classes, directly determining who can get the “ticket” to the upper class. This line cuts off the possibility of “fair competition”.
A set of commercial houses that empties the “six wallets” has become a “necessity” for young people to get married, have children, and obtain urban status. If you can’t afford it, it means you may be automatically excluded from the track of “mainstream life”. This line cuts off the possibility of “establishing a family and career”.
A conventional 35-year-old age threshold allows countless “big factory screws” to turn from “talents” to “optimized labor costs” overnight. This line cuts off the possibility of “career prospects”.
And those more hidden lines: a hospital bed, a key elementary school degree, a position within the system, a negotiation for a “sky-high betrothal gift”…
These are our “killing lines”.
Now, we can compare these two different “lines”.
America’s “cash flow killing line”, it’s more like a “fall”.
You may have flown very high, but if you’re not careful, your wings break, and you fall directly down, shattering to pieces. Its core fear is “losing what you already have”.
And our “identity/expectation killing line”, it’s more like a “climb”.
In front of you is a cliff that is extremely steep and full of obstacles. You must do your best to pass through layer after layer of “toll stations” before you can possibly climb to a higher place. And most people, before they even reach the halfway point of the mountain, have already been brushed down.
Its core fear is:
Never being able to get it.
One kind of pain is “having had it, losing it instantly”.
Another kind of pain is “never having had it, and not seeing any hope of having it”.
Which of these two pains is more tormenting?
I don’t know.
I only know that the female audience who broke down after watching the video of Lao A, the reason why her “San value was emptied” was not because she saw the “fall”, but because she saw on the body of a “climber” (the hardworking black teenager) the climbing itself:
Ineffective.
The biggest bad thing about the “patriotic bloggers” is here.
They are shouting at the top of their lungs, depicting the tragic “fall” on the other side of the ocean, making us feel fortunate and fearful for those who have fallen.
But they never mention that we ourselves are in a “climb” that is equally difficult, or even more tormenting.
They use an exaggerated rendering of one kind of pain to cover up the real existence of another kind of pain.
This is not called “patriotism”, this is called:
Spiritual opium.
It makes you temporarily forget the fatigue of your climb, and makes you temporarily ignore the unreachable, named “hope”:
Finish line.
6
Now, we can go back to the original question.
This public opinion carnival on the Chinese internet, triggered by the “killing line”, who did it “kill”?
Did it kill the “decency” of the American middle class? No. They don’t even know this word. The former engineer who sleeps in a tent is still thinking about how to avoid the municipal administrator; the girl who received a $1 subsidy is still figuring out which brand of vitamins to buy. Their lives will not change because of our “sympathy” or “ridicule”.
So, did it kill the “conscience” of the “patriotic bloggers”? Even more so, no.
They are just doing a business. A good business of selling “spiritual morphine” and “cheap superiority”. On this mature assembly line, Phoenix International, Guan Video, Hebei TV Station and other institutional media are responsible for providing “authoritative” shells; and various internet celebrities represented by “Entertainment Wang Yuyan”, financial masters, and Douyin glasses men are responsible for accurately hitting these shells into every head that needs “emotional massage”.
They each perform their duties, cooperate tacitly, and jointly complete a beautiful “cognitive warfare”. In this battle, they are the “winners”, the “harvesters”.
So, who is the one who is being “killed”?
Let’s go back to the key “characters” in this drama and do a final “fate echo”.
We saw the former engineer’s tent, the medical insurance girl’s $1 bill, and the damn lawyer’s letter received by the Chinese landlord. They all point to a cold reality:
In a zero-tolerance system, how easy it is for an individual to fall.
We also heard the warning of Patriarch Bodhi to Sun Wukong, the sentence “but only to guard against the harm of the three disasters”, like a prophecy across the millennium, revealing another more hidden risk:
Climbing may be more dangerous than falling.
We also saw Huang Xi’s neighbor, the two cars parked in the yard because his son was unemployed. It pierced the warm veil of “sympathy”, and let us see the relief and fear behind it, “thank goodness it’s not me”.
Finally, we saw the hardworking black teenager and his tutoring book filled with calculus formulas. His death, like a silent heavy hammer, shattered the last bit of our innocence about “hard work pays off”.
All these stories, these pictures, these sounds, together constitute a common anxiety picture of global “social animals”.
Whether on the other side of the ocean or under our feet, the tightrope called “uncertainty” is equally suffocating us.
This is the only real empathy in this big discussion.
The biggest evil of the “killing line” content factory is here.
It cleverly covers up, and even desecrates, this empathy that should have existed, that is universal, with a carnival of gloating.
It reduces a serious problem concerning the survival of each of us to a war of words of “who is worse, China or the US”.
It firmly attracts our attention to those distant, deliberately amplified “American tragedies”, leaving us with no energy or courage to examine the real, silent difficulties around us.
It uses a most cheap “patriotic aphrodisiac” to exchange our most precious and also the most scarce two things:
Independent thinking ability, and the courage to face real difficulties.
From this perspective, what the “killing line” kills is not whose wallet, nor whose IQ.
What it kills is what we, as mentally healthy adults, should have:
Honesty.
It makes us pretend not to see the elephant in the room, and for this collective hypocrisy, we are comfortably wearing a coat of “patriotism”.
And this is precisely the deepest humiliation of the word “patriotism”.
So, what is the final outcome of this drama?
It is not the collapse of the US empire, nor is it our complete victory.
Its final outcome is:
A large-scale collective self-hypnosis.
It uses an exaggerated imagination of the external “hell” to temporarily forget the real pain of the internal “crossing the tribulation”.
It uses the false posture of “sympathizing with Americans” to cover up the real fear of “being like them”.
The players in the “patriotic track” are making a lot of money in this hypnosis.
And those audiences who are immersed in it have gained a hearty “spiritual victory”, and then they are satisfied to turn off their phones and continue to face the bill that will never be paid off the next day, and the future that will never be seen.
When you are watching with relish the fictitious “killing line” on the other side of the ocean, it’s best to be careful under your feet. Don’t accidentally step on the more real tightropes around us that cannot be spoken.
Li Yucheng’s article stands in the dust
Written on December 28, 2025
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