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.