"I asked you to run through a burning room."
"Yeah. It's coming back. You opened the door and there were flames coming from different spots on the floor. Little flames. Tiny ones."
"And I told you to run as if the entire room was ablaze. To run with your eyes shut and your breath held tightly within you."
"And when I was halfway through the little fires, the room exploded in a ball of hell. Christ, Chiun, how could you?"
Chiun shrugged. "A simple mechanical contrivance. The floor contained gas jets. Smith installed them when I insisted that he build me a room for that purpose. I merely turned a wheel."
"I could have been incinerated," Remo growled. "But you were not. And so you learned that flame is no more to be feared than water if you keep moving and do not inhale. But that is not the point of this discussion either."
"And just what is the friggin' point?" Remo snarled.
"The point is that even though I had tricked you with the logs, you trusted me with the room of fire."
"I was stupid. Sue me."
"Most stupid," Chiun corrected. "Gullible."
"Okay, gullible."
"Hopelessly gullible. Magnificently gullible. Invincibly gullible. Implacably-"
"Okay, okay. You made your point. So what?"
"You still do not understand what I am saying?"
"No!" Remo fumed.
"I have always liked that quality about you."
"That I don't understand half your lessons?"
"No, that you are gullible. A less-gullible man would have run away the day of the logs. A less-gullible man would have refused to enter the room of tiny fires. A less-gullible man would learn to question my assurances and perhaps think for himself. At that stage in your Sinanju training, thinking would have been dangerous, possibly fatal. Fortunately, you did not think. You obeyed. You believed. You acted. And so you lived."
Remo lifted a forefinger and made circles in the air. "Whooppee shit," he said.
Chiun sighed. "I have trained your body but neglected your mind. I thought you would learn to think. You have not. You continue to be gullible, gullible and trusting."
"You just said it saved my life."
"Indeed. But I do not wish you to be gullible and trusting in all things forever."
"Yeah? So what?"
"And another thing I have neglected. Your religious training."
"I had fantastic religious training."
"If you took to Sinanju the way you took to your religious training, we would not be here now. You would be somewhere swilling beer and eating cow meat. And you would be fat. Grossly fat."
"Says you," said Remo. But he swallowed as if hungry. Chiun wondered if it was the memory of the burned patties of dung Americans called hamburgers or the aroma of fresh rice coming to a boil. Chiun could not tell.
"Normally a Korean child is taught about the Supreme Creator before his fourth birthday. With you, you had already seen over twenty summers and were fixed in your beliefs, even if you no longer embraced them. "
"I don't think you've ever told me about the Korean religious system."
"Because it would only confuse you. In Sinanju, we do not teach our young the Korean beliefs. Only Sinanju beliefs. "
"So, tell me."
"It is very simple. There is the Supreme Creator, and-"
"What is he called?"
"The Supreme Creator."
"You don't have a name for him? Like Ralph? Or Chong?"
"That is impertinent," said Chiun. "In Sinanju, we do not presume to know his name, so we call him the Supreme Creator, for that is what he is."
"Not even God?"
"Even that is a name. No, we do not call him that. He is the Supreme Creator. He created everything, including the wisest, noblest, most humble, thoughtful, and intelligent creature ever to grace the earth with his tread ..."
Chiun paused before he completed the sentence. "The Korean," Remo and Chiun said in the same breath.
Chiun smiled at Remo's perceptiveness. Remo frowned at Chiun's bigotry.
"I have never told you how the Supreme Creator created the first Korean, have I?"
"No, you just told me that every other race was inferior. I think 'duck droppings' was the term used to describe the white, brown, and black races collectively."
"You had to know that at an early stage in your training. So that you understood the gift that was Sinanju was too good for you. It motivated you."
"It disgusted me."
"I will ignore that remark and continue as if you had not made it. Now, when the Supreme Creator gazed down upon his world, he saw a land of great bounty, of plentiful fruits, of purest water. And he called that good land-"
"Korea," Remo sighed.
Chiun smiled, even if Remo had interrupted him. Remo glowered.
"And seeing that this land was so rich and peaceful," Chiun went on happily, "the Supreme Creator descended upon Korea. And as he walked along, he met a tiger and a bear. And the tiger and the bear beheld the shape of the Supreme Creator's being and asked to be made like him, to stand upright on their hind legs and to use their forepaws for grasping objects. And the Supreme Creator thought on this and said to them: 'If you will go to that cave beyond the next hill and wait for one hundred days, I will consider you worthy of this gift.'
"And so they went. But the cave was dark, and its walls dripped cold water. And so the tiger departed after only a few days. But the bear stayed. And when, at the end of one hundred days, the Supreme Creator came to the cave, he found the bear alone, cold, and wet and waiting for him."