Good night. Or is it? The masturbator has turned off the light but then he turns the conclusion into a question. Hey why not go one more round after all, the night is still long. There are hours until morning he can still, have himself a good time. Midnight is his time. The only property he can afford to squander. If only it could be traded then he could get some money and die sooner. Another masturbator would buy his midnight hours. A rich masturbator, jerking off by day in the public toilets of banks and law firms then wiping the semen on his own white shirt, snickering as he passes the cubicles of female colleagues because he thinks he has committed the most depraved act on earth. Then this rich fuck would buy his time because after all he is a poor-fuck masturbator he would sell even his time, at a very low price because the poor fuck is desperate now, he has no idea what bargaining power means. And then the rich-fuck masturbator who already jerked off by day would say, I will buy your time because I can put these midnight hours to better use than you can after all as you see I work at a bank and a law firm and then he would flash his employee badge or something, the way ByteDance employees like to do on the subway. This way, he says, the sum total of our midnight hours can bring more happiness into the world. And so the rich-fuck masturbator buys the poor-fuck masturbator's time and keeps masturbating at midnight. And then the poor-fuck masturbator dies early and he doesn't even get to jerk off.

Good night. Masturbator. Good night dear world. Because he is about to jerk off, the hour in which he reigns supreme, or to put it in trendier language, the hour in which he takes back bodily autonomy. In his rented room he wraps himself tightly in a thick blanket. On that five-foot bed whose wrinkled sheets sprawl like mountain ranges and reek of the nine-o'clock subway. Curled there, like a chrysalis, or an embryo. As if anyone would truly pity him. If anyone holds him it is the woman in the porn video behind his shattered phone screen. From the first-person view he sees her naked, opening her arms. She even kisses him my god someone really does love him, even though he thinks he is hideous, his belly usually spilling over his belt like a drooping shell. His relatives all say how can you be so fat if you have no money, are you lying to us are you actually making a fortune in business. So he vows to do push-ups because an ad on a video site told him there is at least one thing in life he can control. “That iz, mah bawdy!” says a fitness coach with slicked-back hair. Regrettably, on day two of the annual plan he strains his upper arm. Because his determination is too fierce. He resolves to lift his torso and his bawdy teaches him a lesson. Who do you think you are, take a look in the mirror, before asking whether you can do it ask whether you deserve to. He lies on the floor like a stranded dolphin, loose fur balls made of dust rising and falling with his breath. The masturbator feels that if there were a standard unit of ugliness in this world, he would be the ruler. Sometimes the masturbator's eyes enter the mirror only slightly. He sees half an eyeball, half its white, then dodges away at once. He cannot let the self-loathing summoned by that face swallow him, because he has endowed the face with a whole catalogue of moral meanings; whenever he sees himself he sees the seven deadly sins. All right, now he lowers his head, gasping at the floor, while little vortexes of dust hover. It is all right, dear masturbator.

Good night. Dear masturbator. Let the sluts in the video kiss you like mothers. Let them be mothers who know how to kiss. The shattered screen reminds him that this is a dream, but reality was never what he wanted. What he wants is a clairvoyant sensation. In a shoddy sweet dream he becomes a parasite upon a new body. His eyes and ears sprout from a cock, and so does his nose, which grows longer and larger like Pinocchio's whenever it catches the scent of sex. In this sweet dream somebody wants him, a beautiful woman says she cannot wait. Even if the way she says it is unconvincing, like reciting a script learned by heart—but doesn't that merely prove she has not yet learned to lie flawlessly, that sincerity has slipped out through the falsehood? Then she sits on him and starts to move. Yes, just like that, he comments. Then, together with the cameraman holding the video, he insults her. Using the words routinely used by the people who insult him. Using the words he longs to fling back at strangers but cannot get out, those strangers who lift their heads haughtily beneath his gaze in daylight. He curses so loudly that his roommates in the rental may hear, so he lowers the video's volume. Then from inside the shattered screen she lies loudly and tells him she is coming. So soon? He must be incredible. He squirms inside the thick blanket like a frightened turtle. He gives himself to her as well. One hand lies loose beside the pillow, clutching a warm ball of tissue. He breathes evenly, savoring what has just happened. What he calls. Love.

Morning. Dear masturbator. Welcome your brand-new day. Put on your shirt, the one in the laundry basket that looks less dirty than the others. Go out like a donkey, and join the human ore converging at the transit hub. Be careful not to straighten your back lest someone think you have dignity, lest they ask, “You got something you want to say, huh?” This much he knows well. Expertly forget the hour last night when you were king. Remember to stoop. Remember to show your humble side, to know your own weight. He stands outside residential compounds handing out advertisements for rentals and properties for sale. He is more introverted than his coworkers he is, he cannot cheerfully hail passersby he, can only silently, obnoxiously stuff flyers against their chests. Often someone waves him away and knocks the flyers down and, turns back to lecture him on his lack of boundaries. How he doesn't understand everyone has so much to do everyone has, troubles of their own. Doesn't understand nobody has money these days the illusions he sells have already, gone out of date. The masturbator squats down and gathers the flyers into order. That clairvoyant sensation returns. He feels that his true form is actually the cock from the sweet dream. He has come incognito into another world to experience this reality devoid of respect. He must go back. They are waiting for him. Night. Night. Close your eyes and night will come.

Morning. Masturbator. Learn to love yourself. Overcome the lessons life has assigned you. Salute Krishnamurti Tagore and every wise Indian. Send sincere greetings to the self-help manuals of life. Ever since taking these, his back no longer aches and his legs no longer hurt, and every day his enlightenment arrives right on time. Offer heartfelt blessings to the order under which we survive. Thank it for being unchangeable. Thank the solidified classes for giving him a stable opportunity and environment in which to explore within! Tell yourself I am wonderful. Believe in the power of believing. Tell yourself I only masturbate, I have harmed no one, I have caused society no trouble, I am far better than the bad people. Take a deep breath. Now get up and go hand out flyers. Only when I get better can real estate get better; only when real estate gets better can China's economy get better.

Morning. Or is it? Could I not get up. This daylight is burning me. I am a happy boy burning under the open sky, the fire has burned every piece of clothing from my body. You know, I am just as I was last night, naked, protected only by a thick blanket. If you want to see, I might as well cast it off. No shame can pierce me now. I am a proletarian, a sans-culotte. Whatever is glorious and whatever smashes the cauldrons to sink the boats, that is what I am. If no one loves me again today, I will walk naked into the street, into the shopping mall, into the Wanda Plaza with the discount signs, and tell the panicked people still pretending to remember their manners how Adam and Eve walked wantonly before they were defiled, how they looked at one another without turning away. I will let it swing as I point at their noses and curse them. Curse them savagely. Then I will catch fire, burning beneath the daylight from hair to toes. Leaving psychological scars on everyone present, especially the children. Let the rich-fuck masturbator who asked to buy my midnight hours run around frantic, because he urgently needs to masturbate and I have burned the time together with its debtor. I have broken the contract. Go buy from someone else.