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...