A week after Zhou Hua divorced his wife because she had taken an Internet lover he found himself improbably attracted to his own virtual flame.
"What's the magical power of the Internet? A week after divorcing my wife I entered into an Internet chat room with such a curiosity," Zhou said.
"I got a Web friend very soon ... after that I experienced a one night stand," the 40-year-old publishing house executive quietly admitted.
"While the last experience brought me some fresh feelings it was not very pleasant.
"It seems that it went against my moral standards. I find it incredible that I, a person with such a traditional mindset, experienced sex with a woman the first time we met."
As Zhou surprisingly, if not painfully, discovered, the Internet is upending China's traditional and highly conservative roots by transforming the way people behave.
While the Internet's booming popularity, as well as the fundamental changes in communication it's bringing, are no different to countries that have embraced the medium, the elixirs it promises, are, in China, virtually revolutionary.
With China's government openly committed to hardwiring the nation, roughly 70 million users, second only to the US, now troll the net for everything from news and information to friends and lovers.
"Contrary to Chinese people's reserved characteristics and closed doorways, people also have a need to express themselves," said Chen Yingfang, a sociologist at East China Normal University.
"Chatting on the Internet gives them a very anonymous way to communicate with many persons and fully vent their feelings in an unreal and unfamiliar public place."
For the first time since the Communist Party of China took power in 1949 amid a cultural tradition of political oppression dating back more than 800 years, Chinese, whatever their personal beliefs, have a forum to seek out like-minded compatriots.
"It opens a wider universe to find people with similar interests," said Kate Hartford, a professor from the University of Boston researching Internet behavior in China.
The party, which once controlled cradle-to-grave existence, with even sex for pleasure seen as bordering on the counter-revolutionary, has since narrowed its focus, aiming to keep a lid on only the most politically sensitive issues.
Open criticism of the party is strictly out of bounds, but when it comes to matters of the heart the government has long since abandoned its self-appointed role.
In part, this is due to more than 20 years of sweeping economic changes that has brought the country to the brink of modernity.
"People's newfound openness to sex is also a result of urbanization, modernization and industrialization," said Li Yinhe, a sexual behaviour expert with the China Academy of Social Science.
But the closest expression of these existential freedoms can be found on the Internet, Li said.
"The Internet plays an important role in prompting one night stands. Statistics show that a very big portion of people, who are addicted to chatting on the Web have experienced one night stands."
Zheng Yan, who is set to marry the boyfriend she met on the Web, admits to an online habit.
"I am addicted to the Internet, every day I spent five to six hours on the Internet chatting with various persons," said the 25-year-old secretary.
"And I can tell you many couples among my friends got to know each other via the Internet."
China may not be on the verge of sexual revolution just yet, but its growing online community is offering people an unprecedented set of choices, as clicking through the country's hundreds of chat rooms and message boards shows.
And when it comes to love's old proverbial stumbling block -- getting started -- an act requiring a courageous leap of face in China, there is no better place than the Web, one online advertisement says.
"With so many people passing by around us, we were only caught by each other, but no courage to come up to each other and say hello ... now we're fortunate enough to have the Internet as a bridge."
The Internet not only does away with the complications of the first move, but also acts as a buffer, automatically placing people in similar socio-economic and educational classes, Li said.
"Once students are out of school, their circle of contacts are fairly narrow and many feel that the only way to find friends or potential romantic interests is by going online," Hartford said.
Others, like Nancy Jiang, turn to the Internet for a form of self-therapy.
"Frankly the Web is my mental support," said Jiang, who became estranged from her husband after five years of marriage.
"I have had several boyfriends on the Web, and met some of them. I am only 30, I need sex ... but I no longer trust love."
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