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...
Everybody were sleeping in the settlement: servants and their families. Only a few dogs barked lazily at Baby Snake from behind low fence – there could be no thieves here, consequently, no need in high fences and furious hounds. Although the Shaolin monks treated the hired workers with contempt and forced the servants to demonstrate their deepest respect to the venerable shaven-headed fathers, still the service was too profitable and nobody wanted to loose it because of such silly things as pride. An extra bow wouldn't break your spinal column, would it? On the other hand, the position of a man working for the famous monks promised much benefits: the population of the province eagerly supplied the inhabitants of the settlement with food, fabrics and bundles of copper coins in exchange for the promise to put in a word for them in front of the merciful Buddha, that is in front of the reverend monks clad in yellow cassocks.
Moreover, servants and members of their families were given full right to leave the monastery according their own wish or need and to return, unlike those monks who had not passed their final tests or had not obtained a special permission of the patriarch.
Baby Snake Cai crossed the quiet settlement from one end to another but didn't risk to knock at any of the doors and was already thinking to go away, but at this moment he noticed a candle-lit window in a low lopsided house at the southern end of the settlement. Looking around him and seeing nobody Baby Snake flung himself over the fence and in no time reached the interesting window. Leaning at the wall still warm from the day sun he peeped into the half-opened shutters: he heard long drawn-out moans inside as if a diseased or wounded person was trying in vain to get asleep. But it sufficed the curious Cai to cast a single glance at the scene to understand everything. He hemmed noiselessly, his lips curved into a wide smile. An extraneous spectator could have thought that such a sly and meaningful smile was more becoming for a grown-up man than for an inexperienced youth; but there were no other spectators nearby besides the Baby Snake himself.
So the first glance was immediately followed by the second one.
Inside the room a naked woman sat on a carpeted stove-bench to the left of the window; Cai the Baby Snake, being invisible, could see her half-turned. She was in her thirties, plump and heavy-breasted, broad-thighed – in other words, just a person to make love with and to give birth to many children. But it seemed to Baby Snake at first that the woman was going to break all natural laws being in the process of laying an egg which would be quite normal for a duck or a hen but not for a human female. The egg was visible between the woman's hips, smooth, bluish and glossy; it was moving a little up and down, and each movement caused the tormented fatty to groan again and to stroke convulsively the shining surface of the egg. In some minutes the egg produced a long smacking sound and rose above her haunch stretched apart, making the woman to bend like a lashed cat. And it appeared that the egg had a face.
Just a usual face, nose, mouth, eyes... it was simply a face, may be somewhat excessively wet with perspiration, belonging to quite a usual monk whom Baby Snake could not have seen before because the woman's thighs and the stove-bench edge hid him.
The man rose to his feet and went wearily to a small table in the far corner of the room. There he took a towel, wiped himself dry and threw the crumpled towel through the window, barely missing Baby Snake who managed to jump aside. Then the reverend libertine touched with his finger a small kettle standing on a portable brazier, found it warm enough and began to pour wine or tea (depending on what the kettle had been initially filled with) to a pair of earthenware cups. The monk was evidently not young but sinewy and skinny; at each movement muscles were finely playing in his lean but not at all emaciated body. The fatty stretched her arms and legs on the stove-bench, completely exhausted. The monk looked at her askance and seemed not to enjoy the view. Chewing his thin lips he took a canvas bag from under the table, put his hand in it and soon took out a small paper packet. Aromatic vapour rose over the cups (so it was exactly tea in them); the monk dropped a small pill out of the packet to his palm, thought a little and dropped another one. A cup in one hand and pills in the other the monk approached his partner.