Author Note : I thought this chapter was about to make it in January, but then Life decided to say that it should not and should be published at this month February instead. Schoolwork was pretty irritating, two separate and huge reports I had to make for certain subjects and now I'm glad it's all over.
Well, this chapter has now reached over 200K words. I just wanna say that from day one when I first started writing, I never believe this story would be able to reach where it's now at. It's all thanks to you guys for taking your time to read my story and continuing with the awesome support. Without any further or do, please enjoy.
Chapter 41 : Ready Or Not?
As we arrived and entered at Xiaoli's clothing shop, they've immediately closed the place up for a week or two for it to be repair and to recover from the robbery. After closing the whole place up, the two fox led me to their house which is connected behind rightward at the clothing shop, hmm looks pretty convenient when preparing the open the store during morning.
When we arrived at front of the door of the back house, Han gave the small sized wooden door a couple of knocks. Not long, a red vixen wearing a qipao, almost identical to Xiaoli's qipao with the cold cyan with silver vine patterns in the sides, the only difference is that the other red vixen's qipao is that her qipao has a much darker color.
"Han!" The red vixen called out his name. Not even a second has pass, the both foxes wrapped their arms around each other and soon shared a kiss in their lips. After they've finished with their kiss, Han turned his head to me.
"Master Lukas, I would like you to meet my beautiful and loving wife, Liling." She then smiled at my presence before bowing down slightly.
"It's an honor to meet you in person, Master Lukas." Liling greeted me before straightening her posture. "Please come inside!" She spoke with a cheerful and friendly voice, motioning for me to enter the back houses except for me as the door was barely fit for my body size. After successfully entered the back house without causing any trouble budging in, Liling has already prepared lunch for us all as all three of the fox family sat down chair, leaving me sitting on the floor with my leg crossed as the table was already around my chest level. We began eating lunch that Liling has made for us.
"This is good." I piped up, eating a spoonful of soy beans.
"I'm glad you enjoyed it, Xiaoli doesn't like eating them when she was a kit." Liling spoke.
"Come on, I now love it when you make these." Xiaoli said. "Anyway, so how comfortable are you feeling, Master Lukas?" I chuckled, repositioning my limbs and body for more comfort.
"It very comfortable. But due to my natural stature, I would say it's a bit tight for me, kinda wish I was around your size to feel it." I sheepishly rubbed the back of my neck. Xiaoli's ears soon drooped.
"Oh I'm sorry-"
"It's okay, really, I'll get used to this somehow." I assured, before eating a spoonful of rice with different cooked vegetables. "And please for the hundreds of times, will you guys drop the 'master'. Just call me Lukas, kinda want to feel like an average normal guest." Xiaoli nodded.
"I heard of you from other friends. But meeting you in person and having you at our house just makes me very excited. I have so many questions to ask you." Han spoke, sounding quite eager to ask me questions.
"Sure, go ahead, and you two as well" I glanced at the two nearly identical vixens.
"Okay, I'll go first. Where did you came from and how did you get here? Because I never seen someone like you before in my life." Han asked.
"I would say I came from a country that's extremely far away from the west, but this gonna be a pretty weird story though." I soon start making up a false story of my own to covered the truth of how I was being transported from my world and time to this whole new world by Oogway. "It started out at my country when I decided to go on a solo sailing. During those four days of sailing all by myself, an enormous storm just appeared out of nowhere. A gigantic tall and large wave has consumed the whole boat that I was in, breaking it into pieces, but I was luckily to grab on a piece of the boat while enduring the storm for hours until my consciousness has collapsed. When I woke up, next thing I thought I was in heaven as I thought I died in the middle of the stormy ocean, but it wasn't. I realized that the large piece that I was holding has managed to drift and brought me to a new land, and that's how I got here." They all seemed to buy it, which I released a breath of relief inside my mind.
"How did you became a student in the Jade Palace and then a master?" Liling asked, placing her bowl in the table as she finished the content inside it.
"Well, after a couple of days of coping and surviving on my own, I soon decided to find some civilizations." I paused before continuing. "When I found the Valley Of Peace, I entered the village without anyone noticing, until the Dragon Warrior saw me and tried to capture me, but I was able to escape and fled. Afterwards at one night, I was merely walking around the streets to inspect the place, until the Dragon Warrior and the Furious Five has ambushed me. Knowing that I could not fight them all, I decided that the best option is to run like hell, it was proved to be ineffective as they've already diverse out a plan and caught me and then send me to Chorh-Gom Prison for being an unknown threat that they perceived to be very dangerous."
"How did you escape there, I heard it's nearly impossible to escape from such a place like Chorh-Gom Prison?" Liling field her head slightly.
"Normally I could just blast the door open with my Hadoken, but I can't risk since it'll just cause an unwanted commotion that'll prevent me to escape and I'll have to fight off all of the guards." I said. "Also, when I said when they send me to Chorh-Gom Prison, I think the most logical reason I can think of why they've send me there is because they've saw that I can do stuff like this." I lifted one hand before charging a small glowing blue energy ball that's floating on my palm just to show off a bit before letting the blue energy ball fades away. I then noticed all three foxes's face are filled with awestruck.
"W-What sorcery was that?" Han stuttered in surprise. I remained quiet for a moment. "Sorry, please continue."
"Anyway, I couldn't escape my cell like that until one moment, a sudden explosion has occurred not far as there were unknown militants had breached Chorh-Gom Prison. They all began freeing the prisoners and is recruiting them to their group, but for me, I only took advantage of the situation and escaped. After escaping the prison and began surviving on my own again for more than a day. By some kind of luck, I accidentally made it back to the Valley Of Peace again, I tried to walk back to the Valley Of Peace with more caution, but it was still proved to be in vain as the Dragon Warrior and the Furious Five had caught me again. Instead of returning me back to the prison, the Dragon Warrior suddenly has show to have a change of heart somehow and suggested that I should stay and help them protect the Valley Of Peace, which it all went well as Master Shifu accepted the Dragon Warrior's suggestion and accepted me as a student."
"Jeez, I never knew you were like that before." Xiaoli uttered. "But I'm just glad where your at now, protecting the innocent lives of the Valley Of Peace." I smiled at her.
"Thanks."
Once we all finished eating out lunch, me and Xiaoli went out of the back house and exit from the store's front door while her parents told her to be careful. As we both are walking in the dirt path, we eventually arrived at a random house that looks like it was abandoned just by looking how shady and dusty it become over the following years it was being left. I walked towards the dusty old door, grabbed the rusty doorknob and turn it and opened it as we both entered. For a common house, it was quite bright due to the sunlight were able to shine through the windows and the holes and cracks on the roof and walls of this house, it also looks quite wide indeed, perfect for teaching her some basic fighting moves and techniques.
"Are we gonna start now?" Xiaoli inquired.
"If you wish so." I replied before motioned her to stand at from a good distance while facing my direction. "Before we could began some lesson, show me what you can do first." I spoke, casting off my causal tone to a more serious one. She nodded nervously. "Lets began with a punch." I looked around before I saw a dusty wide wooden plank laying on the floor. I picked it up and hold it tightly with my both hands facing at vixen.
"You want me to punch that wooden plank?" Xiaoli asked. I then patted off the dust from the wooden plank.
"Yes, now go on, there's no need to be afraid." I assured. She nodded, sprinting forwards and did an average basic straight punch as her fist had planted itself on the wide wooden plank while my both hand felt the little force from it. After a brief of seconds, she began whimpering before disconnecting her fist from the plank.
"Oww..." She groaned. "Is this how you masters train daily?" She asked as her whimpering has stopped.
"Yes, but don't worry, those paws of yours will get used to it if you kept doing this daily." I said. "Now try doing a kick this time." I now decided to placed more gripping power for my both hand to hold the wide wooden plank harder.
She bended downward before going at full sprint again, stopping at one certain step and threw a basic average forward kick as my hands felt more force and flinched more. After analyzing and comparing her the power of her punch and her kick, the result was that she uses her legs are more powerful and stronger than her arms. "Good, it seems that you feel less pain when your use your kicks rather than punches the plank. Alright, next up is sharpening your reflexes."
"W-What, reflexes?" She inquired with slightly widened eyes.
"Simple, you'll try dodge or block my attacks from slow to fast." I replied with few hand gestures, she then nodded nervously before gulping. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna hit you hard, just some soft stuff." I assured her.
The training began with me throwing a slow side punch, which she dodged it well, the second attack of mine was a straight punch, she dodged. After many dodged and even some blocks, I began to speed things up while adding a new rule for her.
"Alright I'm gonna go start throwing attacks faster and I decided to add a new rule. You must now try to land a hit on me." I added. The looks on her face was far more nervous than the last one, not because I'm gonna increase my attack sped, but now she must now try to land a hit on me as well. "Perhaps lets not make this is a reflex training anymore. Now it's a sparring match, be well prepared!" I warned.
I did slow spinning hand chop, which she ducked and dodged, I proceed my attack with many soft and slow hits and began speeding up the attacks to pressure her to attack me. With her being opened now, I struck her with a palm strike. To my surprise, she managed to block it with both of her forearm in a X-shaped block, but not completely as she stumbled back. I stopped, letting her some few breaths before continuing the match as her head is a bit soaked with sweat.
"Your doing quite well I see." I said. After her panting session has stabilized, she looked at me with her ears perked up.
"R-Really?" She uttered. I nodded, placing my fighting stance back on.
"Alright, I am going to increase the difficulty for you. Are you ready?" I spoke with a stern voice.
"Yeah! Give me your best shot!" Woah... wasn't expecting that kind of response from a timid and quiet girl like her. I then smirked at her sudden newfound attitude.
The fighting practice went on as she threw the first punch. She was fast, but still a long way to go if she wants to land a blow on me that easily. I blocked her punch with my forearm and hit back with a low punch. She again, block it as her body has nearly loss its balance and stumble to the ground. Xiaoli managed to stabilized herself and kept going. She threw a low kick on my knee, but she was still slow to me as I avoided her low kick by dashing backward as her low kick missed my knee. I looked at her and noticed a heavy punch as her fist has brushed across my shoulder, almost giving my shoulder a direct hit. I then ended this fighting practice by performing a soft palm strike that hits the vixen on her lower stomach, causing her to only fall on a sitting posture on the dusty wooden floor. She's again, was almost reaching towards an exhausted state as I can tell from how heavy her breaths were and the amount of sweats drenching her head and body.
"You did quite well on your first day. I'm impressed." I complimented. Not even a second, she got excited and stood up quickly as she rushed towards me in a hobbling manner.
"Oh man! I never believe that I could've fight like that in my whole entire life!" She shouted out excitedly and proudly with a slightly noticeable deeper feminine voice of hers as it made me chuckled at her new attitude. When she noticed me chuckled at her, she instantly went from her competitive and bold side back to her timid and quiet self. She then realized her excited outburst and stroked the left side of her neck sheepishly with her both arms drooped slightly, smiling meekly at me as she looked at me. "I-I'm sorry Lukas, I don't know what came over me." She mumbled, lowering her head as she was a bit embarrassed by her sudden excited outburst while patting off the dusts her clothings and fur that managed to fly and land of her.
"Its nothing, but I didn't believed you were this bold." I grinned softly. "About the result from the fighting practice. It turns out your current way of fighting has already possessed a good amount of speed for a beginner and flexibility if I'm being more detailed here."
"What should I work on to improve if I wanna get stronger?" She asked eagerly. I then released our a low sigh.
"Tell you the truth, this is not even Kung Fu I'm trying to teach you." Her eyes widened open up on hearing what I just said.
"WHAT?" She nearly screamed before covering her mouth, realizing that people can hear her from outside of the abandoned dusty house that we're both currently in. "B-But I thought you know-"
"Know Kung Fu?" I finished the sentence for her. "The funny thing is that I don't use Kung Fu completely, rather, I combined the smoothness and fluidness of Kung Fu with a different martial art style that I primarily utilized before becoming a student in the Jade Palace."
"Then what martial art style that you mix it with Kung Fu?" Xiaoli asked.
"The Ansatsuken." I answered.
"Ans-Ansatsoo-wha?" She mispronounced. "Never heard of it, but from the way how you say the name of it, it certainly sounded like a Japanese martial art though."
"Because it is."
"So how does this Japanese martial art works like?"
"To me, this martial art I utilized mostly focuses on striking, offensive tactics, timing and precision." She was now even more curious.
"It sounds quite interesting, tell me more."
"Remember when I showed you and your family this." I lift my hand as I charged a single-handed Hadoken. She was again, dropping her jaw open slightly as she began mesmerizing the bright blue energy ball that's floating on the palm of my right hand.
"Like what my dad said, what kind of sorcery is this?" She asked, I then made the floating blue energy ball fade away before explaining that this is not some sort of witchcraft.
"Have you ever heard of Chi?" I inquired.
"Not much, but I read some books about it and it said it's extremely difficult to even achieve the slightest control of it. The only person I know who can control Chi fluently is the great Master Oogway." She replied.
"True, but the Ansatsuken for me, is the only known martial art I know that has the fastest methods of training on how to channel and harness the flow of Ki energy."
"What's Ki?" Xiaoli asked.
"Ki is life energy just like Chi, the only difference is that the Japanese calls it Ki rather than Chi as how the Chinese calls it. Both Ki and Chi are the same life energy with the same principles."
"Amazing, can you teach me how to channel this Chi, Ki or life energy or whatever you call it." She requests eagerly. I then sighed.
"Sorry, I think I cannot do that." Her bright cheery expression grew into a despondent one as I denied her request.
"But why?" She asked.
"Because this is literally your first day and lesson that involves fighting, you can't just simply learn everything in one day. It takes years of hard work and vigorous practice for an individual like me to achieve the amount of skill and control that I have now." I replied. "Believe me, your just not ready yet to learn and practice Ki or Chi yet, you'll need maximum effort and at all time, you'll also need sheer willpower to overcome the weight of the training on how to harness the flow of life energy."
"Okay." She complied.
"Alright, now that our short little break is over, ready for more training?" I asked.
"Yes." She nodded, putting up her fighting stance.
"Hey, we're not gonna do a fighting practice again for now, this time, I'll try to sharpen your skill with fighting techniques." I motioned my hand for to lower her fighting stance, which she did anyway. "First, we'll start with a high kick." I did a high straight kick as my leg rose up to the air and passed the level my head slightly. "Now you try." I gestured.
"Here goes." She spoke, before taking one step and does a high kick, but due to her inexperience in martial art, her other leg balancing her whole body flinched significantly, causing her whole body to spin and... did a spinning high kick instead of a high kick and fell on the dusty wooden floor again. "Owww..." She groaned with her back on the floor. I approached by her side and helped her up before I couldn't hold it anymore and let out a short chortle.
"That was quite surprising and humorous." I spoke, referring from her accidentally doing a spinning high kick instead of a normal high kick. She too chuckled softly. "I suppose that unexpected kick of your could count as well. Now, are you ready for a second sparring match?" She nodded in response.
The second sparring match began with me going for the first strike. I threw a straight punch at her, she barely dodged it by taking a step backward before moving forward to swing some punches at me, I blocked all of them with my hands and forearm before countering back with a side punch, which she again, blocked it with her small and surprisingly strong forearm. She reacted quickly and send a straight punch, causing me to react to it and leaned my head down. Before I could recover, she was indeed doing far better from the last match we both had. The red vixen threw a high kick at me, but the kick was still slow for me as I caught her ankle and shoved it away as the force of my shove caused her whole to began falling on the dusty wooden floor. Unexpectedly, she prevented herself from falling on the floor by placing both of her paws on the dusty floor and pushed herself up.
"That was a lousy recovery, do it better next time." I spoke coldly, she dropped her fighting stance and now has a saddened expression on her face. "I'm just kidding, your doing far better than ever." Her saddened expression faded away and was soon placed with a gleeful smile as she placed her stance back.
"Let's continue on, Master Lukas." She said. I nodded in response.
She sprinted at me with full speed as I prepared my defensive stance on. When I saw her made a movement of her upcoming attack, I stopped her by doing a spinning hand-chop aiming at her shoulder. Xiaoli again, has barely avoided by lowering her whole body down as my spinning hand-chop missed her by centimeters. She raised her body up and did a low forward punch in a slight crouched state with far more speed and velocity.
She's getting quite the hang of this...
I decided to increase the difficulty of this fighting practice by countering her low forward punch with me lifting my knee up the block it, hitting and pushing away her paw and did a soft and gentle back kick that hit her by the left side of her abdomen, sending her flying to the floor by less than two meter and a half. She slowly stood up, panting and sweating like crazy as she clenched the left side of her abdomen with her right paw until she fall on her right knee. I then got worried as I rushed to aid her and placed my hand my her shoulder as I crouched down, looking at her with a very concerned look.
"Are you okay?" I inquired worriedly, almost raising my voice.
"Yeah..." She replied through her heavy breath. "Just need to rest a little more before we can continue." I later began thinking thoughtfully of this.
"I think that's enough for today." I said.
"Wait, I can still keep going." She uttered with pain before coughing.
"No, I'm serious, I think I may have used a little too much force with the back kick I did on you there. I'm sorry, I didn't want you hurt you." I frowned a bit.
"It's alright, it was just a little mistake you just did." Xiaoli assured, before having the strength of standing up and managed to shrug off the pain. "It's getting late, the sun is going down fast, I better head back to my home." She noticed, by looking outside the broken window of this house and saw the sun is descending.
"Alright, I'll walk with you to your home." I offered.
"Sure, okay." She accepted.
Once we both got outside of the abandoned house. Both of us were able to gotten back to the clothing shop. The shop is closed, but until the young red vixen walked near the closed and locked large front door as she gave it a couple of knocks. The sound of someone walking toward the door from the inside was now hearable before the hearing a three metal clinking sounds, unlocking the door and opens it, revealing Han was the one who opened the locked door for us two. Not long, he noticed the qipao of Xiaoli was a bit dirtied and has some dust clinging on it.
"Lukas, would you care to tell me why is my daughter's clothing is all dirtied and dusted?" Han questioned.
"It was all part of the training." I replied, Han didn't seem to believe me.
"It's true, we both had some fighting practices and technique lessons, along with both of us sparred with each other twice today."
"Did he hurt you?" Han asked worriedly.
"No, he said he'll go as softest and gentlest as possible, which he did and I was able to learn some few fighting experiences and moves while I didn't got hurt at all." I was surprised that she lied to her father about me accidentally hurting her during her training.
"I see, is it good to heart that." Han said as his daughter complied and entered inside the house. He then shifted his attention to me. "I'm glad you were able to think of the safest and yet the most effective way of training my daughter, maybe some day, she'll become a student in the Jade Palace in the future." I scratched the back of my neck.
"No problem, I actually enjoyed teaching her how to fight." I let out a small smile. "By the way, you don't really seem to be that worried about your daughter training these sort of stuff." I inquired.
"Because you were there with her, always keeping a close eye on her for the whole time. I'm getting a good feeling that you'll be a great teacher someday." Han answered. I chuckled lightly.
"Thanks, I'll try my best." I replied.
After I bid my goodbye with Han, I noticed that the sun still not doing yet, I might as well go back the Jade Palace. Before I could start making my way back up there, I remember that I've told Mr. Ping to made those Melting-sweet Bean Buns for me and the rest of the guys in the Jade Palace. Once I entered Mr. Ping's restaurant, he was able to preserved those eight bean buns in a paper wraps, when he handed the paper wrap that has the content inside it, I peeled the paper wraps open and took a small sniff. I felt a tremendous jolt at the fresh sweet and sugary scent. Oh god, I feel like I could shed a tear of joy because of this amazing aroma.
Finally reached the top of the Jade Mountain by walking up from the thousand steps from the super long stone staircase, I checked the beans buns in the paper wraps and they all seem pretty fine and none of them were squished. I took a few deep breaths before entering the tall double door entrance of the Jade Palace.
After walking through the Hall Of Warriors, I was able to reached the kitchen where everyone meet after every end of the day. When I entered, everyone set their eyes on me as I grab a seat and sat next to Po and Crane, expect for Monkey and Mantis as both of them didn't even noticed, I take a closer look and it turns out both were currently sleeping with their heads resting on the table with both arms (front legs for Mantis since he's a bug) supporting their heads. I then sighed before ignoring those two.
"So everyone, how was your day?" I spoke, lighting up a casual conversation.
"Nothing much, just relaxing, eating and sleeping I guess." Po said.
"Me and Crane were spending some time down at the west side of the Valley Of Peace, it was quite nice spending some time together." Viper said as both of them joined in.
"Today has been a great day." Tigress's spoke. "These three days of spending time bonding and getting know my parents was very pleasant and if am being sincere here, it was the most joyful moment in my life." Her expression and tone grew dejected, "Unfortunately, they've said they must go back to their 'hidden' village." I turned my attention to the slightly dejected tiger.
"Hey cheer up Tigress, I know they've had to go, but at least you were able to reunite with them and spent some time with them as well. I'm positive that they're will always be next time when they both return back to the Valley Of Peace." My words was able to cheer her up as I can see it by how she lift up her eyes.
"Thanks." She responded. I then turned my gaze at the two certain dudes. Soon, my nose has picked up a weird strong, yet familiar smell. I then noticed both the monkey and the green bug's face was noticeably red. Oh, now I see what's going here.
"Well, look what do we have here?" I spoke playfully, before leaning forwards and extended my arm across the table as I pinched and gently pulls one of Mantis's antenna with fingers, which it caused the green bug to wake up yelping in pain as he began struggling to break free. I soon let go, causing the green bug to be fling himself back with his own force as he fell off the table, earning few chuckles from the others.
"I could've broke one of my leg during that fall!" He exclaimed, sounding quite gibberish and groggily at the same time in a slow manner.
"Sorry, but I only intended to wake you up." I replied. I turned my gaze from Mantis to Monkey. "And one more to go." I grinned, rubbing my both hand while accelerating the rubbing speed before my both hands are now hot as I soon lightly smacked Monkey on the top of his head, causing him to do the 'monkey-scream'. "It's wakey-wakey time, ya drunk-ass!" I called the drunken sleeping monkey up.
"W-What?" He wakes up with his head swiveled multiple times in a row before massaging the top of his head. "Did you just-"
"Yep, I did. But with the intention of waking your drunken ass up." I interjected. "Well it seems that everyone in here expect you two has speak of how was today. Now if you two don't mind, why don't you both tell us how was it for you two today?" I motioned. The two eventually picked got a grip on themselves, not letting the alcohol affecting their brain before speaking.
"Today was awesome." Monkey spoke. "Not at the first part, me and my buddy Mantis has reached our liquor's limit and slept at the bar for a couple of good hours. And the best part is... I've finally gotten my way with a sexy-looking serval girl with my careful smooth talk and it worked! She gave me a kiss on my lip. Man, haven't gotten a kiss like that ever since I've gotten kissed that cute otter girl a year and a half ago!" The excited monkey spoke in enthusiasm. I chuckled at his success.
"Well, congratulation my friend, you've finally gotten a kiss from a random stranger." I congratulated the monkey before locking my eyes on the green bug's. "And what about you? Have you got a kiss from a girl yet?" I asked, leaning closer to Mantis.
"Shut it." The praying mantis groaned.
"Aw come on!" I teased further. The praying mantis signed as he turned his face around, showing that his left cheek has got slapped as there was a large red hot mark with some sort of a paw figure on the left side of his face. At that moment, I burst out laughing as I realized that Mantis failed miserably at getting a kiss from a girl and got slapped as a reward for his 'perverted-rushing' tactics of how he tries to impress the ladies with his way of smooth talk.
"Quite laughing dammit! Your gonna make this slap mark burns even hotter on my face!" Mantis retorted. Eventually, I calm myself down.
"Oh... Oh jeez... I'm sorry." I managed to stop laughing. "But still, congratulation over your alternative victory." I congratulated the green bug with some sarcasm.
"You'll never know how I feel." Mantis lowered his head.
"Of course I won't understand you, you completely unrestrained yourself when trying to make a move on a woman." I sat back to my seat with a straightened posture with my both arms resting on the table. "If you wanna win a kiss from a woman, I highly suggest you to start taking some lessons from your best friend Monkey right next to you since he has far more control over himself than you are." Upon hearing my suggestion, Mantis gasped.
"There's no way I'm gonna start taking lesson from a fuck-boy like him!" Mantis yelled, Monkey then frowned from how Mantis called him.
"Heeey... that wasn't very nice." Monkey spoke with a tone shown that he was slightly being hurt by Mantis called him that. I then signed before slightly sharpening the appearance of my expression.
"Oh, a 'fuck-boy' you say? Monkey is not a fuck-boy, rather, I believe he's more of a 'gentleman' because he treats women with respect and dignity about who they are and how they feel, and especially does not rush to the point like you do as you treat them like they're inanimated objects that doesn't have feelings. Your just guy who's really bad dealing with women, that's all I would have to say." Upon hearing what I've said, Mantis was lost in words as I bet that there's nobody has ever talked to him about his ways with women this seriously as how I did. "If you have nothing to say, then I suggest you should to start taking some time thinking about this." The praying mantis nodded, before decided to remain silent.
"Mantis, are you okay?" Monkey asked. The praying mantis set his gaze at his best friend's eyes.
"Like how Lukas said, I should take some time thinking about what he said." Mantis replied with a quiet voice as he soon exhaled out a low breath. I soon felt a little bad for being grating with the praying mantis, I then take a deep breath.
"Mantis... I'm... umm... sorry for being too critical towards you there, didn't mean to be so harsh at you, guess my brain slipped rather my mouth has." I apologized, earning a small smile from the praying mantis. The green bug shifted his gaze toward Monkey.
"Thanks." Mantis replied before turning at Monkey. "Listen, I don't know what came over me that made me called you 'fuck-boy'. So yeah, I'm sorry." Monkey smiled at Mantis's apology.
"It's alright, apology accepted." Monkey extended out his hand with a fist formed, gesturing for Mantis to give him a fist-pump, which the green bug did.
"Alright, with that's finished, I think I brought something for everyone to lighten up this atmosphere in here with these." I said, pulling a paper wrap filled with loads of contents from my slack's pocket as I slowly slide it at the middle of the table.
"Smells familiar." Po sniffed.
"Oh, it is familiar alright." I replied, tearing the wraps apart, revealing the eight aromatic Melting-sweet Bean Buns. I glanced at Po and chucked as when he saw these bean buns, he looks like he was about to fly straight up to stars of the night.
"So you finally taken up my suggestion!" The panda spoke with a mix of excitement and enthusiasm.
"Yeah, only to stop you from irritating me as you've kept asking from time to time." I wrapped my both arms around each other. "But now I see why you kept constantly suggesting me to try this new food, it's freakin good." The panda smiled.
"Heh, sorry about those couple of days annoying you, but I'm glad you enjoyed these bean buns." The panda leaned his arm forward and pick up one of the eight bean buns before finishing the bean bun in one bite... no, he just put it inside his mouth and the thing just... disappeared.
Once everyone noticed my surprised expression of the bean bun's tastes, everyone chuckled and took one for each as we each of us took a quick bite. As expected, all of us shared a small and very satisfying moan, even Tigress, the most quiet and reserved person among us was able to make a slight satisfying noice after tasting this sweet bean bun. After finishing our last bites of these bean buns, there was currently only one left on the table. I then realized something.
Oh crap! This last one here was supposed to be for Shifu... !
I glanced at Po, the panda was about to grab the last bean bun and consume it with one chomp. My whole body's muscles tensed up for a split second, moving my arm with the fastest speed that I could ever generate, snatching the last sweet bean bun before Po does. The panda then raised an eyebrow in slight confusion.
"Jeez chill out Lukas, I didn't knew you were this... hungry." Po uttered.
"No I'm not, I think you've forgot that this last one here is for Master Shifu." I pointed at the last sweet bean bun.
"Actually, I heard that Master Shifu doesn't really like sweet things as he said that people around his age shouldn't be eating food that contains high level of sugar." Crane piped up. "So yeah, it's probably not gonna be a good idea."
"Alright." I complied to Crane's warning before chucking the last bean bun on Po as the panda opened his mouth wide and snatched it.
"Oh man, the last one is always just taste far better than the rest!" Po spoke with his mouth holding the last bean bun. A small chortle managed to get out from my mouth due to the way of Po ate the whole thing effortlessly.
After a while, everyone head back to sleep, leaving me and Viper in the kitchen cleaning the place up. I then remembered something, I was able to recall one year ago back then during at the Winter Festival, at one of those moment, I've saw that both Crane and Viper were quite enjoying their long conversation, and if my memories are clear enough, I've also noticed that both of their face are a bit red. I kinda want to ask her about what's up with Crane right now? But since Life has been quite convenient among these days, today is the the twelfth day of February, and you know what event it's going to occur when two more days passes by. Hehe... things are certainly about to be quite thoroughly juicy and interesting indeed.
Author Note : Boom. First chapter of the year, check. I don't really have much to say because I am writing this author note while the clock is ticking close to 1AM. The next chapter will be focused on Valentine's Day. Fortunately, now with those two huge reports I've finished for school, the schoolwork should be chill and I will have more time to write out a new chapter. I planned to releasing the next chapter a day prior Valentine's Day.
About the scene where Lukas explained Xiaoli about Ki and Chi are the same energy. I honestly have no idea about that and decide to write it down like that and hoped what I wrote was okay. If you have any correct information about Ki and Chi being the same energy, please write your opinion about it through Review or PM.
Please leave a Follow, Favorite or write a Review if you want to support the story. If you still have questions and don't feel like writing a Review, you can go ahead and PM me about your question and I'll respond back. I will start writing the next chapter after this weekend is over. Since I'm pretty tired at the moment, I will be taking my sleep now.