No. 11

The Eleventh Number was created between April 18 and June 19, 1992, at Hangzhou North Station and Jin Yazhuang. This book is a reproduction of the author's original paper-based work of the same name, which was printed and bound in a small shop at the time, with the addition of three new postscripts written by the author recently.

This is a work that is difficult to define. It has no intention of narrating, and even opposes narration, yet it desperately tries to express something. How do thoughts arise? And how are they expressed through language? How does language facilitate human interaction, the transmission of ideas, and their influence? What lies between mental activity and linguistic expression? It is both a discontinuity and an enigma.

The author urgently wants to see clearly this black hole-like enigma and break through the incomprehensibility and unease, yet is unwilling to approach this enigma. The ultimate thought, stripped of all "impurities," seems to have reached its end as soon as it began. It is a product of walking in the paradox of "it's not that I intentionally speak unclearly, but that I want to do what I cannot do."

The essential and ultimate wandering between thought and language has continued for over forty years, and the uncertainty of being trapped in paradox has transformed into "the joy of life." For readers, The Eleventh Number may be perplexing, or it may be interesting.