SO what has happened to the last update that would have the system adding a space behind the apostrophe? This appears in formatted text online and in formatted text within an epub Reader (FBReader but not Calibre Reader). It does not appear in unformatted text such as forums like this and GMail.
[color=#BF0080:msn9bntq]UPDATE[/color:msn9bntq]: It also does not appear in texts in either Kingsoft Writer or Libre Office Writer.
It has only just started after the last lot of updates.

Here is the page where I first spotted it online:
http://www.spearfishlaketales.com/33br3/br3.htm

I asked the Editor of the story if he had any idea about the problem and he replied:

I use the html special character entity ’ for the apostrophe to provide the "curly quotes" favored by pro publishers. It is also used for the "close quote" or right hand single quote.

Maybe that helps somebody find the answer to the problem.

[color=#BF0080:msn9bntq]UPDATE[/color:msn9bntq] Reported bug http://www.linuxdeepin.com/mantis/view.php?id=3107 but I couldn't make a proper Category selection as all the options in the drop-down selection are in Chinese and there are no hints suggesting what the options might be. What do the options mean and what selections should this kind of problem go under?

So using the translating services of Google and the listings for the Bug reports I now have a translation of the Categories for Bug Reporting. These are in order of appearance.

意见反馈         = Feedback
桌面环境        = Desktop Environment
系统                = System
翻译                = Translation       
软件包收录        = Package included

Looks like my problem has been loaded under the Feedback Category so hopefully the assigned Developer will be able to move it to a more appropriate location. Perhaps System?

Thank you for reporting the problems. I'll get our developers look into them.

I asked one of our developers and he said the extra space shown after an apostrophe has to do with the default charset declared on the website:

And he suggests that you could change the default font for your web browser or for the epub reader you're using.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

And I do thank you and him for the insight but how does that explain the recent appearance of the problem/effect and the appearance of it in any of the many (100's) of epubs that I view through FB Reader?

UPDATE:  OK, followed your suggestion for checking the fonts used

The reason behind the faulty display on the eBook Reader is due to the Default font set for the System, "Xhei Ubuntu" which is not able to handle English apostrophes properly.
When I changed the default to "Verdana" the problem disappeared.

So  for Firefox I found the default to be set to simply "serif".
I changed that also to "Verdana" and the problem with the web page has gone.

What has this exercise told us?
Not sure how to recommend resolution of this problem as you are catering to such a wide audience. Maybe there is a font that contains both the Chinese characters and the English characters and it also handles apostrophes correctly?
Maybe it needs a selection made at installation time to detect the chosen language of the user and make a font choice at that time? That would also resolve any problems with a user having a language that isn't English or Chinese.

Thank you very much for the suggestions. I've forwarded the problem to our developers and hopefully someone will fix it.

Thanks very much. It has been an interesting exercise and I really enjoy using my Deepin Linux.

Thanks for the Input Platypus. I had not tried Kingsoft nor Thunderbird so your information is appreciated. Not sure what they intend to do about it the problem. I have reported the bug at
http://www.linuxdeepin.com/mantis/view.php?id=3107
but it is yet to have any response from a maintainer. Perhaps if you could please add your information then the report might get taken a bit more seriously. Perhaps.
Again, thanks for the supporting information.

Hi there,

I can confirm that the problem is also with Akregator as well. With Akregator the ttf-xhei-fonts seems to be the problem (guessing because it is the default). I looked at removing the ttf-xhei-fonts but there were too many Deepin services that would be affected so I have left it installed rather than trashing the desktop.

Thanks Platypus. I have had a frustrating time with Chrome trying to get a font running that doesn't show a similar problem but it seems that the default is still showing up.

Nothing seems to have been done on the Bug Report so perhaps they don't see it as a problem?

I don't code so I cant offer a patch for the problem other than it sure seems locked into a font problem. Wish there was some way to beat this as it is so annoying.