Can Xue - Five Spice Street

What is the essence of Madam X’s actions? She has nothing to do with the argument I’ve presented. She will never attain so high a realm. In a dark place, she pounced, or he pounced. It makes no difference: it’s meaningless. It has no spiritual value; it has nothing to do with independent consciousness. Nothing’s new. I vote for the opinion that Madam X took the initiative, but there’s nothing wonderful here. All of us women must work for the blackboard newspaper, for it will inaugurate a new era.

Dr. C: I have a unique opinion. I think they scuffled inside the granary because both wanted to be the first to take the offensive. They struggled for the initiative. The result was that they both got what they wanted: they were enraptured.

Wouldn’t any man or woman want to show his or her lust and power? At first, each saw the other as a lion, and himself or herself as an agile hunter. They conceived all kinds of techniques and imagined various difficulties and dangers; then, on a dark cloudy morning, they set out with determination. The whole day, they alternately chased and waited until they were dead tired. Finally, when they were about to run out of patience, they began feeling lightheaded, and the granary was suddenly before them.

Each wanted to be first to occupy this blockhouse, this strategic place for victory. Thus, the lithe, slim-legged Madam X dashed to the front and was the first to enter. The strapping, clumsy Q had a technique, too: he hid outside the granary door and commenced a tactic of attrition. In the dark, they gazed at each other warily with green eyes, neither daring to relax. This standoff must have lasted about three hours. Suddenly, coincidentally, both of them pounced. In the first round, they simply pounced on air. They slipped and fell on their faces, and perhaps Q also lost a tooth. They desisted for about half an hour and then began the second round.

X outflanked him and kept circling inside the granary, planning to make Q faint. Q’s tactic was to remain still. He relied on his sturdy constitution and strength. He guessed that X wouldn’t be able to topple him. He rested for a while and even smoked a cigarette! The moment he finished his cigarette, X tripped him with her slim leg and Q fell. She also slipped into the mud. Q fell on top of her. X had originally wanted to bite him until he bled. God knows why she didn’t, but the two stood up in the same instant and with quivering voices said, ‘‘Let’s take our clothes off!’’ They then hurriedly undressed. The moment of rapture had arrived. They embraced. They were biting and pulling each other’s hair. X pulled out at least five hundred strands of Q’s hair, but I don’t know if they really went all the way or not. That was least important, for they had already fully reaped their joy.

Then, they sat on a sack of grain and began singing a song from their childhood-‘‘The Good Times When School Lets Out.’’ With each line, they gave the other a sharp slap in the face, evidently to beat the time. Beating the time made X’s tender face swell. Q’s face didn’t swell, because it was rough and as rigid as wood. Slapping it actually hurt the joints in X’s hand. In high spirits, they said, ‘‘This is the only way to reach satisfaction. We are the first to experience real, harmonious sex. How pitiful other people are! What do they get from that animal-like intercourse? We really have courage!’’ Then they kissed. While they were kissing, each also tried to bite off the other’s tongue. If it weren’t that both were very agile and pulled back, something unbearably tragic might have occurred.

Dear ones, I’d like to make an argument below about the pleasant sensation of sex. For years, this subject has been steeped in endless fallacies and has become almost completely lost. Even with exceptional efforts, we have discovered only a few of its features. But in the end, it turned out to be nothing but a big joke life has played on us. Sexual joy is something miraculous high in the clouds. Indeed, in the meetings in the dark room, the elites have hinted about it with their lip movements. But that’s irrelevant! This joy is something you can hardly attain; you certainly can’t experience it merely from intercourse. It’s a kind of game: when you almost reach it, it glides away from your body. And so you’re dejected and blame your partner. You’re so angry you jump up and roar: ‘‘Why do we want this damn thing? It’s even harder to catch than the wind or shadows. To catch it you inevitably fall into your own trap and thrash inside it blindly.

Becoming an ascetic would be a lot easier and simpler. This longing makes me suffer to death! Suffer to death! Within six months, I’ll be finished! Fuck the joy-someone has made it up to trick people!’’ Although you’ve stated this decisively, as soon as your sweetheart shows up, you’ll be sniffing around like an old dog again and reveling in the joy.

Let’s return once more to X and Q: they felt in their innermost beings that biting, tripping, and slapping each other was the actualization of joy-and this makes some sense, but it is far from the whole story. If these two vulgar, insignificant people could grasp the profundity in the clouds, then who are we elites? Weren’t our years of research all for nothing? I said they made a little sense, because these people are very good at piracy. They aren’t qualified to participate, but they try to get secret information from every meeting in the dark room. When they have the opportunity, they use it. In this way, they actually unconsciously achieve a little bit. But since our elites haven’t yet grasped the recipe for joy in sex, and are still exploring tenaciously, these two nobodies had nothing to plagiarize. Could it be that scuffling, biting, tripping, and pulling out five hundred strands of hair is the whole recipe for joy? Doesn’t this belittle us? Is the scientific research that we do day and night so simple? These two shouldn’t be too self-confident: The day will come when we will publicly announce the results of our research. Sooner or later, it will come. Dear ones, let’s just wait! Of course, before the results of the scientific research come out, we must keep them confidential. I shouldn’t reveal too much at this point. Yet, I can divulge a little of the results of my personal experiments. I’m not unscrupulous, and I dare not boast that I have already grasped the whole secret of this joy in sex. I agree with X and Q that biting and tripping are constituent elements. They are essential first steps. As first steps, they aren’t anything wonderful. We can almost posit that everyone can do these things, although in various ways. My little sister-when attempting to get hold of joy-bites her beloved’s scalp. She could gnaw out a hollow in the scalp if she didn’t do it right. A decent person shouldn’t have anything to hide. I will confess to everyone how I almost reached the brink of sexual joy (that highest level). And also how I suffered defeat.

One day, I sat at the window, staring at the clouds, immersed for a long time in a poetic vision. At that moment, I felt very close to that kind of joy, as if I could almost touch it with my hand. A voice said to me, why not go for a walk-go for a walk, there’s profundity in it. I jumped to my feet and looked for my wife-my antagonist in sex. Just then she was cutting a hole in the seat of my trousers. She wanted my ass to show when I went out walking. I roared at her, ‘‘Go for a walk! Go for a walk!’’ Then we did go for a walk, as sprightly as immortals. We were both incredibly turned on. When we lay on the bank of the river, it seemed we were about to reach a stage such as we had never experienced before. We were laughing and doing all kinds of things in a careless way.

If it weren’t for those damn ants, we would have walked ahead of all the elites and become the most notable scholars, with the most solid achievements and the most profound theoretical foundation. The first place the ants attacked was our private parts: this was a calamity we couldn’t have expected. It was over for us. We’d prepared for five hours, walked about ten miles, and were just a halfstep from success when suddenly-ants!! Just because of these damn ants, my wife didn’t want to be with me. She scolded me wildly, saying that my walk was ‘‘plagiarized’’ from Madam X, and also that the little I had learned was ‘‘only skin-deep,’’ that I was ‘‘truly disgusting’’ and would ‘‘never be successful.’’ If she hadn’t been in the park and caught up with me by mistake-this guy with no prospects-she would long ago have ‘‘reached the highest level.’’ With her arms thrust out, she declared: ‘‘Joy in sex is my own affair. Why do I need a good-for-nothing like you? Hey! Walk! You fraud! Ass! You’ve walked my legs off, and what scenery have you discovered? Don’t involve me in this again, or you’ll be very sorry. I mean it.’’