Five Spice Street

This is life. I had achieved my goal. Who cares how? The fact is that X and Q’s influence had already been swept away. What they did in the granary was purely low-level. The people had already unwittingly recognized another high-level format. They didn’t know what it actually was or what they should feel about it, but still they recognized it. Some people might still be confused, some might be weeping sadly, some might be dreaming, some might be filled with enmity. Still, they recognized it. In any case, I am the winner.

The writer has already made it clear above that the first speaker was supported by the vast majority of the elites, and controlled public opinion on Five Spice Street. The women who supported the second speaker merely pretended to be crazy and made a terrific fuss for a while. It was over soon. It had no effect: it was no more than a ‘‘tempest in a teapot.’’ It seemed that one day, all of them chopped boards at their doors and unanimously threatened to make blackboards from them, but after they’d chopped for a while, they all threw the axes down and went into the public toilet and began discussing the movement. They talked exultantly. They believed that as soon as the blackboards came into use, they could hold their heads high. They wouldn’t put up with being deceived any longer. Some of them even decided to sleep that night in separate beds from their husbands, to starve ‘‘these old dogs.’’ But as soon as they emerged from the toilet, they forgot about the blackboards. They left the axes on the ground and went around visiting, talking animatedly, as if from now on they would break from the old days and their new, high-level life would begin. ‘‘Madam X is a piece of shit, though she did enlighten us in some ways.’’ They all agreed on this. But as for action, they took none. That night, they took care of their men as always. Driven by guilt, some were even more humble and wished to hold their men all through the night. The next morning, their eyes not yet fully open, the men discovered those planks of wood and axes. Before they had time to ask anything, the women began cursing loudly, saying that thieves had come in the night. ‘‘They were going to pound the doors and windows down and come in and pilfer.’’ Luckily, it was discovered in time, and they threw down the axes and took off. ‘‘Too contemptible!’’ they shouted. ‘‘They wanted to wreck our happy family life. If I hadn’t discovered this in time, wouldn’t they have also murdered us?’’

The writer was impartial: he could only record this awkward, embarrassing incident. We couldn’t understand why women had this bad habit of making a great start and then not following through. Beloved readers, I don’t intend to deprecate our lovable women of Five Spice Street (I don’t have to mention that there were many pretty, voluptuous ones among them). Perhaps it’s only a tiny flaw. Anyway, who’s perfect? And so our comments on the second speaker had better end here.

The third speaker is truly lonely (C). But his powerful eloquence, his philosophical theorizing, and his well-known communication with God actually cowed all the elites into submission. There was a time when the majority agreed with him. In several rounds of debate, he almost beat out the first speaker. But just as he was about to triumph, history played another trick on us. Madam X jumped out from the dark granary whose location we didn’t know, and announced to every passerby: she wanted to establish a ‘‘normalized’’ relationship with her beloved! This lightning bolt so shook the elites that their eyes flashed with red and green sparks. Those supporting the first speaker immediately assembled and hooted: “What is a woman? Ah? Look, this is the beginning of retaliation! The krait has crept out of the cave! What civil war are we still fighting? We’re on the verge of calamity!’’