Tigress - Ying
Viper - Yu Ting
Crane - Jia
Monkey - Wu Cong
Mantis - Fan Hai
(last time alright)
Ying pushed the bowl of congee towards him. She'd steamed it, judging by the trickle of condensation running down the sides. Po picked up the spoon and looked at her, a thanks ready on his tongue.
"You wanted to hear the end of the drug bust?" She asked, sitting down opposite him.
Po could only nod.
Behind her, Wu Cong was clattering around the kitchen, fetching a wok and pairs of chopsticks, getting ready to do some amateur (in Po's opinion) cooking. Yu Ting incessantly poked Fan Hai with a celery, telling him start dicing the vegetables, but he stayed perched on the countertop, watching something on his phone and ignoring her. Jia was snacking from a bowl of blackberries he got from the fridge, holding it close to him as he sat cross-legged on the chair next to Ying.
At hearing Ying's statement they stopped in their tracks. Jia looked back to Yu Ting and exchanged an illegible look with her while Wu Cong and Fan Hai just shrugged at each other, bemused. Ying ignored them, and leaned forward to form a clawed hand beneath her chin with her elbow on the table, wearing a mask of utter seriousness.
"First, we backtrack…"
Ying watched the incoming forklift carefully. It wasn't going at the greatest of speeds, but certainly quicker than crawling painstakingly slow behind the plastic racks of boxes and bruising her knees on the cement. The driver had music blaring through his earphones, so didn't hear her clamber onto the counterweight on the back of the machine and hitch a ride. The metal weight was large enough for her to crouch comfortably and grip the two rods of the cage enclosure without falling off at the sharp turns.
Once taking her across the distance she'd been trying to cross for the past five minutes, she jumped off the forklift into an expert roll and hid behind the wooden crates she'd been aiming for. Spotting a random piece of jagged metal a few feet away, she stretched her arm out to grab it. The metal was a little sharp, so she tugged the sleeve of her hoodie over her palm and gripped it using the material. She gave the storage room a once-over, making sure no one would hear her, and started hacking away at where the wood joined to create the crate. Upon the tenth hit she was able to prize the lid off to reveal – nothing. Just metallic building parts.
Deflating, she turned to the crate next to the previous. She raised the metal to give another hit and stopped at an alert from her watch.
"Ying, I think I've found the drugs." Came Yu's whisper.
Ying dropped her make-shift knife with a clatter. "Where? Some boxes?"
"No, shipping containers, I'm in the same place I went to when we split up. Get over here and I'll get on them as a vantage point."
Ying wanted to kick herself. Of course they were in shipping containers! How could she be so blind? She'd just spent all her time in this stupid warehouse opening random boxes in the hope that she could find some trace of the drugs. Shifu had placed so much importance on finding what they needed and getting out as fast as possible, preferably with no one noticing their existence. I've wasted so much time, she groaned inwardly.
Hitting the side of the crate in frustration and getting up, she gave Yu a shielded answer. "Thank god you found them, I'll get there soon, stay hidden." Her words held some truth, she was very relieved at Yu completing the mission, but the knowledge that so far she'd been completely useless to their task was angering enough.
She took off at a light jog, the spacious corridors oddly devoid of guards. She supposed that must have been Fan's doing, maybe he distracted them. As her footsteps slammed against the concrete she mused over the consequences of the success of this mission. This definitely wasn't their biggest one, the "Weeping River" (what Cong had dubbed it as) was arguably the mission that defined their little… group. Ying wasn't quite sure what to call them. Friends? No, she wasn't the most experienced with social interactions but she was sure that friends didn't go on undercover missions together. Team? Sure, alright. That had to do, there wasn't any other way to –
BANG!
Ying stopped her running and inhaled sharply, feeling as if she was going to choke. Everything had gone silent, and only the echo of the gun shot could be heard in her ears. The shock had frozen her physically, but mentally her brain was working at horrific speeds. A gun shot could mean many things. The first to come to mind was that a guard had fired at her teammate and missed. It wasn't too far-fetched, these guards only seemed like amateurs, and a gun needed good aim. The second was that one of her teammates (most likely Cong) stole one of the guns and shot it at a guard who got too close for comfort. But that in itself was pretty unlikely, they were good enough at kung fu that weapons weren't a necessity, and Shifu had always drilled in the importance of not relying on them anyway. The final possibility was that one of them was shot. Maybe injured, maybe dead. They'd only been together for a year or so, but after living with the best people she'd ever met, she couldn't imagine her life without them.
She raised her watch. "Yu? Are you there?" It was only a whisper, a small glimmer of hope that her worst fear was not real. "Yu Ting?"
Some fumbling could be heard on the other end, and Ying almost broke down there and then.
"I'm fine!" Came a breathless voice. "It wasn't me." Yu sounded even worse for wear than she was judging by the short sniffs.
Ying nodded, forgetting that Yu couldn't see her. "Okay, okay… I was – worried." She said finally, not finding the right words. "Do you know what happened?"
The line went silent for a moment. "I have no idea."
Suspense was never something Ying could deal with. "Hold in there, I'm coming."
She took off again at a run, much more urgent than before. It was almost a minute of paranoid worrying before someone called her name.
"YING!" She turned at Cong's voice. "No one got shot!" He waved his arms slightly hysterically, and she suspected that under the mask his expression would show immense relief she knew she felt in that moment. "Everyone's okay!"
"Holy shit." Ying actually bent over as if regaining her breath, hands on her knees and her head hung down. "I'd imagined the worst." She rubbed a hand under her mask, clearing her head of the anxious thoughts.
Cong seemed out of breath too. "I know, I was watching it on CCTV. The scariest thing I've ever had to see."
She breathed, straightened and looked him in the eye. "We need to get to Yu, she's found the drugs."
Cong nodded along, more to himself than her. "Okay, alright… oh I'm just so glad we're all alive!" He exclaimed, and wrapped his arms around her in relief.
Ying stiffened at the hug. She wasn't the best with displays of affection, Shifu wasn't necessarily a hugger, therefore she was incredibly inexperienced in that field. As awkward as it was, she simply talked her way out of it. "I'm glad too, but let's not speak too soon, we're not out yet."
He let her go with a concealed smile. "Let me be optimistic Ying," He said fondly. "come one, let's go!"
They both set off at a less hurried run. "You got a plan?" Cong yelled to her over the loud sounds of their shoes on the concrete.
"Um – no –" She panted, stuttering over what to say. "no not really!"
He looked at her. "So we just… improvise?" Despite the situation, she wanted to smile, Cong just happened to get her sometimes, in that way that Shifu really couldn't.
They turned a corner and Ying took a breath to speak. "Yeah – we improvise."
"And – what about – staying – oh my god there's too much running – staying hidden?" Cong clutched at his side as he wheezed out his words.
Reaching the entrance doors to where Yu was, they stumbled to a halt.
"I think it's a bit late to stay hidden." She muttered. "Everyone must've heard that gun shot, and word would have got round that CCTV was infiltrated."
"Well," Cong adjusted his mask and hoodie. "we've lasted this long, right? Might as well get the job done, they won't see our faces."
She put two hands on the metal bar on one of the doors. "The goal is to help Yu fight those guards, then get out as quick as possible, got it?"
Cong nodded and put his hands on the bar of the other door. "Got it, on three?" She swallowed, preparing herself. "One, two… three!"
Simultaneously they pushed hard down on the metal and the huge doors flew open, revealing the largest part of the warehouse and almost fifty guards.
For a second the two sides just stared at each other. Fifty heads turned their way and fifty pairs of beady eyes did nothing except widen. Ying and Cong had frozen. They had not expected this many of them.
"I swear there were half as many when I watched on CCTV…" Cong whispered out the corner of his mouth to her.
"Doesn't matter," She replied breathlessly, still looking straight ahead. "we just have to-"
The rest of her words were cut off by the doors opposite them, on the other side of the warehouse, opening abruptly to reveal the two figures who could only be Jia and Fan. The heads whipped back towards the other two, the same time as Yu stood up suddenly from the top of a shipping container exposing herself to the crowd and taking a hesitant stance. Ying hadn't seen her previously, and apparently neither had the guards since a few looked over to her with alarm. Ying nudged Cong and, in an understanding between them, they both ran towards the shipping containers and roundhouse-kicked the two guards closest to them while everyone was distracted. This was the moment everything set off.
From then on it was pandemonium.
A guard climbed up to the shipping container with surprising strength and Yu was quick to kick him down, straight into Ying's arms, who swung his body with all her might into the next guard approaching her. It was hazy, but out of the corner of her eye she could blurrily see Fan taking three guards on at once, hitting them with precise punches and kicks, exactly in the spots that rendered them helpless and in immense pain. Cong had jumped onto the shoulders of a particularly tall guard and used him as a springboard to get up to Yu. Jia deflected all the blows headed his way and ran with lighting speed over to Ying to give her a hand with a particularly large guard.
The large man fell to the ground with a groan and Ying readied herself to get up the containers when something interrupted the chaos.
The sound of sirens blared outside and everyone froze mid-fight. Quick to react, Yu and Cong jumped down and Fan threw off the guard previously trying to wrestle him and ran to be with them. They huddled, backs facing each other and in defensive stances. Within only a few seconds later the huge, electric doors used to give lorries a way in opened and a hoard of policemen stood ready with tasers.
"Hell."
"Shit."
"Fuck."
"Just great…"
She heard Yu, Cong, Fan and Jia mutter. The guards around them immediately held their hands up in surrender, and they could do nothing except stay still for fear of getting shot. Ying really didn't want to fight with the police, the thought of getting arrested was obviously not alluring but she also didn't want to be on the receiving end of a taser, or even worse, a shooter who could actually aim right.
As if it couldn't get any worse, a harried group of journalists and accompanying paparazzi burst in. They had elbows of steel, and made their way across to them as if their lives depended on it. Cameras were flashing, policemen were yelling, guards were running, this was the last straw for Ying.
Furiously, she ran towards the camera held in her face and raised her fist, ready to punch the living daylights out of it. Either side of her, Fan and Cong seemed to know exactly what she was about to do. They grabbed both her arms and pulled her back against them and away from the reporters, even suspending her, stopping her running feet. Still blind with anger, she took them by surprise and leaned right back into them and kicked the camera, smashing the front lens and bruising the man holding it. The regret lived momentarily as the other journalists went mad, with fear or with excitement that she injured one of their own and it would make a great story, she didn't know.
Her friends telepathically decided that enough was enough, and dragged her away.
"Ying we need to leave!" Fan hissed in her ear, only loud enough for her to hear. "Calm down!"
She regained her usual stability of emotions, the anger leaving her fast, and nodded. All at once, they set off at a fast run. The guards, journalists and even the policemen split like the red sea, giving them a miraculous path to leave. Once out, they legged it for the car, jumping in and slamming every door in a way that would make Shifu wince. The exit they took suddenly flooded with the inhabitants of the warehouse, yelling and shouting threats. Fan revved up the car with urgency, luckily not fumbling with the keys despite his nerves.
"GO GO GO!"
"KEEP GOING!"
"JUST GET OUT OF HERE!"
"FULL SPEED!"
Fan gripped the wheel tight and skidded across the car park at a speed that was definitely illegal. In his panic to get out as fast as possible, he drove over the upwards-slanting grassy bank, causing the whole car to fly in mid-air for a split-second as the bank acted as a sort of ramp. They all screamed as the horrible sensation of their bodies leaving the seats hit them. Seat belts were not a luxury they'd had time for. Ying gripped the handle above the passenger seat window, and put a hand out incase the airbag decided to blow out and injure her. Despite the terrifying flying car experience, they made it on the road with a harsh bump causing everyone's heads to jerk forward painfully. Fan was quick to slow down after that.
For a moment, only their heavy breathing could be heard.
They still had the masks on. Their hoods were still up. No one was injured.
Ying recovered from the shock first and tore off her mask and hood, letting down her short hair and also doing up her seatbelt. "Is everyone alright?" She asked, her hair starting to curl around her face and get caught in her dry mouth.
Yu did the same, and started the more time-consuming process of taking her long hair out of their two buns. "I'm fine," She replied, her voice hoarse. "I just want to know what that gunshot was." In the rearview mirror, Ying could see her peer round at the others.
Jia held up a hand. "The guard was aiming for me, but I knocked it out his hand just as he shot it, so I'm good." He said, almost casually, also taking off his mask.
Yu blinked at him like he'd insulted her. "Jia you can't be casual like this!" She exclaimed hysterically.
"Here we go…" Fan muttered to Ying.
"You could have died and you're pretending as if you're unaffected!"
"I'm fine, Yu."
"Honestly, he is," Cong chimed in from the seat next to him. "me and Fan were watching it on CCTV. It was scary, but he is completely fine."
"This is serious!" Yu insisted, ignoring Cong and hitting Jia's shoulder in frustration. "I was so worried!"
"Okay I'm sorry," He said, locking eyes with her, his calm demeanour seeming to help Yu out a little. "but we really should be worrying about the fact that the press saw us."
"That part's not that bad though." Cong pointed out nonchalantly.
Ying gasped and twisted herself round to face him, as much as her seatbelt would allow. "Are you kidding me? We'll be all over the news! They're probably looking for us now!"
Cong carried on with utter seriousness. "But we were wearing masks, there's no face they can search for."
"He has point actually," Fan said. "remember I covered the licence plate? They've literally got no leads on us."
Ying sat back and looked at the sky in front. "That's – that's true." She muttered.
"So we shouldn't be worrying!" Jia said triumphantly and turned to Yu. "Right Yu? Yu Ting?"
Ying looked round and saw that Yu had her arms crossed. "Next time there's weapons, we need to have better communication." She said thickly.
"I didn't mean to worry you, and in my defence, I didn't know everyone could actually hear the gun, " Ying almost rolled her eyes at Jia, he was never sentimental, she much preferred his dry, snarky humour over the softer side of him. The guilt-tripping from Yu seemed to make him actually have sympathy. "I'm sorry, I'll make it up to you when we get back." He said sincerely.
Fan seemed to be thinking along the same lines and stuck his tongue out to her playfully as a show of disgust. She grinned and did the same, adding an exaggerated finger pointed towards her mouth. Cong caught her eye in the rear-view mirror and made a childish gagging sound, causing them both to laugh silently. Jia simply ignored them, putting in his earphones and leaning his head back on the headrest. Yu was stubbornly looking out the window, but Ying couldn't be worried, she was always quick to bounce back from things like this.
"Oh shit the licence plate!" Fan swore suddenly, slowing down the car onto the side of the road. "I need to uncover it before we get a ticket, hold on…"
Po's jaw dropped, the mouthful of congee he was about to swallow stayed stationary in his mouth. "Whoa."
"Whoa indeed!" Fan Hai remarked loudly, still sitting on the counter and dangling his legs above the floor.
"It sounds like you were in an action movie." Po said, staring off into the distance, picturing their inconspicuous black car suspended in mid-air as numerous policemen chased them. "Like a car chase!"
"It wasn't that cool," Jia raised an eyebrow at him. "I mean, sure, exhilarating, but more scary than cool."
"Don't listen to him," Wu Cong said in a stage-whisper while rummaging around in the cupboard for sauces. "it was really cool!"
Yu Ting placed a hand over her heart. "Cong is being ridiculous, I don't think I've watched any horror movie that got my heart racing as much as that moment in the car did."
"Blame that on Fan's driving." Ying smirked behind her phone.
"Oh alright miss 'I'm so good at everything'! You don't even drive!" Fan made big quotation marks in the air and jumped off the counter to mess up her hair with his fingers while she just sniggered, not bothering to fix it.
Po blinked in surprise at her. "You don't drive?"
She deflected quickly. "Do you?"
"No but," He frowned at her. "isn't that like a huge liability? You know, if you need a quick getaway you can't just jump in a car, you need someone else to drive it for you."
There was a beat of silence before Jia, who was making his way out the door having finished the blackberries, burst into the first genuine bout of laughter Po had heard from him. He leaned against the doorway, laughing so hard he started turning red. Yu Ting joined in with her own giggles while Fan Hai and Wu Cong whooped gleefully, both coming to pat Po on the back and applaud.
"He really – really put you in your place!" Jia pointed at Ying, shaking his head and still trembling with laughter.
Ying, who was not amused in the slightest, glared at him. "I will take your hat I swear to god."
He just laughed at her even harder. "I don't even care, that was too funny!" He clapped his hands together and slid down the wall, unable to hold himself up.
Ying looked to Yu Ting, supposedly for support.
She just covered her mouth with her hands and giggled. "I mean – where's the lie though?" She said quietly, to the roaring laughter of Fan Hai and Wu Cong.
"Did you seriously quote that from Twitter?" Ying growled at her.
Confusion was an understatement if Po had to be honest. Why they found his statement so funny was up for debate, but he guessed it was from another invisible inside joke (he really needed to start asking about these inside jokes). They had him stumped.
"What's your thing with Twitter? You guys seem to mention it a lot." Po asked, looking round to Fan Hai and Wu Cong who, luckily for him, were now stopping with their incessant laughing.
Wu Cong cleared his throat with a chuckle. "Well, that's another interesting story!"
"Not really a story but rather a collection of events that we think of very fondly." Fan Hai closed his eyes in appreciation.
From where he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, Jia wiped his eyes and made a face at them. "Fond is one way to put it." His tone hadn't quite gone back to the usual cold monotony, still holding mirth from his recent dying of laughter.
"It's probably something you remember Po…" Fan Hai said, starting to trail off into another story.
Yu slid the newspaper across the kitchen table. "I had to go out to get cat food, and I find we're in the goddamn paper!" She exclaimed angrily, hitting the table for emphasis.
Fan almost spilled his tea over it in his surprise. "What?!" He spluttered, and snatched it up.
MYSTERIOUS GROUP SPOTTED DURING DRUG BUST
"Oh shit…" He muttered, skimming through the article, eyes stopping on the huge photo.
It was incredibly blurry, yet so clear as the experience was still fresh in his mind. It showed a three masked figures in black. Two holding one in the middle with her foot outstretched towards the camera. Well, his foot, according to the article.
Ying burst through the door, phone in hand, and looking absolutely crazed. "Have you seen the news?"
"I think everyone and their dog has seen it, considering we made the front page." Fan swivelled the paper to her so she could read it.
She exhaled loudly at the sight, pressing a hand to her face. "It's online as well, not just a local thing."
"This is so bad!" Yu grabbed the newspaper from him. "They can't just come in and start taking photos and putting us in the news when we're literally doing a good thing!"
The sound of Cong thundering down the stairs made her stop ranting. "GUYS DID YOU READ THE NEWS?!" He yelled through the walls, running into the kitchen and brandishing his phone. "Shifu's gonna kill us for getting caught!" His eyes were wild and, by the looks of it, he'd just woken up. "Oh this is so bad…"
Fan took his phone and turned it off. "Don't panic! We just need to stay calm, you said it yourself, they couldn't see our faces!" He put two hands on his shoulders and shook him to get his point across.
Fan didn't quite believe it himself. On the bright side, he didn't know anyone who truly cared about the news unless it was about some celebrity getting plastic surgery or breaking up with a partner. But now that this was on the internet it was there forever, there was no getting rid of the visible proof of their extremely secret operation. He shuddered to think of how Shifu would punish them for getting caught.
Jia walked into the chaos, calm and collected as ever. "I assume you read the news for once." He stated.
"Yes!" They all exclaimed in varying angry and panicked tones.
"I honestly don't think we have to worry about it-"
"Are you mad?!" Ying looked at him as if he were deranged. "WE'RE EVERYWHERE!"
"But everywhere they think we're five teenaged to young adult males who live locally to the warehouse." He said as if it was obvious.
Fan stood up, pointing at Jia. "He's got a point – no, seriously Ying, he's got a point." He said thoughtfully. "China is huge. We're three guys and two girls very loosely in the age-bracket they're heading for. Chances are, they won't find us."
Yu nodded slowly at his explanation. "Yes… we have got a good cover story, working at the Palace."
Cong plopped himself down on a chair. "Yeah… yeah you're right – we shouldn't worry."
Fan looked at Ying expectantly, who only sighed in defeat, her frown lines leaving her face. "Shifu will still punish us, but you do make a good point Fan Hai." He smiled in satisfaction at winning her over, to which her lips quirked up slightly.
"So what are we -" Jia started in the comfortable silence that settled over their meagre breakfast.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Cong exclaimed, his nose buried in his phone.
Yu groaned loudly over her bao. "Oh what now…"
"This is how they describe us: tall, short, muscular, furious and of average fucking height!" He shook his phone in their faces. "I'm the same height as Ying! How come she got a cool description?"
"Because she injured a camera man." Jia muttered into his teacup.
Fan, however, suddenly got the large ego-boost his self-esteem needed. "Muscular? Is that how people see me?" He said proudly. "Well I guess the killer workouts paid off huh?" He flexed his bicep at Cong to prove his point and simultaneously tease.
"You bastard!" Cong whacked his arm out of his face darkly. "We're pretty much almost the same anyway! It's only 'cause you're taller than me!"
"But I'm still the tallest." Jia said smugly.
"And I will forever be the shortest." Yu huffed.
"And apparently I have anger issues." Ying remarked.
A light chuckle went round the room at that. Even in the dire states they were in, they could still joke around. The comfortable silence passed over again, and only the sounds of eating could be heard. Fan had to have a secret smile, he forgot how nice it was to just sit with his friends and enjoy some food. In between secret missions and rebellious, wild sessions of skinny-dipping and games of truth or dare, it was relaxing to just bathe in company.
"Okay but where's the Twitter part?" Po interrupted impatiently. Fan Hai was really taking his sweet time with this story.
While narrating extensively, he'd made his way onto the table, lying across it on his back.
He turned his head and looked up giving Po a death glare. "Oh my god I'm getting there, you're worse than Ying honestly…"
"I was just saying that-"
"So then the next day…!" Wu Cong interjected loudly.
Cong slammed his phone down on the living room rug. "We're trending on Twitter!" He proclaimed triumphantly.
Jia gave a long, loud, over-exaggerated groan and Yu paused the K-drama they'd been streaming on the TV. Ying and Fan looked up from their game of xianqi (one where he was sure Ying was losing horribly).
Cong pointed at his phone. "Look! They made us into a hashtag!"
"The… Furious Five?" Fan read out, perplexed.
"Is that what they're calling us now?" Ying asked, unimpressed.
"You have to hand it to them," Yu shrugged, sliding off the sofa and onto the floor. "they made up a whole name for us over Ying's anger issues."
"Yeah but it's a bit shit." Jia said with slight disdain. "And this is coming from Twitter."
Cong blinked at him. "What's wrong with Twitter?"
Jia looked at him as if it were obvious. "It's social media just for typing out any thought you have in the moment and projecting that onto the small percentage of the general public who actually still use it and whatever Instagram meme page who wants to steal it. It's basically a goldmine for cancelling celebrities and those stupid enough to expose their inner-racist."
Yu frowned, a little confused but seeming convinced nonetheless. "I mean – I guess you're right, but I still think trending on Twitter is kinda-"
"Cool?" Fan suggested. "I think it's cool!"
"Guys, we're not celebrities…" Ying said boredly, looking back at the xianqi board.
"Oh come on Ying, enjoy our trending status while it still lasts!" Fan said happily.
Jia reached over Yu for the remote. "I still don't like it, we don't want to turn into a social media phenomena…"
Cong shook his head in shame, how were they friends again? "You're so boring and so wrong about Twitter."
"The only thing I'm looking forward to is the conspiracy theories. " Yu shrugged.
Cong gasped. "Oh I can't wait -!"
"Wait a second," Po held his hands up, stopping Wu Cong abruptly. "the sofa used to be in the living room? Where it makes sense? Since when did it get in here?"
"All that and you're worried about the sofa?" Fan Hai looked at him incredulously. "Again, how fucking hard did Shifu hit you?"
"Actually, the sofa got moved in the kitchen when you got knocked out." Yu Ting piped up, appearing unaffected by the absurdity of having a sofa in a tiny kitchen.
Po was baffled, it made no sense. "Uhh – why?"
"Shifu knocked you out, then made me drag you to the living room and onto the sofa." Ying smiled wryly to herself.
Once again, Ying surprised him. "Wow… you're strong." He breathed, and she just nodded in affirmation.
"Then Cong decided he was hungry and Jia needed to do the dishes," Yu Ting continued. "and we were told to keep an eye on you, so we carried the sofa in here."
"With me on it?"
"Well we couldn't just throw you off," Cong commented as if they were functioning on high logic. "and besides, you looked so peaceful sleeping."
They seemed to have this effect on him a lot. Rendering him speechless and unable to think straight with their ridiculous and laughable antics. Adding sentimental to that was the part that really got his mind lost in the void. They didn't want to wake him up. That's sweet of them. So they went through the labour of moving the sofa with him on it, through the length of the hallway and into the kitchen.
"And it's still here because we need to buy you a chair, we've only got five." Jia chimed in, still on the floor.
A smile started to form on Po's face.
The sound of the front door unlocking sent a fresh wave of emotion through them.
Fan Hai slid off from the tabletop immediately and went to stand with Cong, who had backed away from Po quickly. Jia shot up from where he was crouching, and stood in the darkened corner of the kitchen, pulling his strange rice hat down slightly. Yu Ting hid her phone under the table and shifted her chair towards Ying, away from Po. Ying straightened as if she'd been electrocuted, and the content smile sitting on her lips disappeared completely to be replaced with her usual face of stone.
The door slammed shut and slow footsteps made their way towards the kitchen. Po opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on when Yu Ting pressed a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. She shook her head, motioning that now was not the time. The footsteps got closer and closer, and Po felt himself filling with nothing but dread.
The door opened and there stood… Shifu.
He scowled at the sight of Po. "Leave us, I need to talk to him."
Almost instantly, the others left the room, taking with them the warmth that was starting to get to Po's bones.
AN - It's a day late... but a week earlier than I thought it would be!
1. A lot of this chapter is me making fun of some of the more ridiculous features of this story lol (e.g. why the sofa is in the kitchen, why Ying doesn't drive etc)
2. I wrote the first scene with Ying's side of the drug bust when I wrote the other POVs, so yes they do line up :)
3. I went through the pain of seaching for the anatomy of a forklift to only use my knowledge for a single sentence. Can we get an F in the chat
4. (yes pandemonium was a pun and you can rip the puns I'm about to use from my cold dead hands)
5. I'm trying to include litle easter eggs (such as repeated dialogue) because they make me laugh
6. Also I just wanna say that I'm not trying to take a stand on how I feel about Twitter, I think it's funny lol
7. I've been impulsively writing tiny scenes that may or may not make the final cut into the chapters they're intended for because they're either pointless filler or just draw out conversations a little too much for how I feel the pacing should go. So if I garner enough of these I might do a seperate story for bloopers/cut scenes/outtakes, sound good?
Let me know what you think of this chapter! And thank you for the reviews and the continued interest in this story! (also my author's notes are getting out of hand lmao)