Can Xue - Five Spice Street

‘‘Once again, friendship had awakened me in time to avert the danger. People who haven’t experienced the joys and hardships of friendship are so pitiable! So empty! I had always placed friendship before everything else. Friendship is my life. To help my friends out of trouble, I could climb a mountain of daggers and enter a sea of fire, and wouldn’t begrudge having my body smashed to smithereens. After they left, I got out of bed at once and washed my face, roused my energy, and made up my mind to repay my friends with redoubled loyalty and to my full ability. I wanted to drive out the sleeping demons (to do this, I put Tiger Balm on my temples). With wide open eyes, I watched out for my friend day and night. I also enlisted my wife for this work (although she was frail by nature and had limited ability, and had much less stamina than I). My wife ruined everything. I had never thought women could be so cranky, headstrong, and lacking in self-control. I learned a serious lesson that time.

‘‘One day, when Madam X walked into the woods, my wife and I followed her. We saw her sit down on a rock. I could tell that there was another new beginning. I motioned to my wife, and we hid inside the hollow trunk of a large tree and watched her actions from a small hole. We just saw her stretch her legs out and lie down without moving. My wife and I were greatly agitated, and our faces were as red as if we’d been drinking. We were poking and teasing each other, making a great commotion inside the hollow tree. My wife kept shouting softly, ‘Soon, we’re going to see the best show we’ve seen in our whole lives! I can’t hold on any longer! I’m going to faint!’ She was shouting louder and louder. I gestured for her to calm down, fearing everything would go wrong. But she didn’t listen and became even more agitated. She kept squirming and making hua-hua noises. It was unearthly. She threw a stone out of the hole toward Madam X’s feet and then another. I tried to restrain her wild behavior. I clenched her hand and wouldn’t let her fiddle with anything. I hadn’t imagined that she would go nuts and bite me like a dog. ‘This trick is just too much!’ She said she’d been waiting for a long time to expose my secret. She’d come with me to the woods not to watch Madam X-she didn’t care what other people did. Although she saw her every day, she had never said a word to her. Her object in coming to the woods was to watch me and expose my evil behavior. I was so asinine-I had never understood her inner secret. This really made her laugh her head off! Did I really think she was a fool? Was it possible that a man and a wife would stop having sex for no reason for almost half a year and she just wouldn’t give a damn and would think it was normal?

‘‘I had been glaringly wrong about her! One of these days she would bare her teeth and let me know just how shrewd she was. If she wanted to, she could take my life anytime. Her retaliation had nothing to do with having sex, for this had always disgusted her. She had always agreed to sex because she had no alternative, so-from her viewpoint-my calling off sex was the same as liberating her. If I changed my mind in the future and approached her for sex again, it would be a disaster. She had come with me in order to get a handle on me and put an end to my expectations. When we emerged, badly battered, from the hole in the tree, Madam X had already disappeared. All of a sudden, my wife realized the mistake she had made and began wailing with her head in her hands. I vowed that from then on, I would never bring her along for any action. Women ruin everything-especially fervent women without willpower. They’re the worst. They do all kinds of terrible things and never give up until they’ve turned your plans into mush. They go crazy when they feel restricted and always give you a fatal blow at the moment of truth. After they’ve finished making trouble, they dissemble, feigning helplessness to evoke your sympathy and to hang on to the opportunity to make a scene next time. Women are generally like this, all very much the same with only minor differences. I was firmly determined to take action alone from now on, which also showed my complete sincerity toward my friend.

‘‘On the path of your life, one false step might send you into hell. Not until I began acting alone did I realize in despair that-I don’t know when this began-a tail was developing behind me. No matter how sharp I was, no matter how I changed my tactics, she always had ways to deal with me. And she didn’t deal with me in a passive way: she was extremely aggressive. I couldn’t get away from her. It made me dizzy. Did I guard Madam X every day and fulfill my responsibility to my friend, or did I play hide-and-seek with my wife? When I went out in the morning, my objective seemed clear, and so was my head, but as soon as I was halfway there, a dramatic transition often occurred. I felt dizzy: not only did I lose the object of my pursuit, but I became the object of other people’s pursuit. I wanted to break loose. I dodged here and there-sometimes entering a bosk, sometimes hiding behind a pile of garbage, sometimes climbing to the roof from a certain attic. I almost turned into a monkey.

‘‘My wife was enjoying this kind of game. But to me, it was really annoying, and the future seemed hopeless. Madam X’s endless mutating tricks were hard enough for me to deal with, and now there were my wife’s tricks, too! The more anxious I was to free myself of her entanglement, the more interested she became. She was also glowing with health, just as if she’d turned into a young girl in her prime. Every time I thought of a new way to break away, she immediately and feverishly redeployed all her shrewdness to deal with me, to compete with me for the advantage. I was really suffering. I said directly to her, if she went on like this, we would both end up being hurt. Was she aware of what she was doing? A person living in this world should have her own clear life tenets, should always pursue the same goals. To be a parasite or to hinder the actions of others was immoral. It was disgraceful. Also, if you foolishly and ignorantly idled away your time, you wouldn’t have any memories when you were old, just some shadows of the life that you had lived. You would regret this. All my life, I’ve tried to attain the highest spiritual realm and abandoned all physical enjoyment. I’ve walked on a road filled with hardships and dangers. Too bad she couldn’t become my most intimate friend, my helpmate. Instead, she left no stone unturned in destroying me. It’s really been hard to endure.

‘‘It’s as if she isn’t listening. She opens her eyes wide and looks astonished and then answers: ‘You have to know that the objective of my pursuit is simply you. I’ve lived this long, and all along I’ve been submissive. Only because of the suggestion made by fortuneteller Meng from the pharmacy did I take a tumble: My whole life has been empty. For years, I’ve been blind to meaningful projects that would be worthwhile for me. It was the worst sort of stupor! Absolutely foolish!’ She also said that I was the biggest riddle in the world: if she could understand me, she’d find her self-worth. Once she established this objective, she was completely refreshed-once more in the bloom of youth. For the first time, her ability was also fully displayed. Even I couldn’t help acknowledging her strong challenge. All I could do was retreat to avoid conflict. Just think about it: the situation changed so much! Before, her life was so humiliating, dry as dust, absolutely without interest. She had been living like a maggot. No way could she go back to that. She’d rather die! It’s been through her own hard struggles that she’s attained her present promising life, which no one should destroy. No one can ever seduce her into turning back. No way! She’s figured out every damn trick I played. She’s no longer her old self. She is now much wiser, much smarter. No matter where I hid, even if I turned into an ‘invisible man,’ she’d still have ways to get hold of me. This absorbing work has made her feel so enriched, so happy. Her energy is inexhaustible. She is very sure that she has obtained the greatest happiness. Women who pursue sex exclusively all their lives gain very little and grow old fast. Some are even abused and abandoned by their husbands. As she sees it, they have lost much more. They are selfdefeated. Women aren’t inferior to men in anything: why can’t they make their own decisions about what they will do, and contend with men? Why do they have to waste their youth and energy on men? Of course, a woman striving for independence will run into serious obstacles: there will be pressure from society and from men. There’s nothing frightening about it. You just have to be determined and be strong-willed. No difficulty is insurmountable. She’s made up her mind; I’d better give up. Can she possibly not know what I intended? She wouldn’t give a shit what I said. Her work has picked up a lot now. She can’t relent, because if she did, all her previous efforts would be wasted and people would laugh at her. No temptation could move her. I’d better give up and not talk with her anymore. With the kind of progress she’s been making, how could she wash her hands of it? Someday, her work will achieve surprising results. Her success will be the end of me.