Five Spice Street

Only by relying on our strong inner faith could we continue our struggle. We can say that it was in the midst of despair that we clung to hope. ‘We went on undeterred by the dangers ahead.’ ‘We risked our lives in the struggle.’ Only by doing so did we emerge in this world of today. Sometimes, we looked all around with wide-open eyes: everything was black, everything an impasse. Those days of extreme misery: you never experienced them at all. How dare you speak such nonsense as ‘completely boring’? How dare you disdain your forefathers’ courageous pursuit? Looking at a kid like you, we really keenly feel our oversight. Aside from having fun and being mouthy, what do you kids have in your heads? You’re rude, you want to cast off everything your forebears struggled for so that you can be-as they say-aloof. But, honey, what do you have? What do you rely on to stand up straight in this world? Do you collect butterflies to escape and show off your rebellious spirit? Have our youths all turned into playboys with butterfly nets, roaming around on the mountains all day long? Ah, I really do not dare imagine this. If you have to go straight to hell, that’s up to you. I just want to ask you: what makes you say things like this ‘are completely boring’? Did you mean that we who have made this pursuit, we who have wholeheartedly headed toward the light, are all hollow, blind, ‘completely boring’ people? Just because you can’t see the present world, do we have to let you crazy kids create a new world? All our lives, our generation has struggled! Every minute and every second, our lives have been busy and meaningful. We don’t have time to think about whether something is interesting or uninteresting-questions that people with nothing better to do come up with. After the X incident emerged, we saw a little light at the end of the tunnel. Our hopes were kindled, we were pleasantly surprised, and we threw all of our energy into this struggle. We demonstrated unprecedented courage and resourcefulness. With our spiritual strength, we conquered the darkness of the outside world and walked on the road of light. We obtained a new lease on life. This kid: is he our Five Spice Street people’s flesh and blood? He sits here and, without a care in the world, swings his skinny (of course, they’re skinny!) legs and puts on airs. How could anyone believe him? I have to say: there’s no such kid here. And he said nothing that had to do with our life. He just moved his mouth and joked with us-that’s all. It’s impossible to believe there was such nonsense and a kid who talked such nonsense. He lives on Five Spice Street; he’s everyone’s child. One noon, he joked with us. I think he will agree with this narration-right, honey?’’

She held the child’s hand, but the child turned bashful. It seemed that everyone saw him nod his head and then start whimpering. He hid his face in the widow’s black robe. ‘‘This kind of child is still adorable.’’

The widow turned toward the crowd. ‘‘My research into this incident has gone deeper and deeper. We are rushing toward the torch in the midst of the dense fog.’’

9. THE VAGUE POSITIONS OF MR. Q AND MADAM X'S HUSBAND

By now, we ‘‘have a good general idea’’ of Madam X. We’ve drawn the diagram of the maze from her birthplace to the valley or hillside where she is destined to go in the future. Though phantasmagoric, she can’t deviate much from the diagram.

However, she isn’t our biggest problem. Rather, it’s the two who stick to her like shadows-Q and her husband. After further thought, we realized that these two are even more shadowy than Madam X. They are mere shadows-X’s shadows, two parasitic vines, parasites on X’s large, rootless tree, colorless and shapeless. X brought them with her to Five Spice Street, and when X dies they will disappear. Of course, this is only a superficial impression, or perhaps the misconception they produced by getting mixed up with X. As individuals, they remain ordinary men. This is substantiated by Dr. A’s argument about who took the offensive. The problem is that in our story, we haven’t yet considered these two persons as individuals. All along we’ve looked at them as a trio-one person and two shadows, or a moth and two pupae. As long as the moth flies back and forth below the big tree, the other two can only be unmoving pupae forever. Their metamorphosis ends at this point.

All the men and women on Five Spice Street resented this analysis. We all wanted to draw our swords and help them. We need to differentiate: in general, most of those who wanted to draw their swords and help Q were beautiful, dissolute women who had desired him for a long time because Q was good-tempered and gentle.

But X was an obstacle, and they couldn’t succeed. If they disposed of X, they were convinced they would get Q.