Itch Scratch

Author: Chen Xi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: Actually, marriage is just an endless itching. It's fixed, not developing. Everything in the world is developing, except for marriage. Love develops and becomes marriage, and then marriage further develops into extramarital affairs. So it can no longer develop. Happiness is a product of compromise. The standard of happiness is flexible. If you feel happy, then it truly is happy. It's like those men who return after abandoning their families and wives (which doesn't stop them from abandoning them again). Men are easily reckless and very skilled at compromising. Ji Kang, a successful real estate businessman, had a beautiful wife named Yue Guo, who was a teacher. They had been married for eight years but lived a life of numbness in their marriage. Other friends sought excitement through mistresses, prostitution, or finding lovers, but Ji Kang never indulged in any of these. One of his close friends had just committed suicide after his wife discovered his extramarital affair. In reality, the numbness of marriage is a result of the numbness of the world. Ji Kang found that everywhere he looked, people were living in compromise. He felt he was also living in compromise and couldn't accept it. He had sex with Yue Guo because his mother wanted a grandson. His career was just a series of dirty transactions. Everyone around him was an animal who had lost their humanity due to greed. But with the only person he was with, Ji Kang couldn't enter Yue Guo's body or mind, yet he longed for an escape. Through online video, he exposed his genitalia to women who were also on the edge of marriage, seeking the thrill of mischief. By chance, he encountered Yue Guo online and discovered that she, too, had been chatting with others in another room. They were like strangers online, beginning to communicate pathologically through video. He found that Yue Guo, like him, had reached the brink of collapse from enduring this numb life. They started playing games online, but when they returned to reality, they were still strangers as husband and wife. They began to feel the itch. It became more and more intense. They scratched the itch together—the itch of marriage, the itch of existence, the itch of a numb body.