– Hi, you, down there! Want to eat?
The seven nodded their assent eagerly, forgetting even to remind the guard that he should speak in a much more polite tone, being a monk, for Buddha did not recommend them to feel any confusion of senses, to say nothing about rage.
– Well and good then, come in all of you! – the guard invited them with a wave of his hand.
"Here we are at last," – thought Cai entering the gate and looking around.
In general, there was nothing to look at besides a track leading up to the hill crest through a bamboo grove and vanishing among the rocks.
But here, at hand...
The hot broth in the copper cauldron could have a better smell but it sufficed for the hungry candidates to feel the rumbling in their stomachs to grow like the rumble of a volcano ready to erupt.
The seven crowded immediately around an old bronze tripod with red-hot coals sparkling at its bottom and gazed as if charmed at the cauldron fastened at its top. Baby Snake was the only one not to hurry. May be he was less hungry than the others (his mother having provided him with rather a bulky bag full of tasty things for his travel) and besides he knew how to hunt for snakes and lizards from his childhood, or maybe, being too young, he felt too shy to reveal his hunger like a silly barbarian in the presence of the gatekeepers.
But those ones seemed really to be in a friendly mood. One of them brought a pile of chipped earthenware bowls from their lodge, the other rummaged in his bag and extracted a good dozen of barley flat cakes. Each candidate – Baby Snake Cai included – got a bowl and a cake; then the guard who had taught Golden Eel to count the steps took an enormous scoop in his hands and approached the cauldron.
– Well, my dear friends, who of you is the most hungry?! – laughed the monk drawing up his scoop full of broth.
"Bean soup, – Baby Snake determined judging from the smell and swallowing his saliva. – With meat. And plenty of meat, as it is..."
His belly being too talkative at the moment, his wits refused to work: he even did not remember that the Buddhist monks are not allowed to eat the flesh of any killed animals and consequently there should not be any meat in the soup.
Two of the most hungry – or the most impatient – put their bowls under the scoop in a jiffy, trying at the same time (in vain) to bite a bit of the incredibly stale cakes. The monk poured the broth to the dishes, and at once two howling voices roused the birds sitting at nearby trees: the bottom of the bowls was made of thin paper dyed with some dirty-brown paint in such a way that it was like the rugged clay surface even to the touch. This faked bottom broke and let the delicious and very hot bean soup with meat pour onto the bellies and knees of the too-hasty lads.
The louder they cried the more fun the gatekeepers were getting. They snorted and yelped, wiping tears with their sleeves, they fell exhausted and knocked a staccato at the ground with their heels. Their laughter literally "shook Heaven and Earth". The gate still stood open and Baby Snake Cai was already preparing to turn off and go away. At least, such was the expression written on his face with high cheek-bones for anybody who'd wish to read it. At last he bit his lower lip, tore off the false paper, put the flat cake under his bowl for a bottom and resolutely directed his steps towards the cauldron. Just to find that he was not the only clever man in the company: for he had to take the fifth place in the line, that is the last one.
While they were eating hastily, smacking their lips and scalding their fingers, and then chewing thoroughly the flat cakes that became soft, soaked with hot broth, the two victims of the paper bottoms sat not far from them whimpering under their breath.
At last one of them stood up and went stumbling to the gate.
– It is not just, – the other too-hasty candidate began whispering but gradually his voice grew louder, – it is unjust... unjust!..
He seemed to become obsessed by the idea of justice, repeating the words more and more times, unable to stop and go away.
One of the monks lifted him by his collar like a mischievous kitten and dragged him towards exit. After expelling the unhappy soup eater he shouted:
– Hi, you! Yes, I mean exactly you! Come back, my precious!
The first swift soup eater who decided to leave without calling for justice, stopped and turned round; then he hesitated a little, shrugged his shoulders and went back. He passed by the gatekeeper cautiously (still fearing some practical jokes of his), came to the cauldron and taking a half of a softened cake proposed to him by Cai the Baby Snake began to chew it automatically.
– It is not just! – cried the expelled candidate from behind the gate, doubling his vocal efforts. – It is unjust!
– It is, of course! – the guard agreed and closed the gate.
And the other guard began to bawl for everybody to hear that all these idlers and loafers who gathered here may go now wherever they like, but if even the entrance to the monastery is somewhere in one of these directions he doesn't know anything about it, but if indeed he knows something he wouldn't say anything, and if by chance he'll say something it would be better for those sons of wood-louse and grass-snake not to hear his words!
– They say that Buddha was very kind, – Baby Snake Cai sighed and started his way to the rocks towering above the gate. Behind his back he heard the answer:
– Buddha's not like others...
No one of the six competitors saw how the monk guards looked significantly at one another; then one of them ran in an unhurried trot along the wall and to the left, where water was rumbling softly falling on the stones.
It took Cai the Baby Snake more than twenty four hours to overcome those damned rocks. He even had to spend the night on a narrow ledge with nothing for supper besides eggs stolen from a wild dove nest, and his sleep was every now and then interrupted by a splash of instinctive dread: any unconscious movement could send him headlong to the abyss not less than twenty zhang [14] deep!
The candidates have parted with each other at the first gate because each was convinced: it's he who knows the way to the monastery entrance absolutely exactly, and all others are but a mob of dolts and ignoramuses. This opinion was probably not so far from truth, for Baby Snake twice heard desperate cries and the rumble of landslides rolling down.
He was lucky enough: only once he took a wrong direction and had to return almost to the gate. However, the return was much more difficult because it is always a more dangerous and tiresome task to descend than to ascend. Especially when you try at each step to drive off the evident thought that the following track you'd chose can lead you to an impasse as well as the previous one!
Nevertheless, the wise men have some reason saying that the efforts of the valiant are to be crowned by success, sooner or later. ("Oh, the sooner the better ", – Cai the Baby Snake was thinking wiping his brow wet with sweat.)
Next day, about noon, he discerned the white monastery wall through a tangle of stems of another bamboo grove in front of him. From his place he could already see old willows and thick-set ash-trees surrounding it, and even the pointed blue tops of the monastery conical roofs, and a tower adorned with golden hieroglyphs reflecting sunshine. It marked most probably the main gate.
With a sigh of relief Baby Snake continued his way straight through the thicket; but hardly had he made fifty steps when his attention was drawn by distant moaning.
The young man stopped and listened.
No, it was not a delusion – somebody moaned again although the sound was weak resembling rather the murmuring of a streamlet erring among the stones.
The young candidate turned to the east, dodged a bit between knotty stems and soon noticed a bright spot of a saffron cassock clearly contrasting with the surrounding green.
It appeared to be the same heshan who had been admitted the first to enter the gate showing to the guards the permission of his patriarch. Now he lay hunched on the ground, as a baby in his mother's womb, his left foot bandaged hastily with a bit of a blood-stained rag.
– Be careful! – croaked the wounded monk when Baby Snake rushed directly towards him. – Look where you go!
Fortunately, Baby Snake had enough common sense to follow his advice in time, otherwise he too would have stepped over a bamboo stump cut close to the ground and purposedly sharpened. As a result his foot would have been surely pierced like the unlucky heshan's one and there would be two men lying helplessly in the thicket and unable to reach the monastery entrance.
Still, in such a case they would have had the possibility to console themselves talking on such an actual topic as the true essence of the human soul enlightening.
Only now the dumbfounded Baby Snake felt that his own arms and legs are cut in many places by the sharp edges of bamboo leaves and bleeding, as if spears and knives were planted in this malicious thicket instead of usual peaceful trees!
– How can I help, reverend father? – murmured Baby Snake coming at last to the monk (it took him much more time than he had thought at first).
– Go up to the monastery, – heshan smiled with his parched lips. – And send some servants to me. Don't ask the monks – they won't do it. But walk carefully, my boy, for there are several pitfalls with pickets at the bottom around here. I have managed not to fall to one by mere chance, but then I stepped over that bamboo...
Cai the Baby Snake hesitated, not wishing to leave the wounded alone; then he glanced through the foliage to the gate tower of the most famous monastery of the Empire.
A motley hawk was hovering over his head hunting for prey.
– It is... it is mean, – the words rang almost inaudible in the bamboo thicket.
The monk smiled again, and this tormented smile showed how hard it was for him to pronounce any word:
– No... You simply don't understand, boy... If you want the patriarch of Shaolin to admit you as a novice, forget these words.
– Which ones?
– Justice and meanness. Human moral is not valid at the feet of Buddha, and don't try to decide whether it is good or bad. It's simply quite a different thing. Altogether different.
Cai the Baby Snake didn't answer. He was looking at the hieroglyphs adorning the tower, his face hardened, cheekbone line became distinct, thin wrinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes, and now he looked much older. So much older that the wounded heshan doubted whether he was right calling this man a boy.
And whether this man really needed any teaching?
A tiny snake, very like a grass-snake but for the small yellow spots on its neck, its scales glistening, crawled on its business near the bandaged heshan's foot and vanished in the grass.
It was very small; just a baby.
Heshan was fully aware what a bite of such baby snake would lead to.
The wounded heshan said the truth: calling the monks wouldn't do any good. For, on leaving the intricate grove, Cai the Baby Snake saw almost at once the three candidates who managed to survive running out of breath to the main entrance of Shaolin. (Baby Snake recognized even from afar the hasty lad whom the gatekeeper ordered to return and whom he had given a half of his flat cake).
This lad was the first to reach the entrance. He announced his achievement by pummeling with his fists on the gate.
– I've come! – he was crying in a shrill voice choking with joy. – I've come! Open me the gate!
The other candidates, Baby Snake included, got tired of his cries very soon and sat down to wait nearby. In about three hours a man dressed as a servant, a yoke on his shoulders, approached to the too-hasty lad. He put his burden to the earth and explained to the insistent competitor who had already become hoarse that the main entrance is usually being opened only for the highly important persons, while he, the noisy hurrying cub, is not important to the least measure; the said doors are also opened for the reverend fathers to come to and fro – namely, for those of them who had succeeded to pass final tests and the Labyrinth of Mannequins; so, if the loud-crying youth pretends to belong to the same rank then he, the servant, would immediately report this to someone of the reverend fathers for them in turn to report to the patriarch himself for him in his turn to...
Hearing about the patriarch and the Labyrinth the unhappy competitor shut up at last and waved his hands begging the servant to stop.
After that he dragged together with the other candidates along the monastery walls to look for some door more suitable for their circumstances.
Baby Snake lingered a little to explain to the servant (who forgot at once all his jokes) where to find the wounded heshan in the grove. He also wanted to ask why there are servants at all in the monastery: wasn’t it said by Baizhang the patriarch in ancient times: "A day without working should be a day without eating"? Some people were sure that the saying ran "Those who don't work shouldn't eat!" but this was less probable for Baizhang meant not the mankind in general but himself only; the old teacher of the Law could not allow himself not to work more than one day... Or hasn't he said anything indeed?
Baby Snake wanted to ask about all this, but he didn't. During the last few days he has learned to hold his tongue; at least this was what he said to his companions after catching them up: it would be wiser not to be curious.
Still Baby Snake managed to get some brief pieces of information from the servant: the latter lived with his family and other hired villagers in a settlement at the lower part of the monastery territory just behind the outer walls surrounding it. There he should come in order to visit the wounded monk.
Then the servant took up his yoke and ran to the grove swinging so deftly that no water was spilled from the two small tubs; and Cai the Baby Snake shuffled after his companions.
By that time those ones have realized to their general disappointment that they could not enter even through the side door they had found: it was intended for those monks who had not yet passed the tests but had to leave the cloister for some time on some mundane business according to the decision of the community and the permission of the patriarch.
Somebody from behind the door asked the candidates in a sarcastic tone whether they had left the monastery in their former lives fulfilling some tasks of the community. If such is the reason of their trying to enter where they were not asked then they are really foolish. So they had to continue their rueful travel around the longed-for monastery.
At last they found the back gate, but nobody paid any attention to them there too. The door did not open (the candidates have already accustomed to the rite). So they had to sit down again and wait till the night came. Nothing happened not counting a pot full of slops splashed out over the wall. This action could not be considered a sign of hospitality, of course. Fortunately, it missed the goal.
When the night came accompanied by a chill wind and all other candidates lay down wrapped in their cloaks and began to snore unanimously, Cai the Baby Snake sat for a while alone near the dying camp fire he had made; then he stood up and trudged down the path shown to him by the yoke-servant. It seemed the lad better to spend the night in the settlement: if even nobody would let him into some house, there certainly were cosy places like barns or haylofts just fit for a lad who hadn't got a cloak to wrap in...