Five Spice Street

Back then, no one knew of Madam X’s existence, and her murderous plan was still hidden in her mind; she hadn’t yet taken any action. After entering Five Spice Street in disguise and implementing a lot of on-the-spot reconnaissance, she framed her plan. Then she embarked on carrying it out. The teenagers were her first targets. After consideration she decided to employ means whose effects would resemble smoking dope. The fad-loving teenagers were very happy. They went every night in high spirits. Some even proclaimed that they could ‘‘adopt this method to become well known.’’ How could they prevent Madam X from injecting them with poisons? Although sometimes they hated her and stole her shoes, and so forth, in general they were innocent, infantile children wholly in X’s clutches.

Did Madam X’s unusual powers and murderous activity create a great tragedy? Excuse me, here the writer must speak only of the facts and real situation. The real situation was: except for her colleague’s son, who had indeed been affected, she hadn’t harmed anyone else’s physical or mental health at all. Because of the climate on our Five Spice Street, people who were already living here possessed a kind of immunity. Madam X overlooked this in her reconnaissance. With this immunity, we could be marinated in poisonous juices for years and still retain good health. As for the colleague’s son, he was poisoned because of a serious childhood disease that destroyed his immunity. Madam X jumped for joy because of this one

success. Her precious husband’s foolish chatter made people laugh their heads off. He told everyone about her ‘‘great power,’’ ‘‘mighty as an A- bomb.’’ Madam X called this success ‘‘an unexpected harvest’’ (she didn’t intend to affect anyone; as she claimed, she had long since completely ‘‘forgotten’’ everyone around her). ‘‘It didn’t occur to me that there would still be one left for me!’’ She was enraptured. ‘‘This is really a nice, nervy child! Maybe he too will create miracles.’’

We will get ‘‘more of a general idea’’ if we examine the incident of the colleague’s son more carefully. This son was the colleague’s own flesh and blood. And from the day he was born, he had the same immunity as other children on our Five Spice Street. Later, he unfortunately contracted a serious disease and lost this protection. But this isn’t the same as affirming that he must necessarily have become the person he is now. Ahead of him a bright broad road was rolling out. With the guidance of elders, he could have averted disaster and disease and grown up to be one in a thousand. One summer at dusk, he was mesmerized by a strange shout, and following it, he walked into Madam X’s home. There, he stayed woodenly for two hours and went crazy. Suddenly all his mother’s painstaking efforts in bringing him up turned to nothing. Madam X’s plot was an ‘‘acetabulum’’ that sucked him in so tightly he couldn’t get away. When his mother asked about this frightening ‘‘acetabulum’’ and tried to help him detach himself, he flew into a rage. He denounced his mother’s good intentions as ‘‘murder’’ and said he would ‘‘rather die’’ than change back! Terrible! Was Madam X really not aware of the havoc she caused? Did she think only of her own inner tranquility when she did her damnable work at night? Who would buy this bullshit?

If a person wanted to remain aloof from worldly affairs in order to cultivate herself, she wouldn’t do such things. Madam X flaunted her dynamism; she expressed fake inhospitality; her activity achieved impersonal effects (although very small); and she was utterly determined: everything substantiated our established view. Could a person who had secretly cultivated murderous intentions since childhood become detached, expunge those intentions, and blindly start attending to her inner tranquility so as to become a saint? Is it possible that she simply ignored the youthful, tender bodies of those teenagers swaying before her eyes instead of pouncing and biting them? If she had really ignored them and become detached, she should have sat on the roof of a thatched cottage or on a mountaintop and communed with the gods. On the contrary, she was surrounded by crowds all day, and only at night did she fuss with broken mirrors or create dubious miracles. Yet she dared talk of detachment!