by Ben Stevens
‘When you are told to do so,’ replied the Abbot, who then turned and left the room.
That day Chi spent four hours endlessly slapping the water with his hands. He was soaked through by the time another monk came to tell him that it was dinner. Wet as he was he took his place at the vast communal table, ignoring the looks of the other monks as he ate.
He’d been punished, he decided that evening as the monks retired to their bunks at nine o’clock. But for what? Chi couldn’t think what it was that he might have done wrong. For four hours he’d been made to slap water and refill the barrel for some unknown transgression – but now it was over.
Satisfied, Chi closed his eyes and allowed sleep to steal upon him.
The following day, however, after lunch, the Abbot made him repeat the exercise. And the next day, and the day after that. Soon a month had passed, and still Chi was being made to slap the water.
Through meditation he tried to calm his slowly growing sense of irritation. Surely there was a reason for what he was doing; but if so, then what was it? He was certain now that he’d done nothing to merit the water-slapping exercise as a punishment – so why else was the Abbot making him do such a thing?
One month turned into two, and then three, and still Chi went each day to that small, dimly-lit room and endlessly hit the water. As autumn turned to winter the exercise was no longer just boring but freezing also. Soon, in his prayers to Buddha, Chi was requesting the strength to tolerate this ordeal – for this was truly what it had become.
The martial monks were given only a short holiday each year, and this fell over the New Year. It was deemed important that the monks be able to celebrate this occasion with their families, if indeed they had such a thing. (For those monks orphaned or without any relatives at all, it was permitted that they remain at the temple.)
Chi’s father lived in the direction of the Yellow River, an eighty mile journey which Chi covered by foot in three days.
‘Still learning your gong fu, eh?’ said Chi’s father, who everybody but Chi called Money Changer. For he owned a stall in his village where the various currencies within China could be exchanged, depending on where a person was going.
Money Changer was known as being something of a wushu expert himself. It was still told how, some years before, two strangers had attempted to rob his stall. Money Changer had killed one of the men, and crippled the other for life. Otherwise Money Changer was considered a fairly amiable fellow, if a touch lecherous and fond of telling the odd tall story.
Money Changer was also able – using only his thumb and forefinger – to bend a thick bronze coin almost in half. And it was this trick that he showed his teenage son, upon Chi’s return home.
‘Bet you still can’t do it – can you, eh?’ he said.
Chi took the coin and tried. His father was right; it seemed impossible.
‘So they don’t teach you everything at the temple, then,’ noted Money Changer with satisfaction, pouring out two cups of rice wine.
‘Father,’ said Chi quietly. ‘I don’t drink alcohol. You know that.’
‘’Course, ‘course,’ said Money Changer quickly, the pair of them sat at an old, sturdy wooden table that occupied one of the two rooms in Money Changer’s house.
Money Changer drank steadily as he and his son spoke; he’d taken to drinking a little more than was good for him ever since his wife had run off with a pig-keeper.
People from the village, upon hearing that Chi had returned for a short while, called in over the course of the afternoon and evening to see him. It was still considered something of a novelty that someone from their humble village had been accepted as a martial monk.
Money Changer dispensed rice wine freely – he at least did not like to drink alone – and encouraged the visitors to ask his son questions concerning his training.
Chi answered these questions in the calm, placid manner that was expected of a Buddhist monk. All the while, however, he felt a muzzy-headed sense of resentment starting to grow. For how could he possibly say that for the past few months, he’d spent four hours each day doing nothing more than slapping water out of a barrel?
He began to feel like a fraud... For some reason, it seemed as though the Abbot had taken against him and was trying to make him leave the temple…
That was it! Chi suddenly realized. That was the reason why he was being made to do such a pointless task!
Chi felt immensely depressed by this realization. The Abbot had obviously decided that Chi was not fit to be a martial monk (but why – had Chi not always done everything he’d been asked, and endured even the toughest training?), and so was intent on driving him away.
With no sense of joy Chi took part in the New Year rituals, helping his father clean the two-roomed house – so driving away any bad luck remaining from the previous year – and applying a fresh coat of red paint to the exterior. Money Changer and his son were invited to a neighbor’s house on New Year’s Eve, where they partook of ‘Buddha’s Delight’, a vegetarian dish that consisted of eighteen different ingredients.
The festivities over, Chi jogged and ran the eighty miles back to the temple, where the very next day he was back slapping water out of the accursed barrel. True, he continued to learn gong fu and practice meditation in the morning – but every afternoon he returned to that dimly-lit room to perform his tedious, never-ending chore.
Finally, exasperated beyond all reasoning, Chi dared to ask the Abbot:
‘Master, why am I doing this?’
The Abbot’s face instantly colored purple; he was not a man known for tolerating insolence. He was strict, quick to berate the monks if he felt that they were slacking in any area of their training.
‘Do you dare question what I have told you to do?’ demanded the Abbot.
‘No, no – of course not, master,’ said Chi quickly, looking humbly down at the floor. He thought that, for his rude question, the Abbot might have him dismissed from the temple there and then; but the elderly man simply glowered at him before walking away.
Chi watched as his hands broke the water’s surface, over and over again. Finally he could stoop no lower to slap the water inside the barrel, and so he used the bucket to refill it.
This lasted all year, until it was again time to return home for the New Year.
‘You must be learning a great deal,’ noted Money Changer, as he and his son sat at the stout wooden table. ‘You’ve been at the temple some time now.’
‘Yes, father,’ said Chi quietly, depressed almost out of his mind. For nearly eighteen months now he’d been made to do the same utterly pointless task – for how much longer could he continue to tolerate such ill-treatment?
Chi’s already dark mood was made even worse by those villagers who called round to see him. Stood and sat around the wooden table, encouraged to drink rice wine by his father, they asked him question after question concerning his training.
As he tried to reply, Chi could think only of those other monks – that is, everyone at the temple but himself – who each day undertook the proper training expected of a Shaolin monk. In comparison with these others, Chi was doubtless starting to lag behind in terms of wushu ability.
As such, he’d no right to sit here in his father’s home and answer questions concerning Shaolin training. It was all too obvious that the Abbot wanted him to leave the temple; for how much longer would Chi stubbornly refuse to do so?
New Year over, Chi trudged back to the temple. The first day’s training saw him running, meditating, practicing some gong fu… And then immediately after lunch he went to that small room and commenced smacking the water out of the barrel with his hands.
No longer was Chi able to maintain a placid state of mind. And despite his best efforts at keeping an expressionless face, he now perpetually wore a slight frown. And it seemed to him that every time the Abbot saw him, the Abbot gave a slight, mocking smile.
Soon (in Chi’s mind) everyone at the temple was wearing the same
smile – especially when he seated himself for dinner dressed in his soaking wet orange robes.
Grimly, day after grueling day, Chi awoke at four am and steeled himself for what lay ahead. He vowed that he wouldn’t quit, no matter how long he was made to slap the water out of the barrel. Sooner or later, he would triumph against such ill-treatment.
So absorbed was Chi in his torment that he barely took notice of the changing seasons, not even when it was once again winter. So he did not notice that it no longer hurt his hands to slap the freezing water.
As usual, he returned to his father’s house at the end of the year.
‘You’re not yourself, boy,’ said Money Changer to his son, as they sat at the wooden table. ‘Something’s changed in you – there’s some source of misery.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Chi, his sighing voice scarcely bothering to conceal the lie.
The neighbors visited, to see how the Shaolin monk was progressing in his training. Chi sat at the head of the table, all around him a boisterous crowd who asked:
…Was it true that he could jump from the ground onto a roof some thirty feet high…?
...Was his skin impervious to fire…?
...Could he really shatter a boulder with just one kick…?
...Was the average lifespan of a monk around one hundred and fifty years?
…Idiotic question followed idiotic question, each one fuelled by ignorance and grossly exaggerated rumor. Soon Chi was cradling his shaven head in his hands, although this gesture of misery and ill temper was scarcely noticed by the excited villagers.
‘But he still can’t do this,’ noted Money Changer with wine-fuelled pride, producing his bronze coin and bending it in half for the benefit of those watching.
The villagers gasped and, returning their attention to Chi, demanded to know whether it was true that a martial monk of the Shaolin Temple – of all people – was unable to perform such a basic feat of strength.
Chi had heard enough. He got suddenly to his feet, as those who met his eyes recoiled at the murderous rage they betrayed.
‘You should know I’m a fake,’ he hissed. ‘A fraud whom the temple Abbot despises. I cannot bend that coin in half; I cannot do anything. I know nothing, nothing – not-a-THING!’
Upon this shouted last word his temper finally snapped and – with his right hand – he dealt the long wooden table a colossal blow, the movement exactly mimicking the one made when he had (for all those countless hours) slapped the water in the barrel…
CRACK!
...There came from the villagers a gasp of utter amazement, and a moment later Chi sufficiently recovered his wits to realize that he had – along its length – split the thick wooden table almost exactly in half.
It now lay in two pieces upon the floor of packed earth. Money Changer’s mouth silently opened and closed as he surveyed the ruination of his finest piece of furniture.
One of the villagers – an old fool named Seng Chou, who often got drunk with Chi’s father – started laughing.
“I know nothing’,’ he mimicked, miming the action of Chi hitting the table with the palm of his hand. ‘Ha!’
‘Good joke!’ said another villager, and soon everyone was laughing, although they were still dumbfounded at what they’d just witnessed. They’d heard that the martial monks had great power in their hands – but to break a thick wooden table with just one blow…
Finally, Money Changer recovered the power of speech. Slumped back in his chair, his brow sweaty and his eyes incredulous, he said:
‘‘The palm breaking bricks’. For years I tried that technique, but never could I… Oh, I wanted someone to show me, but the true Iron Hand masters choose their pupils only sparingly… It’s an honor and a privilege that few are given…’ he babbled, his breathing fast and shallow.
All at once, he grabbed hold of one sleeve of his son’s orange robe.
‘Teach me it, Chi! Tell me how it’s done. Reveal the secret! Whatever you have to do in order to learn it, I will!’
Chi stared dazedly at his father, his brain reeling at what it was trying to comprehend.
‘They must really like you at the temple,’ noted Seng Chou, all of a sudden appearing serious, ‘to train you in such things.’
The Mountain Killer
For Judy – and cat – with gratitude
The ninja waited – unmoving, completely concealed – for his quarry to reveal himself. His eyes were never still, continually scanning the dense trees and bamboo glades all around. Sooner or later he would catch just a glimpse of this so-called ‘Mountain Killer’, this feared giant, and he would then catch this man and bring him back bound to the two daimyo who had promised him such a large reward for the successful completion of his mission.
Yes, the ninja had successfully circumnavigated several of the Mountain Killer’s clumsy traps – the ones which would certainly have ensnared a pursuing samurai, for example – and now he was ready to prove that the giant’s fearsome reputation had been somewhat exaggerated –
Suddenly the ninja was jerked backwards, a colossal hand at once closing around his throat. Vainly he squirmed and wriggled, trying all the specialist moves which should have at once caused him to break free, yet were now completely ineffectual…
The sheer strength, just of that one hand…
‘You were sent here by the daimyo named Matsushita, to kill me and so allow this mountain to be captured by his forces,’ declared a low, almost ponderous-sounding voice in his ear.
‘No,’ rasped the ninja, trying his best to speak against the terrible force slowly crushing his larynx. ‘You don’t know what you are saying… The truth of the matter is that – ’
‘But it’s okay,’ continued the giant, as though the ninja hadn’t even spoken. ‘I forgive you. I mean, I won’t kill you. I watched as you detected and moved around some of the simpler traps I have set, so I knew you were a specialist. A spy, an assassin…’
‘You watched…?’ breathed the ninja, whose professional reputation had always relied entirely upon the fact that he operated completely unseen by anyone…
‘You make as much noise as ten men!’ declared the giant, almost jovially.
Then, his voice at once becoming serious, he continued –
‘But, although as I say I won’t kill you, still I must do something which will ensure that any other so-called ninja, hired by that accursed daimyo Matsushita, are somewhat reluctant to venture up to this mountain. Not that I am worried about such men – far from it! – but that I would simply not have to chastise them, as I am about to chastise you…’
“Chastise’ me…?’ murmured the ninja. ‘What are you… what are you talking about…?’
And then, as the giant’s hands moved as fast as the ninja’s own could ever have done, the ninja began to understand –
1
‘The war between us is long since finished, Ennin-sensei, and we wish only for peace and harmony to exist between our two regions.’
So declared the daimyo named Matsushita, as the other daimyo kneeling beside him – Kuratomi – nodded his agreement. Both men were sat facing my master and me across a low table, several members of their samurai bodyguard stood unmoving behind them.
They had visited us quite unexpectedly at the small, rather nondescript inn where we were staying – although my master hadn’t seemed at all surprised by their arrival. It was almost, I thought, as though he’d somehow been expecting this visit from two men of such importance…
As he poured a little more green tea into each of the daimyo’s cups, my master nodded. Then he said –
‘And this giant soldier of yours, my lord Kuratomi, this so-called ‘Mountain Killer’… He refuses to accept the war is over, and continues to live upon the mountain that lies between your two kingdoms, conducting his own guerilla campaign?’
‘That is it exactly, Ennin-sensei,’ declared Kuratomi. ‘He was a member of my specialist ‘White Tigers’; my finest fighting force –
’
Evidently realizing the distinct tone of pride now sounding in his voice, Kuratomi coughed and looked a little embarrassed.
‘That is,’ he continued, ‘back when I had actual need of such a force… In any case, this samurai unit – these ‘White Tigers’ – were ordered to remain on the mountain no matter what; to conceal themselves in the caves which can be found here and there, and to obtain sustenance from the wild vegetables and fruit trees which grow there – as well as snaring wildlife and trapping birds with nets for meat, of course.
‘This the White Tigers could do easily enough. Such was their training that they could remain on the mountain indefinitely, living in such a way. But as most of the fighting which took place between my forces and those of lord Matsushita was on the mountain, the White Tigers suffered severe losses.
‘As highly-trained as they were, still they had to face wave after wave of fresh samurai, with little chance to rest between fierce hand-to-hand fighting…’
‘I can assure you,’ interjected Matsushita a little stiffly, ‘that your White Tigers accounted for quite a few of my soldiers…’
‘Yes, yes,’ said my master smoothly. ‘But if I understand it correctly, both my lords then realized that this war had descended into a stalemate which neither side could hope to win – and which had already resulted in far too heavy losses – and so a truce was negotiated, and thus a new era of peace successfully entered.’
I concealed a slight smile, as the two daimyo nodded solemnly at my master’s placatory words.
‘This peace has reigned for over two years now, I am glad to say,’ said Kuratomi then. ‘But when we decided to make a road over the mountain, connecting our two regions, it was discovered that at least one of my elite soldiers – long since missing, presumed killed – had no intention of disobeying the order once given to him by his commanding officer –
“Remain on this mountain at all costs. Whatever happens, you are never to abandon your post. Only death can free you from this obligation; and if you do have to die, then sell your life as dearly as is possible.’’