In July of 2023, a college student in China posted footage of a mouse head he found in his cafeteria food. The local government swiftly insisted it was a duck neck, not a mouse head. They then forced the student to share a video saying it was a duck neck, though a formal investigation revealed that it was, indeed, a mouse head. Since then, the student has not been heard from online, leading many analysts to believe he was detained. This ordeal echoes a famous Chinese story in which a powerful military leader tested the loyalty of his followers by calling a deer a horse; those who agreed with him lived and those who disagreed were executed.
