In response to MusicalNinja15's confusion, the first section of the previous chapter was an event that took place round about the same time as the campfire scene in the chapter before that. Hope that clears things up.
When Po put his arm around Tigress's shoulders in an attempt to comfort her, she didn't shrug it off. Her eyes were fixed on the guest room door, her claws digging into her elbows. Po couldn't blame her for being so agitated. On the other side of that door, one of the surviving medics was working diligently on their red panda master.
It didn't look good. When they found him lying on the ground, his body hadn't been exactly mangled, but when the medic arrived he had forbidden them from lifting him. When he explained why, their blood had frozen in their veins: a fall like that may very likely have damaged his spine.
And so Po, Tigress, Crane, Viper and Mantis waited, praying to every god they knew that their master's injuries weren't as severe as the medic thought.
They were the only people who could bear to stay outside the room. When Su found out what had happened, she had been so distressed that Di Tan had taken her to the library to wait. Neither of them had returned yet. Emperor Xian was in his bedroom, obviously still blaming himself for the medic's death. Master Eagle Jr. was in the ex-general's private study, or what was left of it. The fire had finally been doused and he and several other soldiers were currently trying to salvage what they could: a record of everything that occurred since they arrived at the fortress had been in that room.
Po turned his head to look at Tigress. She hadn't spoken since she had found a stray plank of wood to place Shifu on so they could safely transport him to the room they were currently standing in front of.
"I'm sorry."
Tigress's right ear twitched.
"What?" She asked sharply, her gaze never leaving the door.
"I said I'm sorry." Po said. "What I said earlier… about how hard it was to get you to like me… that came out wrong."
"No, it came out right." Tigress replied, her expression sour. "Like you said once, I stink at friendship."
"That's not true!" Po replied.
"Really? Prove it!"
Po didn't know how to answer that, so he fell silent.
Po, you idiot. You never learn, do you, you never ever learn!
"In that case, I stink at…" Po hesitated. "Uh… talk-ship!"
"Excuse me?" Tigress asked. Crane, Viper and Mantis wisely did not join in.
"Tigress, I've got a big mouth. I talk too much, I always have, and most of it's rubbish. Why do you have to take everything I say so-"
Crack.
"YAAAARRRGGGHHH!"
Every single being in the room froze.
Crack.
"WAHEIHEHEHEI!"
Crack.
"GAAAAAHHH!"
"Master?!" Tigress had gone paler than all of them put together. "Master!"
Before Po could stop her she flung open the door.
Crack.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
"For heaven's sake, stop trying to move!" The medic scolded as he leaned over Master Shifu, who was lying flat out on the bed, the plank still beneath him.
"What's wrong with him?" Viper cried anxiously as she and the others followed Tigress into the room.
The medic looked up at them.
"Nothing too serious, he's merely-"
Crack.
"YOOOOAAARRRGGGHHH!"
"Oh for heaven's sake!" The medic clapped a paw over the red panda's mouth. "I have good news and bad news."
"What's the bad news?" Po asked nervously.
"The bad news, he indeed has some damage to his back." The medic said.
"Oh no!" Po moaned.
Shifu, obviously disgruntled at having a stranger's paw covering his mouth, started to struggle.
Crack.
"Muuurrrgggghhh!"
"The good news, is that he hasn't fractured his spine as I had feared." The medic went on. "He's merely thrown his back out."
"Oh nooo…" Po moaned.
"If you will wait patiently, I will get a muscle relaxant." The medic removed his paw from Shifu's mouth.
"Do that again and I will send you flying through the roof!" The red panda snapped.
The medic ignored him and left the room.
Tigress didn't hesitate to rush to Shifu's side.
"Thank god you're not seriously hurt!" She said. "Does it hurt?"
"Not if I keep as still as the board I'm lying on." Shifu replied stiffly. "Remind me to give that medic a good right hook when he gets back."
Right at that moment, Xian stepped into the room. He evidently had heard Shifu's screams.
"Grandmaster Shifu, if you had actually fractured your spine, that medic's advice would have saved you from further injury." The tiger said disapprovingly. "You could be a little more grateful."
"You're right, I'm sorry." Shifu sighed as he stared up at the ceiling. "Everything has gone so wrong…"
"Yeah." Crane said. "It's a mess. You're hurt, a medic's dead, part of the fortress has been blown up, Monkey's gone..."
"We have to go after him!" Mantis spoke up. "He's our buddy! We can't just let him get himself killed!"
"He's right!" Po said. "Look Shifu, I know what you're gonna say;" He began speaking in a deep, gruff voice. "'Monkey disobeyed me. He has decided to face the consequences. We have no choice but to'-" He stopped when he saw Shifu's expression.
"First, I do not sound like that." Shifu said. "Second, I wasn't going to say that we leave him to die. Even though what he has done was incredibly stupid and reckless, he is still your comrade and my student. First thing tomorrow you are to form a search party and bring him back by any means necessary."
Po looked like he wanted to hug Shifu.
"Thanks, Shifu. I knew you weren't completely heartless!"
Tigress discreetly kicked him in the shin.
"What should we do in the meantime, Master?" Viper asked.
"Viper, I want you to go to the library and let Su and Di Tan that I'm not at death's door yet, then come straight back here." Viper bowed and slithered off at once. "Po, I want you to go to the kitchen and get five chopsticks, one for each of you. And before you bring them back, I want you to dip one end of two sticks in some white paint."
"Sure." Po said. "Uh, why?"
"To decide who joins the search." Shifu said. "I need two uninjured masters to stay here and defend the fortress."
"Now, by the time the potion wears off you should be able to walk on your own." The medic said as he had Shifu dink down the muscle relaxant. "No kung fu for several days."
"Very well." Shifu said once he had downed the contents of the bottle and he could speak.
Po entered the room with a handful of chopsticks held in one paw.
"Got them, Master Shifu." Po said.
"Good. Everyone except Emperor Xian gather around the bed."
Once his students were all gathered, Shifu sat up in his bed and pulled the plank out from under himself.
"Listen, all of you." He said. "Because no-one among us has faced this kind of enemy before I am unable to choose among you based on your combat styles. Therefore we will do this in a less conventional manner." He gestured for everyone to turn their attention to the chopsticks in Po's paw. "Two of those chopsticks have one end painted white. When I count to three, I want all of you to take out a chopstick. The two who receive the white-ended chopsticks will remain here to defend the fortress. The rest will set out to find Monkey and bring him back. No buts. Do you understand me?"
They nodded.
Shifu counted to three.
One by one they pulled a chopstick from Po's grip.
Viper's was plain.
Po's was plain.
Crane's was white. He looked torn between relief and dismay.
"It's alright, Crane." Viper said in assurance. "You've been through enough."
It's you I'm worried about was plastered all over Crane's face.
Tigress and Mantis looked down at the two remaining chopsticks. One of them granted possible safety. The other a possible demise.
"Don't linger." Shifu said.
Tigress and Mantis simultaneously chose their chopsticks. Mantis's was white.
Shifu's shoulders slumped in disappointment.
"Very well, it is decided." He said. "Po, Tigress and Viper will set out tomorrow. In the meantime I want you to get some rest. You are dismissed."
"Yes, Master." His students saluted him and departed.
When Su was four years old, a little more than two years before Master Shifu and his students came to her isolated village and changed her life forever, she spent an entire afternoon determining the age of a single tree.
Around that time, a friend of her mother's had become pregnant, and being a good neighbor her father cut down one of the nearby trees to build a crib with. Since he had used a saw instead of an axe, a flat stump had been left, and on it Su spotted a series of thin rings on the golden brown surface, the pattern starting at the center then expanding to the circular edge, that interested her. When she asked her father about it he told her that those rings told the age of the tree, and if you counted all of them you would know how old it was.
And that was what Su did. While her father and Mr. Qiang dragged the fallen tree away, Su sat down before the stump and began to count. One… two… three… four… five… at one point a pair of kids around her age came over and began doing the same thing, making a competition out of it. Neither of them got as far as twelve before they gave up and walked off, which Su found off because she herself was managing just fine… just as Su reached forty two her mother came over, concerned that her daughter hadn't returned to their home in time for dinner . The unexpected distraction made Su lose count. Instead of bringing her daughter back into the house, Su's mother merely sat down on the ground beside her and suggested that she resume counting. Su did as she was asked, and after thirty two minutes finished at one hundred and twenty eight.
It wasn't until later that evening that Su learned that what she had assumed was an ordinary counting game was anything but ordinary in other people's eyes.
She had been washing her paws in the next room when she overheard her parents talking. It wasn't the playful banter she had come to expect from a pair of lovers or the mindless chatter from the old ladies who frequented the orchard. She wasn't sure what sort of conversation it was supposed to be. She walked to the door but hesitated from opening it.
"It was amazing, Pong, you should have seen her."
"Are you sure you're not pulling my leg?" Su's father asked. "What kind of four year old child is capable of counting from those tiny little tree rings?"
"I'm telling the truth. I sat beside her all afternoon. She counted every single tree ring without stopping! All one hundred and twenty eight of them!"
"She counted one hundred and twenty eight?!" her father must have dropped a cup or something, because at that moment Su heard a smash. "That's not possible, most four year olds can only count up to ten or something!"
"Well, Su's not like most four year olds." Her mother said. "You're her father, you've seen how responsible she is. She cooked an entire pan of noodle soup when she was three! And did I ever tell you about the time Qiang caught Su reading one of his recipes? At the age of two? How old were we when we learned how to read?"
"I see your point." At this point, both Su's mother and father sounded like they were in complete awe. "What should we do? I mean, if Su really is one of those super smart kids, should we encourage it?"
There was a pause.
"Yes, but we should be careful about it." Her mother said. "Besides, she has trouble finding the confidence to talk and play with the other children. We don't want her thinking she's different."
"Why don't we give her some schooling ourselves?" Her father said. "You said she can read. Let's encourage that."
The rest of the conversation focused on all the possible ways they could develop their daughter's intelligence without making her stand out. All the while the tone in their voices slowly changed from awe to pride as it dawned on them that their little girl was special. In the end Su began to get worried that she would get caught eavesdropping and returned to cleaning herself.
Were her parents right? Was she really super smart as they called it? It did seem odd that she seemed to know a lot more than the other kids did. And some of the grown ups for that matter. Was she really special? Would that change the way her parents felt about her? That scared her most of all.
But it turned out that she didn't need to worry. The next morning her mother gently roused her from sleep as usual, with the same loving smile. There was no fear or awe in her expression. The only thing that was different was that later that morning her father gave her an unusual present: a handcrafted abacus that was used in mathematics. It took a few minutes for her to figure out how it worked, and then she took it with her back to the tree stump to make sure the initial number of rings she had come up with was correct. As it turned out she had no need to worry, but she still enjoyed the abacus nevertheless.
Over the next two years her parents continued to give her small gifts that helped her learn more than Qiang's weekly cooking classes ever could. Each time Su would smile at her parents and thank them. Though she never said it out loud, she thanked them not just for encouraging her to learn, but for not making a big deal out of it as well. She didn't think she could handle the other kids being jealous of her, and she hated herself enough for falling down the front porch steps each time she left the house.
So much had changed since then. Since Su had moved into the Jade Palace and began learning the art of tai chi, she had become significantly less clumsy, and thanks to the Jade Palace library and the secret library she found, she had learned more than she had ever dreamed. She couldn't wait to meet her parents and show them all she had learned.
If she ever got to see them again.
And that was why she was here in the library, reaching for the scroll that contained information on the Yeti. Now that Viper had told her and Di Tan that Shifu was alright, Su could stop worrying and get to work.
The ambassador's journal had mentioned an empress. A Dragon Empress who commanded an army of powerful creatures with domed heads. Rather like the domed headed Yeti she had encountered in the burning building. Just as she suspected, the Yeti and the strange person from her sleepwalking dream were connected. Now Su just had to figure out exactly what the two creatures were trying so hard to protect.
Su pulled out the scroll and made her way back to the ground floor, where Di Tan was once again perusing the recipe scrolls.
The creature that invaded people's dreams was almost fairy-tale like in nature. The fairy tale section wouldn't be a bad place to start looking for answers.