After last year’s “getting some soy sauce” and “doing push-ups,” Web users in China have found a new catchphrase for 2009: “playing hidden cat,” or what the English-speaking world calls “hide and seek.” (In Chinese, “playing hidden cat” is 躲貓貓, pronounced “duo maomao.”)

The story behind this new phrase comes from Jinning in southwest China’s Yunnan province, where a 24-year-old prisoner died from a severe brain injury four days after being sent to the hospital. Local police said the brain injury occurred when the prisoner “bumped into a wall after being kicked by another prisoner while playing hidden cat.” (Report in Chinese.)

According to the local Chinese-language media reports, the deceased young man, Li Qiaoming, was arrested on Feb. 8 for illegal logging activity and sent to a detention center. He was due home to get married on Feb. 16, but never returned.

The dead man’s family does not accept the cause of death given by the local police. Li’s father told the local press that he went to the detention house and asked to meet his son several times, but was rejected. The detention center and local police in Puning did not answer questions.

Since Li’s death, the phrase “playing hidden cat” has spread all over the China’s Internet, with Web users scouring the Internet for more information on this case and challenging the outcome.

“The detention center must have video cameras installed… [we should] strongly call for the local police to publish the videos from the day of Li’s injury. We want to see for ourselves how he actually got hurt,” wrote a Web user from Guangdong on Netease.com.

On the Web site of chat service QQ.com, over 40,000 comments have been left so far. “I thought he had killed himself by bumping into a wall, but it turned out to be the ‘hidden cat’ game that killed him. [It’s] totally beyond my imagination!” wrote one person from Suzhou city.

“I play hidden cat with my four-year-old son every day…it seems we must not play this from now on,” said another.

Major Web portal Sohu.com carried out a survey that has drawn 20,000 votes. Nearly 3,000 people agreed that the new phrase is “so funny” and more than 1,000 “hope similar cases won’t happen again”; 7410 web users voted for “speechless, it’s super awkward” while 8,217 people say “I most want to know the truth.”

Some have already started playing with the new Internet vocabulary. One person made up a story with all the catch phrases: “I got up in the morning and did several push-ups. Then I was sent to get some soy sauce by my family. After that, I played hidden cat with my little friends…”

Apart from the angry voices, some bloggers are calling for the authorities to step in and investigate the case. Many compare the case to the Weng’an incident that took place following a local teenage girl’s death in Guizhou last June, where crowds stormed the local government and police buildings after rumors spread that police had covered up the girl’s rape and murder of the girl.

“Common sense makes it hard for the public to accept that a healthy young man died from playing a game…A trust-worthy third party must step in and dig out the truth for the public,” reads one online commentary.

繼去年風靡一時的“打醬油”和“俯臥撐”之后，步入2009年的中國網民又發現了新的流行詞“躲貓貓”。

這個新詞背后的故事來自于中國云南省晉寧縣；當地一位24歲的犯人腦部嚴重受傷，入院四天后死亡。當地警方給出的解釋是，這位犯人在與獄友玩躲貓貓游戲時，遭到獄友踢打并不小心撞到墻壁，才導致腦部受傷。

根據當地中文媒體的報導，死者李喬明涉嫌盜伐林木于2月8日被送進看守所。他原定2月16日舉辦婚禮，但卻再也沒有回來。

死者家庭無法接受當地警方給出的死亡原因。李喬明父親對當地媒體說，他曾多次去看守所要求見兒子，但均遭到拒絕。晉寧看守所和當地警方沒有回答問詢。

自李喬明去世之后，“躲貓貓”這個詞語就傳遍了中國網絡，網民們搜索這個案件的更多信息，并對結果提出了質疑。

一位廣東網民在網易上寫道：看守所肯定安裝了攝像頭，強烈呼吁當地警方公布李喬明受傷那天的錄像。我們希望親眼看看他到底是怎么受傷的。

在騰訊網上，目前已經有超過4萬條相關評論。一位來自蘇州的網民寫道，我本以為是畏罪自殺撞墻死的，沒想到是“躲貓貓”死了！完全超出了我的想像力。

另一個網民說，我每天都和四歲的兒子玩躲貓貓，看來從現在起我們不能再這么玩了。

主要門戶網站搜狐對此進行了一項調查，吸引了2萬人投票。將近3,000人將票投給“太搞笑，網友太有才了”，超過1,000人“希望不要再有這種事了”，7,410票投給“無語，還真是荒謬絕倫”，8,217票投給“我最想知道事件的真相”。

一些人已經開始運用網絡新語了。一個網民用上述流行語編了個故事：“早晨起床時做了幾個俯臥撐，然后被家里支去打醬油，打完醬油后與小朋友一起玩躲貓貓。”

在憤怒聲音之外，一些博客作者呼吁有關部門介入調查此事。許多人都將此案與去年6月的貴州甕安事件相比；當時一個當地少女死亡后，民間傳言警方掩蓋了少女被奸殺的真相，憤怒的民眾隨后沖擊了當地政府和警方大樓。

一條網上評論寫道，常識讓公眾很難接受一個健康的年輕人會死于玩游戲，必須有令人信服的第三方介入調查，為公眾挖出真相。