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...