Why did it take you 8 years to repost it in English? It's not because of AI, because other translations existed before LLMs and were more than adequate.
+1 The long gap between 2016 when the original article was written in Chinese and 2025, the fact that the Substack article does not cite the original Zhihu article (until someone other than OP linked it in this thread), not linking previously English translations of this article, and the financial incentive of the LLM-translated article being on Substack make OP's claim of authorship of the Chinese article very sus.
Thanks for the info! I don't have a Zhihu account to check myself, but I believe you.
I think it would be helpful to dispel any confusion if you added somewhere on the Substack post (e.g. at the bottom) the above message you are the author of the Zhihu post.
Oh, I can help you with that concern: anything related to China, mysterious towns, and secret projects will be lapped up by readers from Western countries. You'd have a harder time if you were trying to portray a more positive life experience in China.