Messiah Clears the Disc
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The monk who dared to piss at his head finally made him mad of rage.
– Well, where are you?! A bit afraid, eh?
The gates opened slowly, with a squeak. Two gatekeepers appeared in the clearance: two monks, alike as twins, both strapping, broad-shouldered, with their heads bluish because of daily shaving.
– Ha! – Golden Eel shouted with as much disdain as he could. – The sanctimonious swine is hiding behind the others' back! Oh indeed, these are the heroic monks! Well, come to me, I'll show you a pair of good tricks!
At that moment he has completely forgotten that he himself arrived here not at all for piety or for leaving the sorrowful world of vanity and mundane illusions; he was attracted merely by the glory of Shaolin as the birthplace of warrior arts, the pupils of which were famous throughout the world, from the Boshan peak in the East to the Western paradise of the lady Xiwangmu!
Cai the Baby Snake, evidently frightened, pulled at the Golden Eel's tunic sleeve for him to notice that the gatekeepers are approaching but the furious candidate was not scared by the fact at all.
As soon as the slow-walking guards went near to him Golden Eel took up demonstratively the position of "Little Black tiger", little known in the South provinces, and with an abrupt exhalation of air struck fiercely the nearest guard's belly.
– What's up with you? – asked the monk, quite surprised, looking at Golden Eel who was now jumping around, wailing and nursing his wrist, badly hurt. – Are you out of your wits?
– Oh, I know! – the second guard slapped himself on his shaven crown. – He's just showing you, reverend Jiao, the northern skills! Well, but I do remember... Yes, it is the "Lean, mangy tiger"... no, not "lean", simply "little"! Little and black! Exactly so! Little black tiger!
– Tiger? – the first monk was surprised beyond measure. – Little and black?! But I haven't heard about such creatures!
– They have everything there in the North. They call it ferret. It is little, black and very fierce, no tiger would equal it!
The first monk shook his head doubtfully, grabbed Golden Eel's by the collar and dragged him to the stairs in about ten feet from the gate.
They were not too high, these stairs, not more than fifty steps.
Golden Eel knew their number for sure.
When you strike your head at each of the steps it's hard to be mistaken in counting them.
Other candidates watched the process in perfect silence, not considering the rumbling of seven stomachs: nobody has supplied the unhappy lads with food during the week of waiting, so they had to be content with what they had brought with them, and those who hadn't cared for provisions in advance could only sustain their existence by collecting berries and edible roots in the vicinities.
A whole week of half-starving is not an easy thing indeed...
Having fulfilled their task the monk guards disappeared behind the wall leaving the gate opened.
– What if I try to have a look? – said Baby Snake to himself but changed his mind at once: you peep in and those guards would throw you down the stairs topsy-turvy!
It was about noon when the glossy face of a guard appeared again in the clearance between the gate shutters.
– 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.