Xiaokuai’s Road-Rage Story: Luo Yonghao and Guests Turn Backing Down Into Comedy

In this excerpt from Luo Yonghao’s Crossroads, comedian Xiaokuai recounts a confrontation with a wrong-way driver. Luo and the other guests continually challenge his account, turning an incident that did not become a fight into a comic debate about cowardice, reason and happiness.

Xiaokuai says he was driving normally in heavy traffic when an expensive car approached going the wrong way. Other drivers might have yielded to avoid a scrape, but he refused. He says he neither slowed down nor accelerated, and both vehicles ultimately stopped before colliding.

The two cars faced each other and the other driver got out. Xiaokuai admits his emotions initially shifted, but says he calmed down as soon as he saw how heavily built the man was. Luo asks whether that “shift” meant fear or a desire to fight.

Xiaokuai says the man came to the side of his car and cursed at him. Instead of getting out, Xiaokuai filmed him on his phone. The car was soundproof enough that he could not hear the words, he says, though the man looked angry. The guests joke that filming while shaking makes image stabilization especially useful.

Xiaokuai calls the man’s next act “cowardly and shameless”: instead of smashing the car, the man spat on the side window. The others ask how someone sitting in the car can call the large man outside cowardly. Luo agrees that spitting was crude, but disputes the label “cowardly.”

Asked how he reacted, Xiaokuai says he was initially disgusted. A guest suggests turning on the windshield wipers; Xiaokuai explains that the spit was on the side window. He then reframes the event: perhaps the other driver was the one who was truly angry.

Xiaokuai speculates that the strong man in an expensive car may have been accustomed to people giving way, but did not get the reaction he wanted this time. The guests liken his explanation to the self-consolation of Lu Xun’s fictional Ah Q. Luo jokes that the other man might be delighted to hear it.

Xiaokuai adds that his child was young at the time and he needed to care for the child, calling this his personal “historical context.” Luo seizes on the grand phrase for a small event. Xiaokuai explains that using big words for small things is a familiar comic technique.

Xiaokuai invokes the principle that the happier person yields, saying he was happier because he did not choose a confrontation. The others ask how he can know he was happier with so little information about the stranger. He replies that at least he did not want to spit at anyone.

Luo jokes through Xiaokuai’s logic: he stayed in the car, kept the window up and refused to exchange insults or argue, leaving the other man nowhere to vent except by spitting. Luo still says spitting was wrong, but deliberately pretends Xiaokuai “forced” the outcome to keep the argument going.

Luo further argues that Xiaokuai backed down first and only afterward explained it as happiness, reversing the sequence. Xiaokuai clarifies that he cannot judge whether the stranger is happy, but stepping back lets him continue living peacefully. He insists that this is reason, not cowardice.

Xiaokuai asks whether getting out, fighting and being beaten would make him stronger or braver. Luo replies that cowardice and reason are not mutually exclusive. Their continuing argument itself becomes the joke.

Xiaokuai says that after the man left, he went to wash his car. Luo asks why Xiaokuai should count himself happier when the other man did not have to wash a car. Xiaokuai replies that his car was already dirty and needed washing anyway; the group continues to exaggerate how angry the stranger must have been.

The group takes the joke further, suggesting that the stranger may have been devastated by the encounter. Xiaokuai also speculates about the man’s health from the spit. These are comic exaggerations, not real diagnoses of a stranger’s mental or physical condition.

After the jokes, Xiaokuai gives a serious reminder not to lose control during a confrontation. He says fighting is not the answer whether the other person is stronger or weaker; facing someone weaker can also lead a person to lose control and behave aggressively.

Luo keeps pressing: if Xiaokuai will not get out for someone stronger or weaker, what about someone his own size? Xiaokuai gives reasons for each case. Asked when he does get out, he answers, “When I get home.” Another guest adds, “When you wash the car.”

Xiaokuai says he once had to get out after another collision sent his car flying. He begins describing a rainy-day incident involving a main road and a side road, but mixes up his words and Luo teases him. The excerpt ends as Xiaokuai returns to the story, without explaining what happened next.