Prompt by Historyman (Thank you!), and I've extended the story a little bit.

STAIRS

KFP owned by Dreamworks

"This is outrageous...! It's been three years, and... nothing... not a single sign." Irritated and annoyed, Mr. Ping almost slammed his mahjong piece upon the table. In front of him, Shifu exhaled loudly, trying to maintain his cool.

"Maybe, it's not their time yet, no one could predict this kind of thing... we are at the mercy of Guān-shi for the heavenly provision." The red panda tried to console the agitated goose... as much as himself. "Besides, they are a panda and a tiger, maybe... maybe they couldn't have cubs on their own." The Grand Master interlaced his finger sagely.

His answer muted the goose, only for a moment anyway, as he went and ranted again, continuing his mindless drivel.

"I am not convinced, Shifu. I've lit up hundreds dozen of incense, things like this won't ever happen... especially if they are not even trying their best!" He sourly chided.

"...and how do you know that?" Cutting his gaze towards the goose, the red panda drumming his tiny finger upon the table. He stared at the goose with cynical grin tugged on his mouth. His narrative only made the goose petulant mood worsened.

"I did ask Po about it." He stated almost immediately, averting his gaze from Shifu's vindictive stare.

The red panda undeniably couldn't cover his shock and gasped loudly hearing the old goose honest rebuttal.

"What? do you think I am a pervert and try to spy them doing their business?" Mr. Ping folded his wings wryly.

"...you what?" Shifu's azure eyes nearly popped out of the socket, he couldn't believe, not only Ping dared to meddle with his son's private life, much to his incredulity, he was thick enough to ask such... insolent, lurid query. To his bemusement, the panda gave his father rather an honest answer.

Shifu pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is unbelievable..." he muttered to himself. But he knew, as affectionate and sensitive he might be, Mr. Ping could be as obstinate as Po on a certain subject, may be more. For the giant panda, it was food and kung fu. Thanks to his stubbornness, he managed to train just in one night to defeat the Master of Thousand Scroll who had been dedicating himself to the art of Kung Fu all his life - even though Po humbly replied the element of 'certain fluffiness' had shielded him from the leopard's notable nerve attack. For Mr. Ping, his obstinacy was relating to his business profit and... grand-cubs!

For as long as Shifu remembered, even before his adopted daughter was officially courted by Mr. Ping's son, he already dropping hints virtually everywhere. Started from subtle ones - like showing Tigress how cute was Po when he was a cub, to a direct lecture how important it was for Dragon Warrior to have an heir to follow his legacy... and for him to have someone to inherit and continue his noodle shop business.

And it's just got worse by the day, especially now they were married, having cubs suddenly had been pushed to the top of the list on the priority agenda.

First, Mr. Ping forced Shifu to let the two of them owned a house down in a village, to give them much needed privacy their required, even though Shifu insisted the housing extension behind the communal bath would suffice for that purpose, and saving Po from having to sojourn and battle his nemesis every morning. Seeing nothing had happened after a few months, again, in his plea to Shifu to alleviate his training regime, even to the point Shifu had to lecture Tigress on how to 'relax' and enjoy 'other pursuit' than just train. His latest attempt was to ask Shifu to send both of them to 'fake' mission together, in which the rest of the four started to get very suspicious about the frequency of such fruitless journey. Not to mention numerous visit to the doctor, and various herbs had been prescribed, but the expert confirmed nothing wrong with the panda or the tiger.

Still, after all those attempt to encourage them, Ping was devastated to see no such result. Shifu turned to see the crestfallen feature of the goose in front of him. Although he shared a certain amount of sympathy about having grand-cubs, Shifu wasn't too fussy about when and how they would get it.

"They had to try harder. Then I'll rest my case." The goose loosely folded his wing. His voice was still portraying exasperation.

"I am pretty sure it's not Tigress's fault. She is a feline. She had more... drive than a panda." Shifu reminded Ping how the pandas, even without Lord Shen attack, were always small in number compared to other creatures. Simply because procreation wasn't their natural proclivity, it was more like a chore to them.

"But I had an idea..." The Grand Master leaned closer and signaled Ping to follow suit.

That night, the wise Grand Master summoned Po to see him in the Hall of Warriors... alone.

"Looking for me, Master?" He bowed and grinned widely... as per usual. Shifu cleared his throat and continued.

"Po... now you are Dragon Warrior, Oogway Successor, and maybe one day a Grand Master of this place. It comes to me that... you need to conquer your biggest enemy... your greatest adversary..."

"Aw man... is that the stairs?" Po moaned at the prospect. The Grand Master smiled cryptically.

"Don't worry Po. I promise you there'll be rewards waiting." He smirked meaningfully. The panda artfully knotted his brows but decided to not question his Master's provision.

The Grand Master went on and explained that Po had to go up and down the thousands step with two buckets of water, ten times every morning before the gong rang. At the end of the step, he'll place his favorite food of noodle and dumpling that he could freely savor.

The next day, he instructed Tigress to come every day, half an hour before the gong, accompanied Po to eat his breakfast, and then two of them would be given scrolls to read. They didn't have to train until two hours later, but they had to stay in their private chamber by the bath house. It was such a weird instruction, but figuring out he could benefit extra hour of sleep after doing the stairs and eating his father's food without cooking nor paying, sounded like a pretty good deal.

A week has passed since that day, and although painful to start with, Po's stamina quickly improved leaps and bounds. He was getting faster doing his laps, with the help of enticing smell of the noodle and dumpling, and Tigress who cheered him, made him far more determined to proof he could do it. He noticed the noodle tasted a little different, but he still liked it.

In no time, he became less flabby, the stack of muscles delineating his torso and biceps began to show as he flexed his arm, his wet fur further accentuated his underlying muscular form. Even Tigress swore she had never seen Po's figure as delicious as he currently was, especially the angry look he had before his adversary - the stairs. The cuddly and affable panda would suddenly become intimidating, his brows furled tightly, his chest squared, the ferocious glint in his eye that said he wasn't to be messed with, how his shoulders tensed and his spine straightened. Even surprisingly to her... he kind of looking... hotter when infuriated.

Then after all those physical training was done, they could eat, and free to stay in the hot tub or their room all morning, with a stack of scrolls Shifu had assigned them to read, from tea making, herbal remedy... dumpling making.. to sewing. Tigress was quizzical what was the aim of the exercise. Nonetheless, like her usual self, she relented because Shifu said this was an important part of her 'soft skill training' to equalize her hardcore-ness.

Three years had passed since that cub-experimental pursuit, and whatever they were exactly doing - it had clearly worked, all too well perhaps. In the short span of three years, Tigress had given birth to 6 cubs. Xiao Po, the oldest was three, Mei and Mai, the twins were two, Hu-i, Hu-Er... and Hu-San, the triplets were four months old.

And today was Tigress' first time, after her prolonged maternity leave, to join the five and Dragon Warrior on one week mission.

Shifu, Ping and Li Shan had volunteered to take care of the cubs in turn. The first two days were Ping and Li's turn, as Shifu had an important visit from the Shaolin Council to attend. Subsequently, Shifu would take over the cubs for three consecutive nights, and then the last two would be back at the Pings. All sounded good and well, Tigress and Po packed all the cubs toys, linens, pants, clothing into one big pile, which to their horror had occupied nearly the entire Ping's kitchen. Even Zeng was already dreading the fact he and some of his fellow servants needed to haul that many kinds of stuff to the palace thousand steps.

At Dragon Warrior Noodle and Tofu Restaurant - Upstairs, Li had his own battle. His task was simple - changed three nappies. However, the reality was nothing as simple as it sounded. He got all three on Po's bed, as he knelt down to made Hu-i laid on his back. The cub continued to struggle, so Li had to pin him with one of his paws, and his idle paw tried to grab the clean linen clothing for the cub's diaper. As soon as he did that, he saw Hu-Er at the edge of the bed, and Hu-San's body already half dangling precariously upside down at the opposite side of the bed.

Oh my gosh! He quickly grabbed the two cubs and placed them back next to Hu-I.

Hmmm... so what shall we do with this? He stared blankly at the blue linen square and a safety pin. He spent a moment of respite trying to recall how to do a diaper. A prior experience he thought would help had not made any difference whatsoever, especially when the last nappy he did was 35 years ago.

Ok, let's have a go! But as soon as he occupied himself, pouring his attention and focus to Hu-I, the other two started to crawl away and end up with hazardous position around the bed. Li decided it's safer to let them wandering on the floor. So he did, and get back to Hu-I diaper changing challenge. It took him a little more time than he had to. On his first attempt, the look of the fold mimicking steam dumpling he had last night.

This doesn't look right. So he tried again. By the third try, he had come up with something...decent. And as his eyes were peering over the other two, he saw Hui-Er sucking on Po's shuriken, while Hui-San... was nowhere to be seen.

"No no... that's not a toy." He quickly snatched the shuriken from the cub - which caused the cub to wail in irritation. Consecutively, he tried to look for Hui-San. He grabbed both Hui-I and Hui-Er in his arm, made a silly bouncing motion to soothe them while sauntering around the room checking every corner and gaps. As Hui-Er stopped crying, he heard a faint whimper from the corner of the room. It was Hui-San, he had trapped himself under the dragon costume. Li dug him up and rest him atop of his head. Right, one down, two more to go.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ping was too involved with his own battle. Xiao Po was the only panda cub, but albeit he had a slight issue with the speed, he was the mastermind of all sort of prank. Mr. Ping blamed his dexterity must have been inherited from Tigress. While both tigress, Mei, and Mai, performed the role as his accomplice. All morning Mr. Ping was trying to contain the cubs from running outside, pulling a prank on his oblivious customers. He had pulled the crates filled with toys that their parents had provided, in an attempt to pacify the cubs from disturbing him doing his chores. But it soon became apparent. He couldn't see his kitchen floor as the toys of all sort gaining dominance, and the cubs weren't even interested in any of them anymore. Mei and Mai instead, had made a hole on his flour sack, played 'warrior' with Mr Ping's expensive cleaver, taunted each other how many bean buns they could stuff in their mouth, while Xiao-Po watched his sisters amusedly, while his mouth busy munching all the dumpling Mr. Ping had prepared for the customers.

Ok...ok... you three get out from my kitchen, but don't...make any trouble." The goose put his stern, intimidated mask on. He knew it did little to deter Xiao-Po, as ironic as his name 'little peace' may sound - there was nothing peaceful about him. He had employed his chaste, innocent, cute smile so he could get away with murder. However, two of his sisters were visibly terrified. "Yes, Gong-gong..."

Mr. Ping went back into the kitchen, mumbling incoherently to himself. "Cubs... when are they started to pick up their own toys... Ah?" He was diligently savoring the items back to the basket. "Maybe when they become parents... or grandparents..." He sighed as he answered himself. Even after half an hour, the kitchen still looked like a much larger imitation of his Secret Ingredient Soup - colorful things floating all over the place, and he had to open the restaurant in 30 minutes, not to mention that Xiao-Po had eaten all his pre-made dumplings. Right, time for reinforcement.

"Li...could you give me a hand?"

There was no answer.

"Li...! What took you so long?"

Finally, a large figure, struggling to balance three crawling cubs without haphazardly dropping any of them, Li made into the kitchen.

"Good heavens, don't tell me you spent 2 hours changing three diapers?" Mr. Ping said in a rather sinister way.

"What? Have you had any idea how impossible this task is?" Li retorted defensively.

"Ok never mind, take the cot from Po's bedroom, we'll feed them and put them to bed, and you can help me with the cleaning and cooking." Li obeyed nonchalantly. He quickly placed the cot at the dimmed corner of the kitchen, while Ping was ready with three warm bottles of milk. The cubs were quickly savored and soothed to slumber. The goose and the panda exhaled in great relief.

"Can't believe how Tigress and Po survived this." Li chuckled rather humourlessly."The last time I was here, there were only three of them... and my next visit there were six. Can't you imagine if I'll come next year there'll be..-"

"Don't..." Ping raised his wing to silent the panda. "I don't want to think about it, whatever Shifu and I were doing had to stop... before it goes out of hand."

Li brow curled his brow into a tedious knot. "You and Shifu? had to do with what?"

Ping sighed. "Three years ago, Shifu and I were discussing the heavenly providence of grand-cubs, on why Po and Tigress blissful three years marriage had not produced any single legacy. I mean, both of them were exemplary warriors, even though adoption may suit, can you imagine what kind of heritage, genetically, those two might have for greater benefit? Anyway, in short, we concluded that both of them, especially Po, wasn't too keen on the 'business' of making the cubs. No offense Li, but that's a panda nature."

Li nodded his head, and chuckled, relating that to himself- it took him eight years to own a single cub. "So what did you do?"

"So Shifu came up with a plan, to enhance's Po's stamina and his masculine drive, he had forced him to run the thousands step 10 times every morning. His rewards would be the infinite supply of my famous noodle soup and a large bowl of dumpling. And at the same time, Shifu summoned Tigress to accompany Po with his breakfast and afterward with the excuse of 'reading scroll' as part of her training, told them to head to the summer cottage by the bath house, in essence, to give them a quiet morning time together."

"That's it?" Li raised his brow,

"No...you see, I spiked my noodle soup... with some strong aphrodisiac. I even washed their bed-sheet in the summer cottage with catnip cologne." Mr. Ping admitted rather shyly.

"And in the next three years, this happens?" Li pointed out the mess in Mr. Ping kitchen. The goose nodded slowly. Li burst out laughing, so hard he fell on the floor.

"This is no joking matter Li, can you see next year you came here they may have enough cubs to make up cuju (**Chinese soccer) team!"

Wai-gong...!" The Grand Master smiled as he entered the restaurant courtyard, watching three of his older grand-cubs enthusiastically greeted him. Three of them piled on him, knocking his tiny figure. Thanks to his kung fu, those panda-tiger infusions, although nearly same size as he was, did not pose any lethal danger for the Grand Master.

"Mr. Ping..." Shifu smiled broadly at the presence of the elderly goose. The evident of the lack of sleep was very much apparent on the goose old feature.

"Master Shifu... thank goodness you are here..." The goose threw himself animatedly on one of the tables, exaggerating his tiredness.

"What's going on...in...here?" The red panda observed the restaurant was pretty much a wreck, chairs, and table everywhere, some upside down, some of the chairs even made it on the top of the wall.

"Well... it doesn't need much explaining does it?" The goose moved his gaze to little Xiao-Po whom in the middle of instructing his sisters on the game of 'throw the chair,' the one who threw the furthest earned the prize, Dragon Warrior size dumpling. Unfortunately, Mei and Mai did inherit Tigress' strength, much to Mr. Ping chagrin.

"Right...I'll called the palace servant, seems like we need some reinforcement." Shifu turned to Zeng.

"Wait... Shifu, can I speak to you in private?" Mr. Ping squeaked pitifully, Shifu looked at him incredulously but followed the goose to the back of the restaurant.

"Whatever we were doing was clearly working!" Mr. Ping said with a hushed voice.

"A little too well perhaps, Mr. Ping." The Grand Master admitted.

"...we need to stop this. Next time they came back, don't even send them on a mission together, and tell them to move back to the student barrack!"

"I can't possibly do that!" The Master backpedaled, disbelieving the goose suggestion.

"Why not?" The goose answered stubbornly.

"The last time they didn't have their privacy, they end up doing it in my chamber...Zeng told me." His answered muted the goose instantly. Both of them cringed on the mental image those words had evoked. Yes, Mr. Ping didn't want them to use his bedroom as well, maybe for a different reason, but essentially robbing them from their privacy wasn't the answer.

"Then what do we do? This is a disaster! They'll have a morbid number of hybrid." The troubled goose paced back and forth frantically to ease his nerve.

"...why don't you ask Ms. Chang again, does she had herbs that can stop people having cubs. You can put that in your noodle as usual." The Grand Master solemnly suggested.

"Why didn't I think of that!"

A few days later.

"Po... here is your lunch and dinner. Enjoy! I must rush to the seamstress." The goose placed the crooks by the door of his son's house and turned to leave.

"Dad... you know...you don't have to deliver food for breakfast lunch or dinner. I am quite capable of cooking my own food." The panda tried not to hurt his dad good intention to coddle him.

"Oh no no... this not a problem at all...I much rather do this than to have a cuju team in my kitchen."

"What?"

"Never mind Son... enjoy the food."

(** the triplets name translate to Tiger One, Tiger Two... Tiger Three... have a laugh!)

"Wai-gong...!" (**grandfather from mother's side)