21. Cornered
Yin-Yu looked worriedly at Shen, who was lying peacefully in a bed. The doctor checked the surgical wound and then he covered him up again.
"How is he, doctor?" she asked softly.
The monkey, and former army doctor, swayed his head. "I guess he'll wake up soon. Then we have to see how he feels."
He looked at the peahen with a scrutiny. "But you don't look exactly fit either. You should also take a rest."
But Yin-Yu shook her head. "I'm doing well."
"Then eat or drink something at least," he advised firmly and pushed the peahen out of the room.
Yin-Yu was reluctant to leave Shen alone. But as they stood in the hallway, she heard Po and Shenmi laughing together. She followed the doctor down the stairs into a kind of dining room, where the panda and the peacock girl romped on the floor. Po lay on his back and held the peacock girl over his head.
"Now you are flying directly above the great dragon warrior", Po laughed and waved the girl back and forth. Then he jumped up and ran across the room with her.
When Shenmi saw her mother, she spread her wings even further.
"Look, mom, I can fly!"
"Watch out!" Po cried. "Now you're flying in reality!"
He threw the girl in the air. Shenmi squeaked and flapped her wings briefly, then the gravity pulled her back down and she landed safely in Po's hands.
Yin-Yu smiled. "Well, not so stormy."
"Okay, mom."
Po put the girl back down on the floor.
"How is he?" the panda wanted to know.
Yin-Yu shook her head. "We have to wait until he wakes up."
Meanwhile, Shenmi had clung to her mother's shirt and looked up at her worriedly. "But he will come back, won't he?"
The peahen smiled at her. "Yes, of course he'll be back. Your father is strong."
"But he said he is ill."
"What gives you that idea?"
Po cleared his throat loudly. "Hey, I think I can smell something to eat."
He held his nose up in the air. "One of the mountain sheep went into the kitchen, especially for us. You must be hungry."
Yin-Yu sighed. "Well, maybe a little…"
"Fine!" Po cried enthusiastically and pushed her to the dining room table.
As if on cue, a sheep stuck its head into the room. "Soup is ready."
Po clapped his hands. "Great! I'm very hungry. I still know your kitchen well. Hey! Maybe we should register as permanent guests."
Po laughed. Yin-Yu reluctantly joined in his joke.
In the chamber, the voices from the adjoining rooms echoed through the silence. The white peacock in the bed breathed calmly and evenly until he took a deep breath. Then he began to blink. Groaning, he opened his eyes. At first, everything circled around him. Shen needed a few minutes to wake up halfway from the anesthesia. Only then he found strength enough to look around. He saw wooden walls and furnishings of a simple house. His glance wandered to the window, which was covered with a curtain, but he immediately noticed that it was night. Only the moon got through to him.
Shen narrowed his eyes. Somehow this place seemed familiar to him.
He tried to remember what he had last seen.
He had been on the ship. In his cabin. On a table. Then this smell that forced him to sleep...
At last, it all came back to him. He pushed the blanket aside and stood up. It took a while before he felt safe enough to get up.
At first, he swayed, but then he found his balance and went to the door. The fresh wound on his stomach was uncomfortable, but he ignored the pain. He walked slowly to the stairs that led down.
In the dining room, Po sipped the soup with relish, while Shenmi and Yin-Yu ate theirs with a spoon. But the two birds did not let the panda's eating habits disturb them. The doctor had retired himself into a corner and dozed off a little.
In the next moment, the door opened and Wang and Huan entered.
Po quickly wiped a noodle from his mouth.
"Oh, hey, buddy! Is everything okay out there?"
"More or less." With a serious expression, the king of the Huns went to the table. "I can only hope that the calm is not deceptive."
Po swallowed down a noodle. "Well, if so, then we have to be ready for an attack…"
Suddenly, he saw a white figure out of the corner of his eye. Immediately his glance wandered to the stairs where Shen was standing.
"Oh, you woke up?"
Yin-Yu jumped up in horror. "Shen! You are not allowed to stand up! You have to stay in bed!"
"Daddy!"
Immediately the girl rushed towards her father. In relief, Shen took her in his arms.
"I'm pleased to see that you are all right," Shen said in a voice that was still weak, which provoked the doctor's protest.
"Mister, you've had an operation," the doctor warned reproachfully.
Shen snorted. "That won't kill me. What actually happened?"
"Well," Po began. "We thought it would be best to make a stop in the sheep village. We had to let the ship go on, this is the only way we could lead the geckos on the wrong track. The rest of the time we look for a plan."
Shen raised his eyebrows. "And?"
The panda scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Well, we… we are still working on it."
In the next moment, Shen's eyes narrowed. "I suppose you left him on the ship, right?"
Po looked up in surprise. "Whom do you mean?"
The white peacock narrowed his eyes even more. "You know exactly who I mean!"
Po went through a shiver. Shen didn't look relaxed. "Uh…" Po's glance wandered to Wang. "I don't know we should have left him on the ship."
He swallowed hard. Shen's peacock comb began to shake. He pushed Shenmi aside and walked steadily towards the panda.
"Where is this wicked bird?!" he snapped at the dragon warrior.
Po ducked his head. "Uh... why do you want to know…?"
Yin-Yu was shocked when Shen grabbed the panda roughly by the neck. "Where is he?!"
Wang didn't want Shen to get any more upset and pointed outside.
"There in the small shed, my people keep watch in front of it…"
Shen didn't need to know anything more. He ran to the door and stormed outside.
"Shen!" Immediately, Yin-Yu followed him. Just like the others. But Shen could no longer be stopped and walked towards the hut.
Liu sighed heavily. Xiang was still lying there on some blankets and said no word even though he was awake. She had hung a lantern on a beam to better examine the wound on his foot. At least Wang had allowed her to check on him.
She raised her head when she heard loud voices outside. Then the door was thrown open and Shen entered the room. His gaze immediately fell on Xiang.
Liu stood up, startled. "No, please, don't hurt him!"
But Shen just pushed her aside. "Oh, don't worry," he hissed. "I'm just going to prune his feathers a little!"
Po and the others couldn't intervene in time. Shen just yanked up the lying blue peacock and lunged out. Even Liu couldn't prevent the slap in the face. Xiang fell backwards and slammed against the wall.
Po looked at Shen in disbelief. "Shen! Don't you think he had enough?!
Suddenly, the blue peacock straightened up and shook his head violently. His angry eyes met the white peacock.
"HOW DARE YOU?!"
Immediately, Xiang pounced on Shen. Both tumbled to the ground and fought on there.
Po stared at the two peacocks in horror. "Hey, what's that supposed to be?"
In vain, he tried to drag Shen out of the tussle somehow, but that only spurred the two rulers on even more.
Finally, Wang pushed his way into the room. "Stop it! Go apart!"
The king of the Huns was only able to squeeze himself between the wrestling peacocks with great difficulty. He grabbed each of them by the wing and tore them apart. The peacocks stared at each other like two little boys, ready to attack each other again at any time.
"That's a real rooster fight," Po mumbled.
Xiang had recovered so far and rubbed angrily his still aching face from Shen's slap in the face.
"You have a rowdy way of introducing yourself," he snapped.
Shen hissed back. "That was for the kidnapping of my daughter!..." But then the white peacock touched his head and fell over, but was caught by Po and Wang at the last moment.
"I always say," the doctor said, who also ran after him, shaking his head. "If you are not used to anesthesia, you shouldn't overdo it."
In the next moment, Shen found himself in Yin-Yu's wings.
"Please," she asked him. "Do me a favor and go back to bed, okay?"
But this time, Shen was not easily changed and pointed threateningly at Xiang. "I don't leave until I know what's going on. Because of him, we would almost all be dead!"
Now it was Liu who spoke a word of power. "Why? It wasn't his fault."
Shen gave her a cutting look. "Oh, really? And who is after him all the time?!"
Liu avoided his gaze and ducked her head.
Wang tried to calm things down a bit. "Shouldn't we only discuss the whole thing later…"
"No!" Shen cut him off. "Now!"
All eyes wandered to Xiang. He had leaned against the opposite wall and was still looking angrily at everyone. Finally, he looked away.
"It's none of your business."
Shen looked like he was about to strangle Xiang. He was about to make a leap at him when Po and Wang held him by the shoulders warningly. The white peacock gave in to this gesture reluctantly, but his anger remained unbroken.
Slowly, Xiang dared to look at Shen again, and again they both fought through their eyes, which only made Shen all the angrier.
"I should have stabbed you back then," he growled.
Xiang snorted rebelliously. "Well then do it."
Again, Shen was about to jump at the peacock, but Po held the peacock by the wing and turned him backwards towards him.
"Shen, that's useless," the panda whispered to him. "We have to change our methods."
"How long have you been an interrogator?" Shen snapped.
Po shrugged. "Well, never actually. But someone like me, who has dealt with criminals so often has learned a lot. We can't force him to tell us something. We have to break down his reserve somehow."
"And what do you suggest?" Shen hissed at him in a whisper.
But instead, Po's glance fell on the bull Huan, who was also looking into the small room. Together with little Shenmi, who pushed herself back to her mother.
"Huan, you knew Chiwa and her sister, didn't you?"
The bull nodded hesitantly. He just didn't seem sure himself whether he knew her well after that evening.
Po raised his thumb. "Just play along. Say anything, no matter what about her."
With that, the panda turned back and cleared his throat. "Well, then we'll just draw our own conclusions."
Xiang glared at him as he struggled to hold on to the wall. It was now extremely difficult for him to stand on just one leg again.
"Let's summarize," Po continued. "In any case, the fact is that you killed your mother."
Xiang crossed his arms and looked to the side. "You have no evidence for that."
"Still, your aunt would never say that for no reason, would she?"
He gave Huan a light nudge in the ribs.
"Oh yes," the bull agreed. "She was always honest in every way."
The peacock's wings clenched slightly.
Now Wang joined the interrogation. "Murdering a part of a family is a serious offense," he said. "There would be more to it than just prison."
Liu seemed to be the only one who was shocked about this. In Xiang a new anger built up.
"You have no idea what you're talking about," he snapped.
"I can't understand it," Huan continued impassively. But it sounded more like he was talking to himself. "She was always a good mother. She always took good care of him."
Po thought it's best to take a punch further now. "Someone who's hitting a woman," remembering Yin-Yu. "His criminal thinking is then probably not far from murdering a defenseless mother from behind…"
Xiang jumped up. "STOP IT! You are all crazy! My mother was the biggest dregs in the world!"
"How can you say that?" Wang asked, and Po immediately backed him up.
"Maybe you just misunderstood something," the dragon warrior added.
"Misunderstood? Misunderstood?!" Xiang looked like he was going to lose his mind any moment. His body shook with anger. Finally, he limped away from the wall and found strength enough to stand on one leg in front of the group. With trembling wings, he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and stroked the feathers, whereupon his bare bird skin could be seen. "Does that look like a misunderstanding?!"
In the light of the lamp, they saw line-shaped scars on the skin. They seemed to be older, but they were still clearly visible.
Liu held his wings in front of her beak. The others just stared at it, speechless, whereupon Xiang quickly withdrew his wing.
"My body is strewn with her "care"", he snorted in disgust. "The first thing she did was killing my father! Then it should be my turn. Yes, yes. I killed her! Just before she could kill me!"
He threw himself against the wall, turned his back on them, and began to shiver again. "You think I just imagined it? Oh, she'd come up with nice ways with her sister on how to best kill someone for the longest time. They found it downright amusing."
There was a silence. Xiang turned back to them only slowly, staring each in the face. No one could say who believed Xiang's statement or who did not. Xiang's gaze lingered the longest on Shen in particular. Emotional chaos reigned in the room, like broken porcelain whose original image could no longer be recognized. It was only when Shen narrowed his eyes that Xiang backed away a little along the wall. "If you like, continue to propose your theses!" he shouted, but in the next moment he fell back into a whisper. "I still carry the proof with me."
His next look fell first on Liu then on Yin-Yu. The blue peacock huddled in a corner like a cornered animal.
"You're just waiting to kill me, aren't you?" he hissed. "But you won't get me. Not as long as I'm still breathing. Not while I still have the opportunity to get rid of you first."
His face took on that insane look again. It was getting scary for Shenmi and hugging her mother tightly.
"We better go now," Po suggested quickly.
The tension became too extreme.
Wang thought it was a good idea. "Yes, let's go."
The ox pushed the others outside and the blue peacock was left alone with his "proof". As soon as the door was finally closed, Xiang sighed, relieved but also bitter. He paused for a while, then he angrily hit a few garden tools that crashed to the ground. Then he let himself fall on the blankets on the floor and began to cry uncontrollably.
Everybody could feel the relief when everyone was finally back in the house. Po had to shake his fur because his hair was still standing on end. Nobody said a word.
After all, the doctor felt it was his duty to advise his patient.
"You'd better go to bed now," he turned to Shen.
"I'll put him to bed," Yin-Yu offered herself. Shen did not protest. He was still a little withdrawn himself. The peahen tried to fathom what was on his mind, but Shen avoided her gaze and went to the stairs.
Po looked around. All of this silence overwhelmed him. His glance fell on the dining table where his soup bowl was still standing.
"Doesn't anyone to eat anything?"
Everyone except Wang shook their heads.
"I want to sleep with daddy," Shenmi urged and was immediately taken into her mother's arms.
"Yes, of course you can," Yin-Yu said with a smile and the three of them went into the upper chamber.
Liu also said goodbye and retired to one of the other houses. She didn't say a word, but her mind was only about Xiang. Even in sleep.
Shenmi was overjoyed to be back with her parents and snuggled between them. Neither of them talked much, just wished each other good night. They were silent for a while, until Shen was sure that Shenmi was sleeping. Then he pressed closer to Yin-Yu.
"Are you asleep yet?" he whispered.
"No," she whispered back.
"Have you been able to sleep the last few days?"
Yin-Yu sighed. "She kept me awake all the time. I should tell her where Xiang is."
She could only see his face faintly in the moonlight, but she noticed how his expression darkened and she sensed that he would be ready to kill Chiwa at any time.
The peahen stretched her wing over to him and felt for his wing.
"Don't be too strict with him," she whispered. "Somehow I can understand him. Already with her I thought I would never get out alive."
She massaged his feathers so that Shen's tension eased a little. Still, it seemed inevitable that this bloody confrontation would occur at some point.
"Try to sleep," Yin-Yu advised. "It had been an exhausting day."
Reluctantly, Shen obeyed her request and sank more relaxed on the pillow. Another period of silence followed until Yin-Yu broke the silence.
"Shen?"
"Mm?"
"Are you really fine?"
The white peacock's face turned to her in surprise. "Yes, why do you ask?"
Yin-Yu hadn't forgotten what Shenmi had said, but then she immediately dismissed the thought. "No reason."
Po stirred his soup in silence. Regardless of whether Xiang had told the truth or not, the fact was that they were all on Chiwa's hit list.
His glance wandered to Wang, who was now just staring indifferently at his plate.
Po cleared his throat. "Well, what do you think of that?"
Wang shrugged. "No matter what, but I'm pretty sure that she has already planned something."
Po narrowed his eyes. "Then we should work our heads and get ahead of her."
"As long as she doesn't find us, we still have nothing to fear."
The panda nodded. "True that. But we can't hide forever either."
Wang agreed and stood up. "We should try to sleep first. Hopefully we'll have a clearer head tomorrow."
Po didn't mind and yawned loudly. "Alright. It's only a few hours until morning, but a good night's sleep wouldn't be bad either."
The king of the Huns said goodbye and went to one of the guest rooms in the other houses. Po looked after him and sighed.
Everyone knew that Chiwa was hunting Xiang, but was he worth standing up for him? Or should they even make a peace offer to Chiwa? But the dark peahen seemed determined to get rid of her nephew. On the other hand, they could also charge Chiwa with attempted murder of Shen. And kidnapping. Should they use Xiang as a decoy? Or were they just actually hiding a murderer?
Po held his head.
Where should this end?