They were not meant to be told anywhere at all.
Judge Bao, thanks to his post, was one of the few who were let into the mystery of the Cai family; he liked to repeat from time to time the words of an ancient treatise:
– There are five ways to use scouts: most common are the local scouts, sometimes you find inner scouts as well as reverse scouts, there exist also scouts of death and scouts of life. The latter are appreciated above all.
Then he always used to add:
– The scouts of life are those who return with reports.
Cai the Baby Snake was a scout of life.
When he came to this world gliding out of his mother's womb his granny who was believed to be (and really was) an experienced midwife took the crying baby in her hands, slapped his little bottom as red as a monkey's, looked at him and announced, touching the "dengchu" point with her fat finger:
– He's Baby Snake!
– Are you sure, mother-in-law? – asked the woman weary of childbirth.
The granny simply laughed and lighting up her pipe went to rinse the linen. Everything had been quiet in the northern provinces for about eight years, so there was no necessity for the old woman to go there asking alms.
They washed the baby with cold infusions of Hangzhou chrysantemum, unripe ounaby fruits, lizard cheeks and many other components the complete list of which would have surprised very much even a highly experienced physician if by chance the latter could have seen it. Cai’s mother ceased to feed him with her milk when he was still very small; after that the child was fed twice in twenty four hours, at dawn and after sunset. They massaged his tiny body many times and covered it with thin needles like a hedgehog: the granny Cai was skilful in the art of wielding the needles giving life or death on her choice; the baby was always tightly swaddled and his cradle rocked in such a way that it would often hit the walls of the room: the baby, frightened and shaking, had to roll himself into a ball to endure the shock. Later on still more powerful methods and measures were introduced. Being one year old Baby Snake looked like a five-month baby, in his sixth year he seemed younger by half, in the eleventh year people thought he was seven, and the family had to leave their house in order to avoid gossip and to move to Ningo where they settled in a uninhabited place out of town...
Now Baby Snake Cai, the scout of life, the one who must return, was forty-two years old.
His biography included about two dozens of tasks successfully fulfilled and about fifteen persons who had been a bit too zealous during their last existence and died because they had underestimated the naive young boy.
Cai the Baby Snake hoped sincerely that their next reincarnation would be more lucky.
But last winter the scout of life had suffered from a hard fit threatening with paralysis; he understood that it was time to "put off old skin".
You can cheat the Time for some period but not for ever. He knew it perfectly well. He also knew that one must pay for everything. If you should not take measures in time, if you'd not come to your senses and look around you and feel the acute necessity to return to the natural way of life then your skin would loose the youthful elasticity and in a year become aged and flabby, the stiffened muscles would not obey your will, your teeth, healthy and white, would be spoiled and fall out, the joints would grow stiff and the former boy would swiftly become and old man today.
And tomorrow he would die.
The Time can not be cheated but you can pay your debts with percent. His suffering body was once more pierced with steel and bone needles arousing inner currents and clearing the clogged ways; once more Baby Snake had to go in for exhaustive training, to endure severe pains in his changing flesh crying at nights and trying in vain to sleep a little; once more the secret ointments covered his face and hands; he was subject to alternating massages and herbal embrocations... The baby snake was gradually becoming a grown-up snake.
But all of a sudden he had to put on his old skin again.
Because the great teacher Sunzi whose sayings should be constantly quoted by anybody who wants to deserve the name of a strategist, had also said the following:
– All five kinds of scouts must be active but we are not allowed to know their ways. This is a mystery not to be revealed.
But there's also another saying of his:
– You can get knowledge about your enemy only by inquiring other people.
Judge Bao the Dragon Seal repeated these wise words to Baby Snake Cai before sending him to Shaolin monastery, supplied with three genuine recommendations given by three highly esteemed persons.
Judge Bao was seeing the arms marked with the signs of tiger and dragon in his night dreams.
It seemed to judge Bao that these horrible dead images were able to creep away like beasts of prey and invade all Empire; may be they have already done it.
And Cai worked a miracle: in less than two months he has put on the skin he had almost cast away and went to Henan, to the famous monastery at the Song mountain.
The only person to know the real price of his deed was his mother who had already become so old that the strangers believed her to be the grandmother or even the great-grandmother of the rosy-cheeked youth still bearing his childish name.
But she provided her son with the most necessary things; small bottles and flasks of ointments containing gelatin made of donkey skin, a leather case with a set of needles, three small bags of yanchundan, "pills prolonging youth", and wormwood tubes for cauterization lay hidden in Baby Snake's sack. Without using all this the seemingly young man would live about a week – in fact, four days would be enough if such were the will of the Prince Yanlo – and then he wouldn't simply become old.
He'd die wishing he were a real baby snake falling down to a cauldron full of boiling water.
But the scouts of life are obliged to go and return.
Even if there is no way back he is to go and return.
And it is just the same even though the great teacher Sunzi whose sayings should be constantly quoted by anybody who wants to deserve the name of a strategist had not uttered any sayings on this subject.
5
It was about noon on the next day when the back door of the monastery opened to let the candidates in, and Cai the Baby Snake entered the inner yard...
Interlude
Scroll found by a fowler Manh in a cache near the western Baquan rocks
I don't know why the moment of my own death remained the most distinct piece of my memory. All my previous life seems to had been but a prelude to this event, as senseless and unjust as many other events in Russia in the last years.
I had my breakfast, piled up the plates in the wash-basin, decided not to shave myself (I felt it like a challenge to somebody, although didn't know to whom) and putting on my jacket went out of the flat.
The staircase stank, as always, with the odors of cat urine and stale cigarette smoke. Down at the door I met our dvornik [17] whom everybody called Aunt Nastia. Her duty was to maintain the staircase in order and she was working hard to fulfill the task but some bad guys preferred to satisfy their needs of nature just at the stairs. Aunt Nastia, in her turn, used to tell these stories to any of the inhabitants of our house and curse the bastards. I agreed with her opinion as to the low moral level of those bad guys and, leaving her content with my sympathy and support, hurried out to the street.
The Volvo of my boss was already waiting for me near the house. This was his habitual trick every time when he was going to charge me with a new problem, one of those problems defined by the whole throng of his prominent computer experts with all their diplomas and certificates qualified with short and distinct term: "Deadlock!"
As a rule, on hearing such a diagnosis the boss would call me up personally, pouring sweet balms of praises and promises through the telephone and the next morning would arrive to bring me to his office in the car of his own.
At first I had felt flattered by all this.
The driver (and body-guard), known under
the nickname Big Paratrooper, or simply Paratroop, waved his hand more resembling a bear's paw and smiled to greet me. All his forty-eight and a half golden teeth sparkled in the sun. Once I had managed to conquer him quite convincingly while playing cards but did not boast about this victory to anybody. Since then Paratroop got to like me; I was the second man in the whole world whom Paratroop liked, the first one being himself. He seemed to pity me and used to ask bringing me my morning cup of coffee:
– Well, Genius, tell me honestly: cannot you really discern the colors?
I soon got tired to explain him that color-blind persons are able to see the colors, it is only some hues that we loose, and the world does not look for us as an old black-and-white film. But Paratroop could not believe me.
– Tell me what's the color of that car there? – he would ask me from time to time.
– It's red, – I would answer and go away.
– You failed, Genius, you failed! – he shouted triumphantly.– It's orange indeed! You're wrong, Genius!
After such entertainment he remained good-humored for a whole day.
I am color-blind. Or now it is better to say that I had been color-blind. Besides, I had no musical pitch. To the least degree. The midwife helping my mother to deliver me to this world was a bit too awkward and a bit too strong. Accordingly, she applied pincers awkwardly and pulled strongly, while my mother was too busy with crying and groaning to notice what's going on. As a result, the head of the innocent baby appeared to be a bit too flat from the left side. This defect is now hardly visible; I've successfully grown up, moreover, Vera called the Miracle, my personal hair-dresser, invented a way to hide this asymmetry so skillfully that sometimes I even attract the attention of girls. But our acquaintance does not last long. Sooner or later all of them call me a "callous monster" unable to percieve genuine beauty.
The girls had some reason for saying it.
I was indeed a callous monster.
But I was also a computer genius.
– Good morning! The best of mornings! – the boss exclaimed coming out of his car in a hale and hearty tone.
His round face with fat cheeks stretched in a most good-hearted grimace. I have already almost come to him. But at that moment the Volvo exploded.
A sphere of bluish fire annihilated the car, only Paratroop's head remained visible for a moment in a most silly way, the fire crumpled my boss as if he were a paper doll. As to me, I felt strong heat and saw one's hand and arm amidst the hell of flames.
The hand was waving as if inviting me to come in.
It was very strange: skinny and sinewy, hairless and covered with peculiar tattoo... I tried to approach it and saw it in details – the forearm of this friendly body member was decorated with an image of a dragon showing all his fangs and claws.
Then I looked back and saw my own body.
It lay face downwards near the fuming car, almost touching the Paratroop's head torn off by the explosion, golden teeth shining in the sun; a jagged splinter stuck under my right ear. Aunt Nastia the dvornik was toddling towards me crying desperately.
I saw all that and remembered forever because I don't forget anything at all. This is my doom and my job.
Once I have read in a small but very clever book that "the hemispheres of human brain provide contacts with various fields of external excitations in quite different ways". Namely, the left hemisphere is dedicated to logical and analytical operations, it sorts and classifies notions and concepts giving each a corresponding label; while the right one perceives the reality as a whole, it controls intuition, space coordination and musical capabilities, i.e. all non-logical and unconscious things.
It was also written there that the left (logical) hemisphere of the babies practically does not function; it develops in the course of socialization of the future member of society. The awkward midwife had evidently damaged the right side of the globe hidden in my poor little head: that is why the left one began to develop too swiftly in order to compensate for the defect. Colour hues and musical overtones were left incomprehensible for me; but school teachers and university professors were shocked to see a student able to quote the textbooks word by word beginning from any page and any line chosen randomly. They did not understand that it was as easy for me as it was for them to see the difference between scarlet and red colors or not to mix up two sounds in different octaves.
After I had graduated from the university my boss invited me to work for him.
...the dragon tattooed on the skinny arm winced joyfully at me, its sharp teeth shining and making him thus quite like the innocently slaughtered Paratroop; this was an impression too strong for both of my brain's hemispheres, and darkness fell over me.
And when I came to my senses I found myself making low bows in front of some very important person whom I looked at from below seeing only his mouth twisted in scorn for all other features were hidden in the shadow of a wide and bulky four-angled hat; there was a strangely shaped musical instrument with many strings in my hands.
They called this phenomenon "Buddha's Madness" in this country; but I did not know it yet and so decided that it was simply madness as such.
Because the world around me was multi-colored and bright.
Примечания
1
Xuannu or the Maiden of Nine Heavens, a Dao deity.
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2
Dadaoshu is the art of fencing with "big swords", something like a curved heavy sword combined with a halberd.
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3
"Red kerchiefs” was the nickname of insurgents who put an end to the power of a pro-Mongolian Yuan dynasty and laid the foundations of the new Ming dynasty (they wore red kerchiefs on their heads).
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4
Xiangyigong is a honorable title of most eminent judges; it can be translated literally as "the lord who maintains undauntedness".
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5
“Visiting examiner” is another definition of a judge.
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6
An Lushan stirred up rebellion against the Emperor in 755; in 757 he was slain.
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7
Zhuge Lian (220 – 280 A.D.) was a famous military leader and a popular hero.
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8
Sun Wu or Sunzi, VI – V cent. B.C.) was known as a warlord and strategist.
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9
Xiucai is the first (lowest) degree for scholars.
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10
Jüren is the second (intermediate) degree for scholars.
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11
“Chan master” is a follower of the Chan school (Dzen in Japan), one of the trends of Buddhism.
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12
Quan-fa means literally "fist fighting".
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13
Heshan is a name for a Buddhist monk.
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14
Zhang is a measure of length about 3,2 meters.
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15
Arkhat means "a saint".
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16
Beijing means "Northern Capital".
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17
Dvornik is a Russian word derived from “dvor”, i.e. “yard” meaning a man or a woman who keeps clean the staircases, takes care of the territory surrounding dwelling houses, waters the trees and flower beds etc.
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FB2 document info
Document ID: litres-168146
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 31.07.2008
Created using: Litres Downloader software
Document authors :
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Source URLs :
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Messiah Clears the Disc Page 5
