Author Note : Welcome back to story. Sorry for making you all waited for two months for a new chapter. The last few weeks were pretty much me working as an intern in an electronic store. During those weeks, I wasn't able to spend much time writing since every time when I got home, I felt tired and decide to send the rest of my time watching YouTube or play some video games.

The last two months went quite well as October has a huge 2,68K views and November was able to reach a great 1.8K views (without uploading a single chapter). Normally the story has more Favorites than Follow, but look at it, we've now got 75 Favorites and 73 Follows and this story is very, very close to reaching 200K words in total! Seeing this made me want to say thank you all for the support, it's really great and helpful. I have planned this short fillers arc to have 2 chapters as I want to make the story to dwell less in the dreadful 'Chamber Of Fillers'.

Alright, shall we begin?

Chapter 40 : Unexpected Bravery

Three days has flied by already, ever since Mei and Mingzhu has spent the days on the Jade Palace which we have provided a room for the married tiger couple. Shifu was also seemed to shortened the amount of time of Tigress's training for her to spent most of time with her parents, which is a good way for her to start opening herself more around others. Oh yeah, remember that day when me and Yun made a deal about not telling what happened between me and Tigress, I was able to told him everything of the whole situation. After that, Yun was surprisingly been doing quite well at keeping that secret from anyone. I'm just hoping that cat won't go around and start spouting what I've told him to anyone.

When I told everyone about the whole experience that me and Yun has went through together at the mission. They're reaction were quite expectable, especially Viper's since I know that she despises cruelty. I told them the part when the Red Fang Army's soldiers just killed all of Yun's men ruthlessly when they're severely injured and had some of their limbs blown off by the large explosion that was caused by one of the archer who shot a flaming arrow at the barrel filled with red dynamites. When the large explosion occurs, most of them were nowhere to be seen as small and bloody bits of their bodies were scattered and rained down from the sky. Some of these bastards are actually even enjoy doing these kind of things. Shit, the cut-off-screams of those injured rhinos filled with intense fear will forever be stuck in my head for the rest of my life. But luckily, since all of my friends were such amazing people that any person could ever have in their life, they were able to gave me their comfort and support in the best way possible. Their support has eases down most of the negative feelings. Anyway... let us stop talking about this dark topic and move on to the present.

Bek!

Bek!

I staggered heavily back as the sound of Monkey's staff struck my body several times. I was panting and sweating as I am currently training with Monkey about staff combat. Damn, those hits from that staff of his got me good the sides of my body.

"I see you've gotten better again." Monkey complimented. I grinned, gripping my staff harder as we both fixated our eyes on each other.

"Before we could continue, I would like to thank you again for these lessons." I've softened my posture and expression. The monkey did the same as me while raising a brow in slight confusion.

"What's this about?" He motioned for me to continue on.

"Without these lessons you've gave me, I think I would've been dead on my solo mission."

"Ah, so my training lessons came in quite handy for you." Monkey replied, feeling glad that his teachings was able to save my life and was being a bid proud of himself as well.

Soon, we both toughened our stance as the training continues. I dashed and did a lower swing. With the speed I'm using on he staff, Monkey couldn't dodge it by hopping and has to block it with his staff, staggering him slightly. Before he react, I performed a quick spin, recovering quickly as I did a high wing as it struck the monkey on his upper back and a forward swing that hit his chest. After he was been struck by my three combo attack, Monkey was stumbling back with a dazed state. I took advantage of this and dashed, doing a heavy swing with a forward jump. Unexpectedly, Monkey snapped out of his dazed state faster than I expected, performing a swift straight jab with the end of his staff that struck my forehead, canceling my attack and knocked me down to the wooden floor. I got up fast, still ready to go.

"You didn't have to hit so hard." I hissed, massaging my forehead. The monkey snickered.

"Oh I'm sorry, did I just gave the big baby man a little boo-boo?" He teased. Instead of openly accepted his apology, the last part of it had made a part of me inside a bit more infuriated rather then laughing it off and forgive him afterwards.

"Alright, I'm gonna give you a really good one when I get you." I aggravated, emphasizing the three words 'really good one' as I'm about to give this monkey a good whack for mocking me.

I lunged forward while spinning my staff before sending a speeding strong swing. With the speed my staff is going at now, Monkey again, had no choice but to block the heavy swing of my staff rather than dodging. With the monkey being staggered as he blocked my heavy swing, but this time, I used more power and force on that heavy swing on my staff, causing Monkey to need more time to recover from his current state. With the monkey still being staggered, I moved my staff down and did a low sweep as I was able to yanked his ankle, dropping the staggered monkey down on the wooden floor. He stood up by himself with a surprised look on his face.

"Woah." He emitted, with his eye widened and mouth are slightly ajar.

"Heh, next time, I'll wipe this whole floor with you if you mock me again while we're on a match." I grinned.

"And there you are, talking big again. I thought you've finally grown out of that old habit of yours." Monkey spoke with a raised brow.

"I don't know, maybe that's just who I am." I jauntily said while shrugging my shoulders.

The monkey released an annoyed huff before he made his first move by dashing forward at me, spinning his staff while swapping the spinning staff from hand to hand and kept doing it repeatedly. Once he got close, he swung his staff heavily with a spin. As his staff collides with my staff, I reflected the force of his staff back while countering back with a low swing. He blocked it and send a multiple swings at me, which I dodged by leaning my body back. I retaliated back with a upper swing from below, hitting the monkey's armpit before I did a precise jab on his sternum, sending the monkey to the wooden floor again.

"Looks like this is my first victory against you in these lessons." I smirked proudly, lending a hand for Monkey as he grabbed it and I helped him up to his feet.

"It is official, you've gotten a lot better. You sure got some skills with staffs." Monkey complimented. "Comparing you right now and your old self back then during my very first lessons is quite a difference."

"I know, it's all thanks to you teaching me diligently." I replied.

"Do you recalled during the very first day of you using the staff that your currently holding?" I nodded. "Do you also remember when you've messed yourself up horribly." I laughed shortly, remembering that moment when I accidentally hit my own nuts with the staff that I'm currently holding in my hand.

"Hey, I was shit at using the staff back then!" I retorted lightly.

"Anyway, you did very well today." He said as we both did the our usual bow before each of us both placing the staffs back to the weapon stash of the Training Hall. "So what are gonna do in this Saturday noon?" He asked.

"I don't know, maybe the usual stuff like taking a long stroll down the Valley I guess." I scratched my hair, still thinking about today's activity. "Maybe you and Mantis could tag along with me down at the Valley as well." Monkey nodded his head horizontally.

"Sorry Lukas, because me and Mantis have already discussed some plans for tonight."

"Let me guess, drinking the crap out yourselves at the bars and might get some few slaps from the women that you both tried to flirt with."

"The first part you said is a possibility for us two and the second part is not for me, it mostly occurs with Mantis in his case." I motioned for him to continue. "It's because he's too much of a 'rushing-guy' who just go straight at the big part where it'll just make the girls feels uncomfortable." I chuckled at hearing how Monkey described Mantis's ways with women.

"Hmph... I think somewhere inside of me still do have a little bit of faith for that little green guy." I said with a sarcastic tone.

"Ha! Real funny Lukas." A slightly deadpanned voice spoke as I felt a slight weight my right shoulder. I shifted my sight and saw a familiar bug standing on my right shoulder. "So your implying that I'm bad with women?" Mantis inquired with his both front claws been crossed.

"According to what Monkey has told me, maybe your are or maybe you aren't." I raised my arms a bit upward in defense. "If you wanna prove to me that Monkey's statement of you is wrong, try convince me with a pickup line of yours." Mantis hopped off of my right shoulder as he landed on the wooden floor before clearing his throat.

"Hey girl, I just wanna let you know that you've looked absolutely stunning today." He spoke with his flirtatious voice and tone, which is causing me and Monkey to start covering our lips as we both start suppressing our laughs from the inside. "If you're interested, maybe you could come over to my place and get to know each other even better and personally." Mantis made his flirtatious voice sounds deeper. It was too late for us both, me and Monkey couldn't handle it anymore and bursted out and began hysterically laughing our asses off due to us both enduring the excessive cringe from Mantis's flirting pickup line. "Hey! Quit laughing you two!" The green bug retorted, feeling embarrassed of me and Monkey laughing at his pickup line.

"Now I see why Monkey's statement was right, you are terrible at picking up women." I managed to brought my laughter under control. Mantis was about to retaliate with his loud outburst, but he gain his composure back before speaking.

"Then what about your pickup line, Lukas?" I gasped inwardly as I wasn't ready for that. To be honest, no one in my entire life ever asked me how good am I with women.

"I-I don't know, I don't have a pickup line and plus, I just don't feel like to be in a relationship." I replied sheepishly.

"Care to tell me why?" Mantis grinned.

"The reason why I don't to be in a relationship right now is that I still considered myself quite young." I answered collectively. "I am a twenty-four year old man who wants to have as much fun as possible with the remaining time till my late-twenties and then I'll consider settling down with someone for good." Mantis then grumbled a bit.

"Pfff, boring!" The green bug shouted with a taunting voice. I sharpened my facial expression to Mantis.

"Fine, go do you own stuff then, let's see how much trouble you'll get if you continue with your lewd flirting acts towards women." I muttered with annoyance, leaving the Training Hall and start making my way to down to the Valley by going through the tall gate of the Hall Of Warriors first.

As I reached there, I could see Shifu was standing standing on Oogway's staff, which the red panda was using it to balance himself flawlessly as he just stood on one feet without shaking or fazing, but after taking notice of my presence, his ears twitched before he slowly stood off from the staff. I then approached him.

"Good afternoon, Master Shifu." I greeted him with a bow. "How's the two guests have been going?"

"Good, in fact, I think it has been going very great for Master Tigress." A small and warm smile appeared on the red panda's face.

"I'm thinking that as well, though I didn't see her that much in the Training Hall, it... it kinda doesn't feel... natural without her being around at the Training Hall during these three days."

"I do feel the same." He paused for a moment. "Because you have found her real and biological parents, I've decided it is the best for me to dampened the time of her training so she could spent more time with her real parents." If I can hear it well enough, I sounded like his voice has some bit of dejection within it.

"And you've been quite silent recently as well, Master. Is there something bothering you?" The red panda chuckled inwardly.

"Perceptive as ever you are Master Lukas. I suppose I have no other choice but to tell you, if not, you'll just keep pestering me." He began. "Ever since our two guest has arrived here, Master Tigress has been focusing quite an amount of her time with them, she has been spending most of those three days just talking to them and I began to feel like she has... forgotten about me, but who am I to blame? She haven't see the face of her real parents for more than twenty-two years and now they are here. Ever since she has reunited with her real parents... just what am I now to her now?" Yikes, I've never seen Shifu like this in such a low-spirit mood before. At first, I thought he wouldn't mind letting Tigress spent most of those three days socializing and getting to know her parents better, I never thought Shifu would be like this at all. I then put on my thinking posture on before speaking.

"Master Shifu, that is not true, she will never forget about you and never will, I know you've been quite harsh and distant with her in the past, but you've only done it just to protect her from becoming like Tai Lung, which you've successfully managed to prevented her becoming like him. You did all of those was because you've loved her deeply and just wanted to keep her safe and protected, even such harsh methods needs to be required of, but I know that somewhere inside her, she still cares and loves you as a father." Shifu couldn't help it but smiled.

"Thank you for your ensuring words, Master Lukas, I shall think about it."

"Alright then, I'm glad my words were able to ease up your mind, master." I walked passed him as I've exited the Jade Palace by stepping outside of the Hall Of Warriors. "I'll see you around at sunset!" I shouted loud enough for him to hear me as I stretched my whole body and limps before I could start jogging down through the stair steps carefully of this super long stone stairway.

Once I've reached the end of the stone staircase, I am now at the Valley. I decided to pay Mr. Ping a visit since it's been almost three weeks without seeing him. After making a couple of turns of the dirt path of the Valley, I am now at the entrance of Mr. Ping's restaurant, just as I wanted to go in and say hello, my stomach growled as the delicious aroma has passed through my nostrils as I couldn't resist it and took a big and long sniff as I released an inaudible satisfying moan. When I walked in, I head to counter and saw the familiar goose.

"Welcome back, it's been a while Lukas." Mr. Ping greeted.

"It has been a while, I kinda get 'stuck' during my last mission until I found some help." I said.

"So what shall I get you, Master Lukas?" The goose inquired.

"I would to try this new recipe of yours called the 'Melting Sweet Bean Bun' that I kept hearing from your son Po. He keeps bragging about how good the new recipe of yours as I wanted to try it, but kept forgetting about it." I actually made an excuse there, Po was bragging so much about the 'Melting-sweet Bean Bun' as it got to the point it started to hassle me a bit, maybe he'll stop once me and the rest of the guys have tried this new recipe. I then began counting my fingers of how many individuals lives in the Jade Palace before requesting the amount of it. "Alright, give me eight of those."

"Oh my, I never knew you had such a sweet tooth." Mr. Ping teased. I chuckled.

"Hey, I'm not gonna hoard all of those for myself, they're all for me and my friends." I replied.

"Well then, eight Melting Sweat Bean Buns coming right up!" The goose hurried back to the kitchen, lighting up the stone stove with large branches, preparing dough while taking the required ingredient for the new recipe.

After waiting for like six minutes, a feminine scream has echoed threw nearly half a block away from the spot I'm currently standing. I took a quick step, getting more closer as I stick my head inside the kitchen before calling Mr. Ping.

"Mr. Ping, could you please wrapped those bean buns and put somewhere else, because I heard someone's in trouble!" I called, sounding very rushed and tensed at this moment. Before I could made a mad dash out of this restaurant, a small duckling stood beside me.

"Go get'em Master Lukas! Kick their butts and save the day!" The duckling shouted out enthusiastically. With me in this situation, I managed to remain calm just a bit as I looked down at the duckling who called me.

"Do not worry, I promised I'll save the day and I'll definitely be kicking allot of bad guy's butts." I replied with a bright smile as I patted the duckling's head gently before dashing off.

Sprinting like hell, I've finally arrived at the scene, they're were only three dark brown water buffaloes wearing only round shoulder plates that only covers their biceps while orange sweatpants with wraps at the end of their ankles as three of them are walking out from a store while each three of them are holding burlap sacks filled with goods and are holding their weapons as well. With me analyzing the place, it appears to be quite a familiar place, I shook my head a bit, removing that thought away as I gotta focused dealing with these guys at front of me.

"Damn, it's the new member of the Furious Five that everyone has been talking about." One of the buffalo muttered (just gonna called them 'buffalo' instead of 'water buffalo' for short), raising his battle axe.

"Be careful you guys, we don't know what he can do." The second water buffalo warned, taking a step back while gesturing for the other two to do the same. I lunged forward, sending a side punching to the first buffalo by his snout to stun him before grabbing his arm and threw him on the ground with a shoulder throw. I turned around and saw the second buffalo was about to hit me with his mace. I prevented his mace from smashing my face by grabbing his wrist, stopping his moments. Not to long, I began to feels some heavy and loud steps as the third buffalo ran at with his sword raised. With quick reaction, I grabbed the second buffalo by his left of his upper body and threw him at the speeding buffalo as the seconded buffalo has collided on the third as both their now in the ground. The rest of them then stood up from the ground.

"Arrrgh... my snout!" The first buffalo exclaimed with a pained tone. "You'll pay for that, you furless ape!" He screamed as he lunges at me while slashing at me with mad speed with his battle axe as I kept dodging those attacks. At the right moment when a slight opening has been seen, I jabbed his stomach with my fingers, stunning the first buffalo before finishing him off with a spinning back kick. The rest of the two decided to attack by running in between me.

All the muscles in my body tensed for a split second as I did a medium jump as I knocked both of the buffalo with a singular Tatsumaki Senpukyaku. I landed down on the ground safely as I scanned the whole area now. After seeing that everything is fine, I exhaled out a breath of relief. My relief was shattered as a taller, bulkier, gray water buffalo wearing a red tunic, golden-brown pants with a maroon sash on his waist and has white wraps his both wrist and ankles, which I may presume he's the one who is leading the robbery.

As he walked out from the familiar store and stood at front of me, he was holding a red vixen... oh shit... that bastard at front of me is currently holding Xiaoli as hostage.

"Xiaoli!" I yelled her name at the moment I saw her being taken hostage.

"M-Master Lukas! Help me!" She as well called out for my name as she began squirming. The gray water buffalo released an angry huff before pulling a knife from his pants pocket and pointing it closer to her throat.

"Quite, girl!" He shouted. "If don't you want this girl here getting hurt, you'll get down on your knees while I'll make a run for it." He ordered. "And don't even try following me after I made my run, you'll just waste your time." The gray buffalo warned.

"Fuck." I muttered under my breath. "Alright, just... just calm down alright." I assured, crossing my both arm behind my back as I slowly get down on my knees with my head lowered down. The buffalo sneered, throwing the red vixen at me as I carefully catch her with my both arms. He then took the rest of the goods from the unconscious bandits before taking his run. Once he's away, I looked at the red vulpine.

"Are you alright, Xiaoli?" I asked worriedly. A couple of seconds after, the red vixen began crying softly, hugging me tightly while I wrapped my left arm around her while I placed my right hand on her head, soothing her by stroking the back of her head slowly and gently.

"Yeah I'm alright, but not emotionally." She uttered though her weeping.

"Look, I know you've been robbed and even got a knife pointed at your throat, but I want you to remain strong and brave, don't let those bad feelings get the best of you, okay?" My assuring words didn't work as she remained with her frown.

"No, it's not that." I tilting my head slightly.

"Then what is it?"

"More than a month ago after you Kung Fu masters saved me and my family from that despicable group, things were never been so great after that night. But it all went south after the authorities managed to found out that my father used to give weapons illegally to that group, after that, they've arrested him and locked my father up in their cells." She sniffs a few times before continuing. "In one of those sacks of stolen goods, there's a scroll inside it that contains the documents that has real proofs of my father was innocent and our family was blackmailed and threatened by that group. And now it's gone." She began weeping softly. "I-I'll never get to see ever him again!" The vixen bursted our crying again. I slowly set her down to the ground before wiping the tears away from her light emerald eyes with my finger. Her weeping and sad expression ceased as I smiled at her.

"Don't you worry, I promised I'll get those stolen goods back to you." I assured, crouching down on a running position before-

"Wait!" She called out, I straighten my posture up and glanced down at her.

"Huh?" I'm now a bit confused of why she stopped me.

"I don't want to stay here and do nothing, I... I-I want to come along with you and fight for my father's freedom!" She spoke with a raised voice. Okay... that was pretty unexpectedly, especially from a civilian. I then shot her with a serious look on my face.

"No." I simply replied with a deadpanned, yet serious tone.

"But-" I then cut her sentence off.

"Xiaoli, please listen, the reason why I am not allowing you is that I care for your safety and well-being along with the rest of the people of the Valley Of Peace. If you do come along with me, you'll end up getting hurt or worse... killed might even and I wanted none of those two things happen to you, okay?" I soon softened my serious expression and gave the red vixen a comforting small smile.

I started running with full speed if I wanna catch that water buffalo quickly, the sooner I get this done, the better! While running, I was able to use my trained sharp eyes as I've got that from spending some time in the Training Hall along with Tigress's visual trainings. Shortly, I spotted a very tall and bulky long figure which it is the gray water buffalo still running with the stolen goods without stopping as he's not that far from where I am.

To make this easier to keep my eyes on the running water buffalo, I performed a high jump as my hands grabbed the eaves of a house's roof and quickly climbed on top of the roof. With me carefully jumping from roof to roof, I was able to get a closure view to the water buffalo, which is around more then five meters away from me. After accelerating my running speed, I prepared myself for the final jump as I leaped down from the edge of the building's roof. Descending rapidly, I landed on the gray water buffalo on his shoulders and grabbed both of his horns. He then began running with wild speed along with shaking his whole entire body.

Tough bastard...

I tried pulling him down, yet nothing has worked until he grabbed the fabric of the vest from my back and threw me off of him as I rolled across the ground.

"I told you to not follow me!" He yelled, stopping on his track.

"Sorry pal, I think you didn't said that loud enough." I replied. "Now play nice and hand over the stolen goods and surrender. Or I'll kick you ass." After hearing my warning, the gray water buffalo merely laughed.

"It's quite impressive that you're not showing any form of concern at who your looking at?" I tilted my head slightly leftward.

"Nope." I simply replied.

"Well if that's so, my name is Temutai! Leader of the Qidan clan!" He loudly introduced himself. "And if you wanna tell me your name, there is no need to. If I look closely, you have a body structure that's very similar to an ape, mostly being furless except for the top of your head, you must be this 'Lukas', the new member of the Furious Five that I've been hearing a lot about. If you wanna return these goods back to that vixen, you'll have to take it from me!" I shot him with a battle-glare of mine while cracking my knuckles.

"I don't care who the hell you are and what leader you are. And you know what, I've been playing nice for quite some time and it would seemed that I have now lost my patience with you. So for now, I'll just simply beat the living shit out of you."

"Give me your best shot then." He replied. He then did something that was very uncommon that most bandits would do. This water buffalo at front of me has literally taken a type of Kung Fu stance, indicating he's not gonna go down that easily than I thought.

The fight began with me going for the first blow by charging straight at him with a side punch. He blocked it and retailed with a side punch that hit my right chest as it almost made me lose my whole balance. I shrugged of the pain and proceed with the fight. I stood still, waiting for him to make a move as he eventually got impatient. The water buffalo charged at me and send a two spinning kick, despite his large stature and size, he's quite a swift and agile opponent with high brute strength. My whole body staggered significantly after blocking those two spinning kicks of his.

Fortunately, it appears that he has a slow recovery, which resulting me recovered faster than him as I counter back with a palm strike as my palm hit him on his frontal midsection. My palm strike barely staggered him, but he did feel the pain of my palm strike by emitting a low grunt. I continued with my attacks with more fast punches and kicks, he did block quite a few, but the rest has managed to hit him. Holy crap, even after gotten hit with those amount of attacks from me, this Temutai guy is still not gonna go down yet. I soon began to step it up a notch as I began to hit him with more strength and force, which was proving to be more effective than before as I threw a heavy straight kick at his left abdomen with my right foot thrusting further in his abdomen. This made him stumble several time before fall onto his knee. I walked towards him and glanced down, noticing the water buffalo was holding his left abdomen in pain.

"Damn you." Those were the only two words he could spat out while continued groaning in pain. I signed in relief as I was able to defeat this tough bastard, once I lowered my guard down to call out for any authorities, Temutai suddenly covered from the pain of his left abdomen as he whacked my back with downward punch. My body was instantly sent onto the ground. "Hehe... it seems that those meddlers are too late to save you now." He pulled out a knife from his pants pocket, raising his knife up in the air as he prepared to-

Before he could stab me with his knife, a small red figure leaped behind at the water buffalo while holding a chair that's around its size as it smashed the chair on Temutai's head with swift speed. My attacker yelled loudly in great pain, before instantly turning his head behind at the red figure who was revealed to be... Xiaoli.

Oh no... this is bad...

The red vixen was now taking slow steps back, shaking in fear. The water buffalo raised his knife and is about to kill her. Even though my back was still on the ground, I was able to stop him from harming the red vixen by charging up a concentrated Hadoken with both hands and thrusted the blue energy blast out from my both palms. My energy blast struck Temutai on his nape, which finally knocked him out for good.

I collected myself up and walking over the unconscious water buffalo. I gave him a short glance for some extra precautions before I could focus my attention at Xiaoli.

"What did I told you about staying back at your home and wait for me." I spoke sternly, causing the red vixen to began fidgeting her paws.

"I-I'm sorry Master Lukas." She paused briefly. "I got worried, so I followed you without you knowing, so please forgive me for disobeying you."

"What, no! I'm not exactly mad at you or anything. Rather, your unexpected bravery and courage had surprised and impressed me." I complimented. "Now that I've know you hav some sort of a hidden bravery and courage that resides inside of you, you might be tougher than you look." Her eyes widened open while a bright smile has formed on her face.

"Y-You really think of me like that?" She spoke excitedly.

"Well yeah, given the fact by how you've literally smashed and broken that chair into pieces on that tough bastard's head with such excellent speed and velocity." She was about to squeal in excitement from hearing my compliments, but it was stopped as she was able to control herself.

"I was thinking about this for quite some time after you Kung Fu masters had saved me and my family back then from that group, I was thinking about..." She soon trailed off mumbling until she became silent. I then gestured as I encouraged her to go on. "Well, is that I was thinking about... learning Kung Fu one day." My eye with my other facial features has widened themselves. "Oh jeez, yeah I know, it's kinda of a stupid thing for me to think of and-"

"Stupid? That's great! You'll learn how to defend yourself along with your family and other neighbors near you." I interjected, placing my both hands on her shoulders.

"I never expected you as a Kung Fu master to be so enthusiastic about such a small thing." She uttered nervously, moving her head a few centimeters back.

"Nope, it's doesn't sound like a small thing to me at all." I stood, while looking at the sun, which is now at the middle of sky as it's noon. "It looks like I still have time to spare for the day before returning back to the Jade Palace, tell you what, how about I'll give you some fighting practice to repay you for saving me back there." Her both ears perked up in excitement to the point where it's called 'complete-straight'.

A very short period of time has passed, the authorities has arrived and took and locked those water buffaloes and Temutai in some transportation caged cart to Chorh-Gom Prison for their crimes of robbery. With the stolen goods has been returned to Xiaoli, the red vixen quickly searched through the burlap sacks and eventually pulled out a long light-red scrolls that contains those documents that has proofs that Xiaoli's father is clean and innocent. Once she let the authorities to have a look on the documents, they've said that they'll like us both to go to their guardpost to retrieve and escort Xiaoli's father out from his cell.

We're now at front of the Valley's guard outpost as the two guard at the gate grant me and Xiaoli along with the rest of the guards guarding and dragging the transportation caged cart behind us both. Once we entered, the place seemed to be the same as ever with large wide area surrounded with tall walls made out of cobblestones which's maybe around three meters. When the the guards behind us went on their separate ways, one of rhinos from the group gotten out from the them as he wanted to guide us to the cell room.

Not long after a short brief walking on the hallways of the guard outpost, the rhino guard guided me and Xiaoli to a shady looking iron door. I may assume that is where the prison cells are at. I knocked the iron door several times. Not long, I heard several locks being removed as a tall armored moose opened the door before gesturing for us both to enter.

After a lengthy walk, the moose led us to a cell with a red fox wearing common yellow robes in it, sitting on the cold ground of the cell. The red vixen gasped, rushing towards the cell as she placed both paws on the bars while having a relieved expression began to form when she saw her father.

"Dad!" She called him with a raised voice. Not before long, her father stood up and rushed forwards, now standing at front of the cell's bars after hearing his daughter's voice.

"Xiaoli!" He soon held a smile filled with relief and joy. "How are things going with you and your mother?" He asked.

"Pretty good, well not today." A small frown began forming on the vixen's face.

"What happened." Her father inquired, concerned as he noticed the frown of his daughter's face.

"The store was being robbed." She answered, the father gasped before grabbing her paw with his paw as he held them tightly.

"Are you alright, are you hurt or anything?" He asked with a rushed and worried tone.

"Yes, I'm alright, it's all thanks to Master Lukas arrived in time and saved the day." She gestured me to come closer to the cell. When the red fox saw me, he immediately greeted me with a bowed.

"It's a great honor to meet you in person, Master Lukas." He bowed. "I've heard so many great things about you." I gave him a smile.

"It's a pleasure meeting you as well, umm?" I trailed off due to me having not knowing his name.

"My name is Han, I take it that you knew my daughter already." He introduced his name.

"Well, during the last moments of me stopping those bandits, your daughter managed to save my life by smashing a chair on the last bandit's head." Her father gave Xiaoli a glare.

"What in the world you were thinking!" He nearly yelled, checking his daughter's by moving off the long sleeve of her qipao to check her forearm and wrist if there's any sort of injuries that he's imagining she has. "You've couldn't been killed!"

"And he would've died if I didn't intervene." She replied back, removing his paw from her forarm before covering it with the long sleeve of her qipao. I then goes closer to her as I placed my hand on the vixen's shoulder while gesturing that I'll take this conversation from here.

"She has a point, without her bashing that chair on the last bandit's head, I wouldn't been stabbed to death and those documents that has proofs that your innocent would've been stolen away." The fox tried to speak, but no words has come out. "And one more things, this is only a request from your daughter to me, I would like to ask you for your permission if I can train your daughter some martial arts and self-defense lessons to defend herself and your family."

"Xiaoli, what is the meaning of this?" Han asked, narrowing his expression to his daughter. The red vixen squeaked a bit.

"When the moment I bashed that chair on the last bandit's head, it didn't knock him out. Afterwards, I felt intense fear had surged through my body like I was being frozen there, leaving myself completely open as the last bandit was about to kill me not before Master Lukas managed to save my life again. After that, I felt that I was a weak coward, couldn't even move and stood their there to watch my life coming to an end instead of avoiding it, that is why I... I wanted to be strong, by learning Kung Fu when I'm older." After hearing Xiaoli's short speech, Han's expression was surprised, even the guards inside the room were moved by the vixen's speech.

"I... umm..." Han then took a deep breath, processing the words he just heard. "Alright, permission granted." Xiaoli looks like she was about to explode in excitement, causing me to chuckle inwardly. "But please, be careful, do not teach her any technique that would be too dangerous, harmful and-" Han's sentence was soon cut off by Xiaoli's sudden outburst.

"Dad! Now your sounding just like how mom does!" She yelled, sounding embarrassed as a small red tints has appeared on her cheeks.

Eventually, a couple of more guards has entered as Xiaoli gave them the scroll filled with documents. Waiting for more then ten minutes, a lightly armored jaguar guard who took it and began reading the documents.

"Alright, he's clean. Let him out." The jaguar spoke, ordering the rest of guards to unlock the door.

When the door was opened fully opened, both Xiaoli and Han rushed forwards at each other and wrapped their arms to one another. We left the room and walking through multiple hallways, leaving the Guard Outpost as both me and Xiaoli began escorting her father Han back to their home.

Author Note : I hope this filler chapter was enjoyable for you all. In the few weeks ago, I thought about giving my red fox OC Xiaoli a more important role in the future. Like my other OC Renshu, both of them will not become masters and change the 'Furious Six' to the 'Furious Eight' XD. I intend to have them both as students of the Jade Palace in the future of the story. So what do you think of this idea? If you have any questions about Xiaoli becoming a student or other subjects, you can write a review about it or you can just PM me. I'll reply back as soon as I can.

Also, due to the current circumstances of the plot and my planning, I don't think I will be able to finish this short filler arc and write out a Christmas holiday chapter for this month December. The next last chapter for this short arc is gonna be out at next year January.

I hope everyone enjoy this year 2019, well despite having received a pretty bad hand injury, it healed up quite nicely and I'm glad I am able to do my usual activities again. Because I won't be back until next year, I'm just gonna say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.