I think I still love her, but she’s getting ready to leave the country with a grad student to find happiness on the other side of the ocean.
It was a golden and beautiful autumn day, and I was the only one who was secretly sad in the midst of the yellow leaves.
Later that fall, I met Xiao Jun, Xiao Qiang and Xiao Gang. Together with them, we formed this “hymen-busting team”. All three of them had already left school. Xiao Qiang and Xiaogang had been working for a few years and had long since rushed to the front line of labor production. Xiao Jun graduated from secondary school and has been in the underworld for many years without realizing it.
When I met them, I was still struggling with the pure agony of a broken relationship, buying drinks with the last few dollars I had on me in a small, dimly lit bar. The three of them, like me, had just been dumped by their girlfriends or had just dumped their girlfriends and were all in a bad mood. So we got to know each other in a confused way, with our bellies full of alcohol. The formation of this “hymen-busting group” was initially a joke. Out of the bitterness of our lost love, we vowed to rape each and every virgin and use their most precious blood to pay tribute to the purity of our lost feelings.
Our slogan is: treat the virgins of the world by playing with their flesh, destroying their spirit, trampling their personality and torturing their souls.
The joke ended up becoming a reality. Gang and the guys were very serious about organizing our activities every weekend. Everyone was very persistent, taking it as their duty to destroy hymens, firmly destroying one after another. At that time, I was still a virgin. My experience of sex was limited to passionate kisses with my girlfriends. However, after meeting the three of them, my progress in sex was simply called a day’s progress.
Xiao Qiang and Xiao Jun are both considered expert in picking up girls. Compared to the two of them, Xiao Gang was even more of an expert expert expert expert expert. He can always pick up the most worthy girl in the shortest time and the most critical occasion. For Xiaogang, picking up a pretty girl’s panties in the midst of chaos is like picking up a bag. I am also quite handsome, although I can not catch up with Andy Lau, at least equal to Chow Yun Fat. So there are always girls willing to take the initiative to approach me. In addition, I am constantly learning from Xiaogang, so I soon forgot about my freckled college girlfriend.
Every weekend on a dark and windy night is when our hymen-busting team goes into action.
We don’t actually rape or gang rape. We just get very serious about finding and introducing girls to each other, and then finding ways to verify that they’re virgins, and finally sleeping with them. We use the virgins’ virginal blood to soak the toilet paper red every time. Then we made little paper flowers out of them. We used to make these little paper flowers when we were in kindergarten. Only the little paper flowers of our childhood were as pure as a child’s innocent smile, while the little paper flowers of today are a sign of the degradation of virgins’ chastity.
The first small paper flower I made was dyed red with the blood of chastity by a beautiful female elementary school teacher. She was really a very pretty girl who had just graduated from a teacher’s college and was assigned to teach language in an elementary school.
Kong introduced her to me and whispered in my ear, “This girl is pure. I haven’t touched her yet, so she’s a virgin.” Not two days after I met her, we slept together in her dormitory. It was my first time and her first time. She cringed and let out a moan as I entered her. I felt so lewd that it was hard to imagine how she stood in class and moralized to her students.
When I was done, I blithely dipped her blood in the toilet paper I had prepared earlier. Surprisingly, she didn’t ask why, just blushed and looked at me.
Shortly after making my first little paper flower, I dumped her. This female teacher was pretty but I wasn’t in love with her. I was just making my little paper flowers and I didn’t want to be private with her for life.
She was the first, but not the last. After her I chased after virgin after virgin, destroying hymen after hymen, with my ever-growing experience.
With Xiao Jun, Xiao Gang, Xiao Qiang and the others, I did learn to be bad. We never took responsibility for our behavior and never regretted anything. We just religiously made little paper flowers with the girls’ blood, as if making such paper flowers was a more noble and honorable thing than sex or ideals. The world is ridiculous. When I was a virgin, all I ever heard was nervous talk about how there were fewer and fewer virgins in the world. But after I became a member of the Hymen Destruction Team, I realized that there are still a lot of virgins in the world, so many that our team has been so busy that we have been wiped out.
The funny thing is that every virgin loves to talk to you about sex and about sexual ethics. Although they have no sexual experience, they have their own unique insights in these areas. And it seems that every virgin is in the midst of sexual hunger, ready to go to bed with a man at any time, thus saying goodbye to the traditional era of chastity and purity.
I find it strange. It’s amazing how the sanctity of chastity depicted in books of the past has become worthless in reality. Is this a betrayal of human decency or a moral development?
I asked Gang, “What is purity?” His answer was, “More sex, less dreaming.” The truth is clear. What more can be said? Xiaogang has made fourteen little paper flowers. The smile on his face every time he shows us the results of these battles is pure.
Xiao Qiang also made ten small paper flowers. He has a busy schedule, so he has limited time and energy. Xiao Jun has done the least, only three so far. Except for the few college girls I introduced to him, the rest always disappointed him after going to bed. Why does he always fail to meet virgins? Xiaogang analysis pointed out that Xiaojun all day with the help of the Miss Miss mix together, know the girl not a few good goods, he has long lost the ability to distinguish whether it is a virgin.
Over the course of the winter, I actually made five little paper flowers as well. Each one was red and dipped in blood. In fact, I slept with seven girls, but two of them were not virgins. I was blind to know them both. It took me the longest time and the greatest effort to develop a relationship with them, but they were the ones who got satisfied in the end.
Winter turns to spring. day after day I coped with school and religiously making these chaste paper flowers. i felt that i was beginning to take on the sublime air of postmodernism. I felt that I was beginning to take on the sublime air of postmodernism. It didn’t matter what was in the eye of the beholder, it didn’t matter what was in the eye of the beholder, not even the tears of a girl’s true heart.
Recalling the sadness I felt when I was dumped by my girlfriend, I can only show my mouth and pop out the word “stupid” through my teeth. I don’t think I’ll ever be as stupid as I was before, my past innocence has been destroyed along with those hymens. All that’s left of me is a body of great sexual prowess and a spirit of expertise in picking up girls. The soul is pure death. I thought I’d just live half-dead like this until I aged and died.
But life always changes. The world has miracles every day.
In the last spring of my senior year of college, I miraculously fell in love with the sixth virgin I had destroyed. This girl was in her senior year of high school. She wasn’t too pretty, but she was very pure, every day showy, with a naive and restrained smile, you knew at first glance that she was a student and still a virgin. I met her in the city library. Because I have to prepare for the university thesis, I sat in the reading room opposite her to study. When we raised our heads at the same time, I smiled at her and we got to know each other. Her name was Xiao Ting. I preferred to call her Xiao Ting. I could tell she was a good student at school and very ambitious. When I met her, she had a copy of The Gadfly in her book bag. She stroked the cover of The Gadfly and told me earnestly, “This book describes the strength of soul and unyielding ideals.” Xiao-ting was still innocent and full of hopes for the future. I, on the other hand, had little in the way of strong souls and unyielding ideals, except for making little paper flowers. So I was no gadfly, I was a rogue. The next night, I went to bed with Xiao-ting.
I too have had high school entrance exams and ideals. Thus I clearly understood what a pure senior girl like Xiao-ting wanted to hear and what she loved to hear. That night, I asked her to come to a hut I rented off campus. The moon was very full, and a cat in heat was roaring outside the window. I told her about the experience of the college entrance examination, persistence and endurance, “How Steel is Made”, and existentialist philosophy. When I felt a hint of admiration and worship in the way she looked at me, I seized the opportunity precisely.
I’m not a novice. I went from to touching with my fingers, making it difficult for her to control herself. When I finally entered her, she clung to me and let out a scream. That mournful scream echoed long into the quiet night air. I was very excited that night. Xiao-ting’s blood stained a very large piece of toilet paper red. I was determined to make a big flower out of it.
Xiao-ting leaned in my arms, gently caressing my arms. Her eyes seemed as if they were still pure, like the sea in Jiuzhaigou, serene and tranquil. But I knew that she was no longer a virgin, she was spoiled by me. So I put my arms around her and excitedly told her about our hymen-destroying group, about the little paper flowers we made, about our slogans, about my paper flowers. Xiao Ting listened without saying a word, her face pale. Because she suddenly realized that she was being played. I will always remember that moment. Xiao-ting angrily got up and dressed. She moved very nicely, fluttering, like she was dancing. As if her lower body was still in pain, she stood bent over for a moment with her hand over her belly after she was dressed. I saw her shoulders shaking. She must be crying. Before leaving the door, Xiao-ting gritted her teeth and said to me, “You’ve ruined me, you’re an animal!” Her expression looked like a beast in the light, her eyes radiated hateful anger, but her face was full of tears.
She was into me. I realized that as soon as she cried. So I burst out laughing. In the sound of laughter she walked away, without looking back into the middle of a vast night. That night with the paper Xiao Ting had dyed red, I carefully tied it into the most exquisite paper flower. This paper flower was the best I had ever made, beautifully even and nearly perfect. After I finished tying it, tears rolled down my face. It wasn’t remorse or sadness. It was just the desire to cry, somehow. Crying doesn’t need a reason. When Xiao-ting cried, it proved that she liked me. When I cried, I think I liked Xiao-ting too.
After a few days I went to see Xiao-ting. It was the first time I turned back to the virgin I had destroyed. At the entrance of her middle school, I saw her looking gloomy, walking out of the school alone with her backpack and her head down. Two long and beautiful legs, wrapped in sweatpants, felt extraordinarily alluring. She cried as soon as she saw me. I said to her, “I ruined you, so I’m going to be responsible for you for the rest of my life.” Xiao-ting must have been very touched. Her tears wet my lapel.
She didn’t go home at night and came back to my cabin with me. We were entwined like snakes in bed. Xiao-ting said, “You are so good to me.” Her words made me wonder. I had made love to her only to satisfy my erupting desire. I didn’t want to treat her much. I didn’t even take seriously what I said in the afternoon about being responsible for her for the rest of her life. And why would she think I was being nice to her?
Maybe I like Xiao-ting because she has personality and I don’t, or maybe I like Xiao-ting because she has ideals and mine are long gone. This kind of liking is like liking a rich man because you have no money, which I thought was despicable. But Xiao-ting didn’t think so. She was willing to use her small allowance to buy me delicious sweet rice crackers, and willing to stay at my place as much as possible after school every day. She said she liked to look at me and said that I was sometimes badass much like Yang Zu. She wished she was Little Dragon Girl so that there would be a long-lasting love between us.
I don’t want to quit the hymen-busting team just yet. But it was always inconvenient to have Xiao-ting tagging along. Good thing I was busy with graduation during that time, so there was no awkwardness. Writing a college thesis was as easy as taking a shit, and I squatted a whole bunch of them. After shitting my thesis, in June, I graduated with honor. A relative was eagerly connecting me with jobs while I had nothing to do for myself.
That’s when Kong came to me and told me that he had found three avant-garde girls, all guaranteed to be virgins. He made an appointment with Xiao Jun, and the three of us would put on a triple drive in my rented cottage. Naturally, the drive was not a horse-drawn carriage, but an old man’s wheelbarrow. These three girls are really edgy and rebellious. They were more than willing to say goodbye to their virginity on such a bi-monthly, bi-weekly basis. So on my modest bed, the three wheelbarrows rode in the sexual wilderness.
It was really all virgins. Three spots of bright red blood made me feel aroused. The girl underneath me, in addition to her plump breasts, had an extraordinarily tantalizing horniness.
The roughness of Xiao Jun beside her made the girl underneath her a bit overwhelmed. Xiao Gang lectured Xiao Jun while she was busy with her own, “Slow down, pay attention to the rhythm.” Spoken like a ballroom dance. Just as the six of us were stacking up our orgasms, the door to the room was pushed open and Xiaoting walked in. She was also carrying my favorite sweet rice cake in her hand. Seeing the six of us naked and in exciting positions, she was stunned by what she saw. If she had been pure in her bones before, her soul was even tainted at the sight of this.
Everyone looked at me, waiting for me to find a solution in this awkward atmosphere. I had to blame Xiao Jun, “You didn’t know to unlock the door when you finally came in.” Xiao Jun scratched his scalp and hemmed and hawed. On the days when he wasn’t fighting for the triads, his smile was kinda cute. Xiao Ting clenched her fists and questioned me, “You said you would be responsible for me for the rest of my life, you 。。。。。。” She herself didn’t know what to say. At that time my hand was still on a breast. I touched this breast and told Xiao-ting in a student-like tone, “You have no right to interfere in my private life.
I don’t love you anymore, so get lost.” Hearing this, Xiao-ting’s tears streamed down her face. I said politely again, “Remember to lock the door when you go out.” After saying that, I proceeded to make my love.
I don’t remember how Xiao-ting ran out crying. When I finally said goodbye to the three girls, they didn’t mention it either. Their virginity had just been lost, and I think they must have all regretted it a little. On the way out Xiao Jun said to me, “You’re so inhuman.” His tone was full of admiration. I felt very proud to be able to make a triad admire me.
I also know that Xiao-ting is not going to come back to me, it’s over between us. Good thing I made another little paper flower with the blood of a girl’s virginity today. Seven already. All seven fairies had their most important layer of film gone with the wind under my destruction. It’s a sense of accomplishment any way you slice it.
In the midst of the fulfillment of accomplishment, I still felt empty. This emptiness engulfed my mind like the blank night sky at night. I hurt Xiao-ting today, destroying her mind again by defiling her flesh. There is only one month left before her college entrance exam. I hope she gets into a good university so she might not resent me for the rest of her life. My wish was kind. At this moment I thought I was sort of a good person, and I deceived myself so as to gain mental peace.
But later, I heard from Xiao-ting’s classmates that Xiao-ting had failed the college entrance exam.
It was about a month or so after Xiao-ting’s entrance examination, and I couldn’t help wondering which city Xiao-ting had gotten into, so I unconsciously walked over to their school’s entrance examination list. It was the evening of sunset, and the fragrance of osmanthus was wafting from Xiao-ting’s middle school. I had smelled this scent on Xiao-ting before, so I felt particularly close to her.
A girl at the front of the list told me that Xiao-ting had failed the entrance exam. This was a girl with big braids and beautiful dark eyes. She told me again in a meaningful way that Xiao-ting broke down before the college entrance exam. Her spirit seemed to have suffered some kind of violent blow before the college entrance exams. After failing the first few exams, she didn’t take the last two exams. She gave up.
This big braided girl also told me that Xiaoting was originally in the top three of their class, and the teachers had high hopes for her, thinking that she should have been admitted to a prestigious key university 。。。。。。 As I listened to these words, I suddenly remembered that Xiao-ting had once said to me: you have ruined me, you are an animal. I don’t think I did anything wrong, I just feel shameful.
Out of the psychological pressure of my low self-esteem, I worked hard to please this girl with big braids. I constantly made her laugh and finally joined me in bed and made love in the cottage I rented.
This girl with the big pigtails wasn’t a virgin, she said she and her boyfriend tried to do it once in her sophomore year of high school. I don’t even care if she’s a virgin or not. The most important thing was that she was Xiao-ting’s classmate. So I fucked her hard and made her let out a painful yelp. I searched for the essence of my soul and sin in that yelp.
I’ve been in touch with this girl with the big braid. Because through her, I was able to know where Xiao-ting was and what Xiao-ting was doing. The girl with the big braid enrolled in the same university from which I had just graduated. As soon as the school year started she cut her braids into short hair less than a finger long, and her person became unspeakably ugly. She shook her short hair and told me with a crooked nose and slanted eyes that Xiao-ting was tutoring at a very average cram school. I didn’t have the courage to go to Xiao-ting because I thought I might feel guilty after seeing her. I still liked her. Whenever I was with some other girls
When I go to bed, I think of her and the screams she made the first time we had sex.
In these days I found an agency job. Apart from sweeping floors and carrying water to appease the head of the section, I spent my working hours reading a lot of newspapers and books. Naturally, weekends were filled with hymen-busting group activities. The result of this meaningful activity was that by the time I saw Xiao-ting again, I had made twenty little paper flowers. Xiao-ting’s words were still the most colorful and refined. I always miss her when I see this flower.
Finally, two months before Xiao-ting was going to take the entrance exam for the second time, I decided that I wanted to meet her. My intention was to encourage her, so I went to her cram school.
She’s noticeably fatter than she was a year ago, and more pale. Every girl who tutored would be like this, and it didn’t surprise me at all. Rather, it was my appearance that was unexpected for Xiao-ting. When she saw me, Xiao-ting’s tears fell on the floor like broken beads. We stared at each other for a long time. I said, “Good luck with your college entrance exams this year.” She slowly walked over to me, smacked me hard in the mouth, and then crouched in my arms and cried loudly.
That night, we went back to my dormitory. I had asked my flat for a single dormitory and was no longer renting that pathetic off-campus shack. In bed, I told her with my actions how much I had missed her this year. She wordlessly matched me. The crib in that dormitory made gibbering cries of joy in the darkness. It was as if the bed was happiest when I made love to Xiao-ting.
I think Xiao-ting and I have made up. So very reverently, I showed her the twenty little paper flowers I had made. I said to her, “You are the biggest and most exquisite of them all.” Her face bristled and became without a trace of blood. She was angry. She knew I was still breaking hymens. She was the sixth, but fourteen more in a year. Instead of learning, I became worse. That night, she left for the night. I don’t know if she was carrying enough money for a cab, but I know Xiao-ting must have hated me with a passion. Someone once said that college entrance exams are like making love, the first time is the most important. It’s the same for both boys and girls. After the first time, boys get greasier and greasier and girls get crappier and crappier. Xiao-ting failed her first college entrance exam. She failed the second time too. Only the second time I didn’t stimulate her much, she failed on her own. Of course, I can’t shirk my responsibility. Because a few days before the college entrance exam, Xiao-ting found out she was pregnant.
After failing the college entrance exam, Xiao-ting came to see me. At that time, I was in the dormitory and Xiaogang was composing poems. Sitting beside me was a girl with bright eyes and big teeth. This girl said that she would give her virginity to whoever was the best writer between Xiaogang and me. Xiaogang recited a poem called “Spring Dawn”: Spring sleeps without realizing it, sexual harassment everywhere. Moaning in the middle of the night, a girl turns into a sister-in-law. I am highly educated, of course I refuse to admit defeat easily. So I came up with a couplet, and as long as Xiaogang got the next couplet right, I’d be the one to give up. My couplet is: “Menstrual belt, monthly belt, the more you carry, the more you carry. It’s an absolute. Xiaogang was so full of shit that he couldn’t get it right. He was about to admit defeat and leave the girl to me when Xiao-ting arrived.
Xiao-ting’s eyes were a little swollen and she said, “I’m pregnant.” I had nothing to say. I was healthy and she had no physical problems. It was a natural thing to do. My indifference made Xiao-ting angry. She raised her fist and said, “You have ruined me. You’re an animal!” I had heard this phrase before, and it was familiar and dear to me. She added, “I hate you for the rest of my life.” She seemed to become calm again as she said this. After saying this, she raised her head and left.
She’s gotten a little snarky and a little tough. I think this may be because of reading The Gadfly. I have also read This is How Iron is Made, but I still don’t have any noble qualities. I admire a girl like Xiao-ting who can fully draw strength from books.
Once Xiao-ting left, I didn’t see her again for two years.
Over the course of these two years, the activities of our hymen-busting group have dwindled. All four of us were feeling a bit bored. It turns out that everything in life slowly gets boring, and nothing is ever worth doing. What’s the point of us living? In two years, Xiao Jun has gone from the status of a triad hitman to that of a small leader. Xiao Qiang has gotten rich but impotent. His thirst for money far exceeds his desire for sex. It’s perverted.
Only Kong and I are still the same as in the past. Wasting time in tedium and boredom. During this time, I read a book that touched me a lot. It’s called “Maybe Pain, Not necessarily Happiness”. The author, Naikan, stated in his preface that he was writing about feelings, but I read about the purity of the past in that book. I had almost forgotten such noble feelings for a long time, and I never thought that a book would show me the personality I once had again. I hate remembering the past because it makes one feel more shameful. So after being touched, I immediately burned this book “Maybe Pain, Not necessarily Happiness”. I want to turn my past personality, my past nobility, like Qiu Shaoyun into ashes.
However, there are many things in life you can’t help but remember, and there are many people you can’t forget. Xiao-ting is the one I can’t forget. In two years, her figure and her expression always flashed before my eyes. I can’t forget the first time I met her, when she caressed the book cover of The Gadfly and told me very seriously, “This book depicts the strength of soul and unyielding ideals.” I think that statement was a banner for her, displaying the noble qualities that lay beneath her pure exterior. I miss her. I find that missing makes me love her more. If I ever see her again, I think I will still say to her, “I ruined you, so I am responsible for you for the rest of your life.” One day when it was raining heavily, Xiaojun told me he had seen Xiaoting. Xiao Jun’s boss runs several cabaret nightclubs with erotic services. Xiao Jun saw Xiao Ting working as a hostess there. In the pouring rain, I immediately ran into that cabaret nightclub.
I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw Xiao-ting. She was wearing a short white dress that showed all of a girl’s most private parts, and she was sitting sideways on the lap of a man old enough to be her father. The man’s big, fat, ugly hands were groping freely under Xiao-ting’s short skirt, which could not be any shorter. Xiao-ting said petulantly, “Boss Zhao, you’re bad.” After saying that, she saw me. At that moment I thought Xiao-ting would cry. But she didn’t. She smiled at me and continued to let the old man touch her. I cried. I knew I had really ruined Xiao-ting.
I rushed over, took out all the money I had on me and slammed it in the old lecher’s face, telling him that this young lady was all mine tonight, and then rushed out, pulling Xiao-ting with me. I pulled Xiao-ting out into the pouring rain and I questioned her, “Do you remember The Gadfly?” She grunted and said she had long forgotten. The rain dampened our clothes and washed away the thick makeup on Xiao-ting’s face, who finally became pure and chaste again.
I took her back to my place. The unit has given me a house. Outside the window, the rain kept falling, like tears for thousands of years of human sadness crying endless tears. Xiao-ting lit a cigarette and told me about her life in the past two years. After failing the second college entrance exam, she was disheartened. Coupled with the fact that she was pregnant with my child, the pressure she endured as a girl less than twenty years old was imaginable. She had an abortion, then worked in a few places, and finally became a lady in a bar, naturally going through the process of going from not selling her body to selling her body. I said to her, “Remember what I said? I said I ruined you, so I’m going to be responsible for you for the rest of your life.” She laughed coldly and said, “I am no longer the Xiao Ting of the past. The current me is no longer simple and childish. I will no longer believe in this kind of bullshit uttered by you stinky men.” She got up to leave, and before she left the door, she turned her head and left me her cell phone number, telling me to call her if I wanted to get a hooker, and she would charge me half price.
I want to chase her back, but I can’t. She is indeed no longer Xiao-ting.
Through the window, I saw her standing downstairs in the rain for a while, letting it wash over her mercilessly. I thought she must be crying. I felt that if I rushed downstairs and kissed her in the rain, then we would definitely be back together. But I was wrong. Just as I wanted to but before I could rush out the door, I saw Tiny turn her face and viciously spit at my building. At that moment there happened to be a flash of lightning, and the light of the thunder and lightning lit up the whole night sky, and also called me to see Xiao-ting’s eyes full of vicious resentment. She hated me very much, I was sure of it. Her eyes were like demons, like shrews, like vipers. The serene clarity of the Jiuzhaigou sea type in the past had completely disappeared, it was gone. I felt very scared. After a muffled thunder, I sat down on the ground.
I ruined Xiao-ting.
I asked Xiao Jun to take care of Xiao-ting. Xiao Jun is very popular in those nightclubs and dance halls. Xiao Jun said, “A bitch deserves your attention.” I really wanted to beat him up, but I didn’t think I could.
I’ve seen Xiao-ting a few times since then, too. I asked her out and she refused. She said if I wanted to whore her out, I should go to their nightclub. In order to see her, I have no choice but to whore her out. Sometimes I went alone, sometimes I went with Xiaogang. I remember that time after I finished whoring her with Xiaogang, she patted me on the shoulder and said that my body was still as good as before. When she was talking, she smelled of a strong, bad perfume, long gone was the light osmanthus aroma of her student days.
Then later, Xiao-ting died. She contracted an STD, was not cured after several treatments, and rotted to death. I know that her venereal disease could not be cured by drugs, because her rotting started from the depths of her soul. She used to be a very idealistic and pure girl, her body used to smell faintly of cinnamon, and she used to be uplifted by The Gadfly. But she was ruined by me. Once a person’s pure and noble qualities are destroyed, then they are not far from death. So I think maybe I’m the only one in this world who knows how Xiao-ting died.
On the day Xiao-ting’s body was said goodbye, there was no memorial service, no relatives, no friends. About the time they felt that the death of a prostitute was insignificant. It was a cloudy day. Five of us, the hymen-breaking team and Xiao-ting’s mother, said goodbye to Xiao-ting. Xiao-ting’s father was so hurt by her that he refused to come. I didn’t expect Xiao-ting’s final remains to be so pure, reminding me immediately of the first time I saw her. And at this moment she was no longer wearing thick dark lipstick, no longer wearing the kind of professional clothes that prostitution feeds on. Her face was pure and pale, and there was even a slight smile at the corner of her mouth. It was as if she was going to tell me very seriously, “This book depicts the strength of soul and unyielding ideals.” I understood that Xiao-ting was dead. This pure face just rested on top of a pile of dead flesh. So, at that moment I regretted it. It was the first time I felt so regretful so ashamed that I knelt in front of Xiao-ting’s corpse for a long time, unwilling to get up. I didn’t shed tears but my soul did.
Xiao-ting’s mother was crying her eyes out in front of me. If she knew that I had destroyed Xiao-ting, would she go mad and kill me? She wouldn’t. Because she couldn’t comprehend the extent of my destruction of Xiao-ting. I remembered the slogan of our hymen-destroying group: play with their flesh, destroy their spirit, trample on their personality, and torture their soul. I realized all four of these on Xiao-ting. But I regretted it.
What the hymen-destroying team has accomplished today is the destruction of Xiao-ting.
I don’t think it was just Xiao-ting that it destroyed. We made a hundred little paper flowers in all, that’s a hundred girls we destroyed. We played, destroyed, trampled, tortured. One hundred girls, one hundred pure became our shameless feats. I do regret it. If Xiao-ting came back to life, I felt that I was no longer qualified to say to her, “I ruined you, so I’m responsible for you for the rest of your life.” One hundred small paper flowers were placed around Xiao-ting’s remains. I asked for all of Xiao Gang, Xiao Jun, and Xiao Qiang’s paper flowers. I’m going to use these one hundred paper flowers for Xiao-ting’s burial. I’m going to use these one hundred paper flowers of chastity and purity to express my deepest apologies to Xiao Ting!!!!
Xiao Ting’s remains were cremated along with the hundred paper flowers. I said to Xiaogang and the others, “Let’s disband our hymen destruction team.” No one objected. This organization was indeed too boring, so boring that everyone got tired of it. And so, this hymen destruction group, which had existed for a long time, was finally disbanded completely in the destruction of a girl.
From the day Xiaoting turned to ashes, my soul was in a deep regret, a regret that made me feel my stomach constrict and nauseous to vomit.
The ghosts of those many virgins whose virginity had passed away were floating all over this city, like flies and mosquitoes, everywhere, disturbing my soul. I am determined to leave this city. I was going to change myself, I was going to live again with a purity that Xiao-ting had once possessed. I bought a train ticket to the farthest city. I want to say goodbye to the past once and for all, forget about Xiao-ting, forget about those paper flowers, forget about the hymen-breaking team. Far away. No one will ever remember me again, and I don’t want to remember anyone else.
When I got on the train, my mood was euphoric and I was smiling as I felt that I was going to walk away from the guilt I felt towards Xiao-ting. It was as if my mood had infected the passengers I was sitting with. They were all smiles as they exchanged pleasantries with me, giving me a warm feeling of coming home. Across from me sat an innocent girl, she was about a schoolgirl, maybe going to school out of town. Since she was pretty, I couldn’t help but look at her more. Realizing that I was looking at her, she raised her head and smiled at me. That’s when I noticed that she was holding a copy of The Gadfly in her hand. She caressed the book cover of The Gadfly and told me earnestly, “This book depicts the strength of soul and unyielding ideals.” Upon hearing this, I cried. I have never been as sad as I am today since I grew up.
My tears spilled out like a tidal wave, my body kept trembling, but I couldn’t make a sound out of my mouth. Every passenger in the seat, including the girl, looked at me in amazement. But I didn’t care, I was going to cry my eyes out, I was going to let the tears flow freely, hoping that I could wash away my sinful soul with them.