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.’’
Did this so-called high stage consist of no more than walks and ostentatious displays? Was what we cared about most realized in this, and from now on we’d be happy forever? Hey, dear ones, this can’t be right. This is nothing more than a lengthy preparatory period. The true, substantial thing, the joy per se, is something very serious: who knows when it will do me in. I understand this all too well. Therefore, why should I take that decisive step? Why? The reason is that I can’t find the right partner. My wife and I did go for a walk, and rolled around on the beach, endlessly chasing each other in a certain mood, as if advancing swiftly toward the highest objective. We were both overjoyed, filled with self-confidence. Was it possible that the ants emerged on the scene for no reason? Could outside factors interfere so much in our future? Ha, this was merely a hoax. There might have been ants, and there might not have been ants. It depends on your will. If you think they’re there, they are. If you don’t pay attention to them, they don’t exist. So the sticking point of the problem lies with my wife. She always believed that joy was her affair alone and definitely didn’t want to share the joy with me. Not a bit. As for my experiencing this high stage, she was simply a bystander. She said she’d ‘‘never feel this.’’ What’s more, she also said this was trumped up, ‘‘plagiarized,’’ that she’d ‘‘rather die than share joy with me.’’ The reason she patiently walked ten miles with me was merely ‘‘to see what stupid trick I’d play’’ and then jeer at me later. She also said that she had never guessed that I was such ‘‘horseshit.’’ Those flowery motions were like acrobatic shows. If she wanted to watch a show, she’d be better off spending twenty cents at the theatre. What did these naked acrobatics amount to?
Now, dear ones, do you understand the significance of the ants? Even if you could visualize the joy perfectly, without a partner it would still end in tragedy. My heart is bleeding! There’s too much despair, solitude, and loneliness! Too much!! Ifyou think you want to pursue high-level ‘‘spare-time recreation,’’ and if you think you want to climb to the peak of joy, defeat awaits you, shock awaits you, and you stand in a deserted field. The sun lengthens your shadow, and lengthens it some more. Under your feet, there’s no road you can take. One slight move and you’ll lose your balance. Or you’ll fall into the grip of a malevolent being, and thus, the damn ants appear.
When you set out, you and your companion are holding hands. You walk on a long riverbank, your heart overflowing with lofty passion. You think everything is going according to plan. You feel you have a good grasp of it. And you feel you’ve become somebody. You don’t realize that you have overlooked one thing, an important matter related to the future. This is none other than my damn wife (when did she bore her way into my life? How did this bitch swindle my trust?). She fully manipulated my purity and my idealism. She masterminded this in secret. She planned to pull off a major hoax. She walked on with me and actually blushed. It seemed that she was even more stimulated than I was, and she kept sighing, ‘‘Ah, I truly like you! Ah, I truly like you!’’ She did this in such a way that I thought she would turn reckless. How could I have guessed that she was feigning? I had already lived by myself so many years in solitude and loneliness, and now all at once I felt I had a soulmate! Didn’t I find this most welcome? I was patient, planning to walk the whole ten miles and bring my pursuit of my ideals to completion. My wife couldn’t hold back any longer, and in desperation she said I was steely and unfeeling and didn’t satisfy her demands. I advised her patiently that this ten-mile walk was the lowest stage and that a higher enjoyment awaited us. If we didn’t finish the ten miles, if we didn’t let our emotions ferment completely (this was a little like qigong), and if we entered into this hastily, we would regret it in the future. Suppose that all our preparation was merely for that one minute of intercourse that had no feeling at all-wouldn’t that be purposely making things difficult for ourselves? We could do that at home. We certainly didn’t have to do it so mysteriously.