Happy Chinese New Year, everyone. The Year of Peaco — cough cough — Tiger begins now! Let's praise our old companion Tigress!
— GrayZeppelin
1/31/2022
Volume Three: Deng Wa
Chapter XXX
The Good Heart
The red panda had finished meditating in his room for more than an hour, praying his wishes to Master Oogway that Shifu could see him more here than the Spirit Realm. In a sense, while reflecting the Grandmaster more than he could visualize one of his kind who left him, Shifu had a lovely tortoise father to watch him grow with superior and relentlessness. In the chamber, which gleamed its silvery moonlight on a jade marble floor and over twenty lights perching one corner near the balcony and the shoji door, the red panda swiveled his tiny paws, blowing green candles into fading light smokes toward outside. These vibrant scents made him sense the tortoise's presence as Shifu would have loved to speak during his perceptions, his struggles to maintain his course, and one piece that he and his striped feline sister Ming never forgot to fulfill someone's heart: their adoptive son.
One and only Master Oogway watched over Shifu as far as the red panda kept his eyes on the painting of a tortoise flowing Kung Fu stance with his root staff, and the peach tree unleashed blossoms across Guilin mountains. This art was a copy of the original from the Hall of Heroes. Instead of strolling in the Warriors Hall at night, Shifu yearned to afford one for his jade chamber, having to reminisce of pleasant memories. Complications tended his virtue, changed him that he lost his adoptive son as if he told Tai Lung, so much destined for the greatness to carry his ideal forward, and in the end, anger took the Great Dragon.
Shifu caught one candle that left its last glare, made him soft chuckles to lead forward, and blow the last one. He untied his green shawl over his left shoulder, wrapped stashed it on the marble counter before heading near his goza mat. The shoji door tapped thrice. Shifu considered that one of his messengers, exceedingly his loyal servant Zeng, could pardon him to share some news to expect, whether good or bad either way.
"Who's there?" asked Shifu. His fruity voice was not forceful.
"It's your son. May I come in?" answered the door's resonant tone.
Tai Lung?
The red panda heaved his white brows upward with slight surprise, freeing his composure from wariness. Shifu managed to adjust his robe after he folded and put his emerald shawl on the ornament drawer, reaching for the gold shoji door. Behind the paper emerged a soft gray leopard silhouette, standing before the entry. He slid the door open and let his eye peep at the feline.
The Great Dragon, whose dawning yellow eyes persisted glittering, cast his head toward his shoulder. "If I'm here to disturb you—"
"No, Tai Lung," Shifu's paw clasped his son's hand, had Tai Lung hesitate and regard him. "Please, come sit by me."
With a brief pleasure to enter the Master's Chamber, Tai Lung proceeded as he began to swim his head on ornate structures, making him reminisce the gloss surfaces. Each of interior of which the gold and jade blooms, sitting elsewhere wherever the adoptive son of the red panda resided in Jade Palace, this temple was his home, always in his heart. "Most of the copies are done, Master. If you wished to ask more of those scrolls I work on, there are only nineteen left to rewrite, and will stash with a thousand scrolls of Kung Fu tomorrow."
Shifu hummed with approval. "You, Crane, and Xing have done well."
"I'm likely not wished to remain here a little longer," the Great Dragon swam his head on detailed structures. His yellow eyes cast down to his feet. "Tigress will escort me back to my chamber with your students."
"Perhaps you could explain your reason to be here with me?"
"I'm apologizing, Father."
Shifu regarded his son long and caring. The apology by contemplating the troubling son's commitment that hurt him and Chen Ming slowly mended their wounds to close. The Great Dragon began while fixed on the red panda's eyes, sitting on the rug mat beside the green marble dash that bore Oogway's root pole, curling his tail onward as his adoptive father joined him.
"Perhaps you've said over many times that I am destined for greatness. Destined for what, exactly?" the Great Dragon tapped his chest once. "There has to be my purpose facing either one that shall likely do terrible things. Suppose I am not the hero of Oogway's choice to defend China from conquerors. How could the Great Dragon ever witness failures after accomplishing various challenges without a single loss? What makes you think that I've proved myself to be a successful student who scrutinized a thousand scrolls of Kung Fu, knew the balance of inner peace and became a one-man army by stopping a whole army's incursion?"
Tai Lung's voice was slightly bitter, which had him relaxing his breath before his chi eyes rested on the tortoise painting. Clasping his paws on his belly, Shifu had his son continue to speak further. "Sometimes I looked into myself from that scroll, which I reflected on after I stomped the Dragon Warrior, either I was too blind to see that I had become, or was I became confusing to see one who's no longer worthy in front of you and Oogway."
Tai Lung cast the stretch above his eyes pull toward his forehead. "Am I not like them? The Furious Five? Tigress? And Po? I'm certain they have had issues partaking their journies after I left to prison for—"
His words pricked with tiny stabs, which had him hesitate, instantly reflecting imminent instants of splitting bones, thus bellows. "For shattering your leg and the rest before I hurt you. I never meant to accidentally murder Mrs. Chow's husband by my claws when I battled boar bandits, and with that mass incident, I still hear Mrs. Chow screaming for her dear life."
The red panda expressed his low sigh. "During the young days with your grandfather, I became far ruthless to fathom presentations on discipline and virtue, convinced to claim the scroll for a limitless capability. Until someone who became clever to my level of certainties was more arrogant than my composure and more fidelity, I had never experienced a friend of my own, an adoptive sibling."
Mother. The Great Dragon speculated his thought of the Nine's Master in cobalt hanfu robes.
"Ah, yes. You were not the only soul who wished to become what you could achieve," Shifu continued, fading his little smirk. "My sister and I made your grandfather proud for what we achieved distinction to his final teachings. He worded to us in the Hall of Heroes, 'Only worthies stand to protect the Realm.'"
"Worthies?" Tai Lung stretched his brows upward. "You and mom were decent. Does that mean you both read the scroll and are not able to seek answers?"
"A legend said that your mind was in a fog while focusing on many thoughts like fire. By settling tears, the water clears your view," Shifu enunciated, flattening his palms on his crossing knees. "The scroll doesn't reveal its answers to show your might or a limitless power to wield your strength against endless hordes of bandits. It reflects on you as you look at yourself. If I understand you too well, Tai Lung, you were confused that the scroll was blank."
It's nothing!
A first reflection of the leopard grasping the Dragon Scroll made him satisfied with a strong passion. Opening the scroll with the golden mirror of snow leopard disappeared his glory smile. "Why blank? I don't understand."
Like father, like son, we said the same thing after examining the scroll.
Master Shifu straightened his pale beard. "The Dragon Scroll defines the character of who you are, which the past grows the gift toward the mystery. Remain ahead of what you presented yourself as the real warrior who never gives up hope. Hope that each student delivers a balance of Yin and Yang," the red panda teacher clasped his fingers before adding once more. "Chen Xing believes in honesty, which encourages him to fight for the cause, and for the one he always what is worth in his heart. As for Po, he considers that his goose father built a passion for his son to cook hard on noodles, just because of one secret ingredient."
"There is no secret ingredient," the Great Dragon recalled. The next followed his former nemesis's plain and haunting voice, which Tai Lung could have submitted his defeat instead. It's just you.
"Whether you put some special seasoning on pasta noodles, believe in how hundreds come up to the front door and always return to go hungry for more, knowing you become the best chef," said Shifu. "On a comparison, not on the focus of limitless power, a student achieved extraordinary things to alter complex courses: year by year with improvements, the teacher disciplined his student, developed the growth of knowledge, and styles of Kung Fu to prevent conflicts. Any age of disciple converts to a master. The innocent has their guardian who defends the weak."
Tai Lung hesitated a moment to regard this sort of short complexities, indicating the philosophy that each one's perspective believed in achievements. He began to chuckle at once and followed his guffaw in revelation; Shifu widened his ocean eyes in bewilderment.
"I've been focusing too much enthusiasm that the scroll presented power. Whichever I accomplished what was worth for the greater good," the Great Dragon silenced his chortle, moving his head to jade candles with a tortoise painting. "Oogway knew one who was blinded in the path by being one's pride. He chose the other who is more encouraging than mine."
Tai Lung stood up from the rug and went near the painting. Lonesome pink foliage puffing a peach blossom swarmed at the center of the deep ridge under the Magnificent. It fiddled on the leopard's forehead with soft strokes and launched out through the gap of the window. "I was never ready to be the chosen one who would have worn a crown and put each city and village into ruins. That panda, father — Oogway was right about him. Po is the virtue with an everlasting symbol, which the icon has the purpose to students and masters should sustain the focus of Kung Fu."
Tai Lung manifested the circle next to the picture, cloaked white with a black dot and darkness with a white dot. "Balance. The balance of Yin and Yang."
"Tai Lung, you have been through difficulties after all the mistakes that I went too far to keep you convinced," Shifu speculated. "What does your heart tell you for guidance?"
"Believe in that a warrior can restore harmony. The only way to obtain the path of a second chance, I must believe in what honor presents now and the mystery. Whatever destiny comes from the mystery, whatever the outcomes, I will be ready."
I assure you will, Tai Lung.
Both warriors decided to sleep within the Master's chamber; Shifu was on the goza mat, and his son curling on the floor with his father rested with the moon's silver line stroking his clouded fur. This night was now passing during their previous discussion; they needed to see each other while mending their wounds. Behind the shoji door, skimmed an amber eye.
A striped feline, whose attitude started blending from wariness to ease, restrained herself. After a while to survey both Tai Lung and Shifu sleeping with serenity, Tigress returned to the Student Barrack and dozed in her chamber.
November 10, 1210
This morning of cherry and tawny dawn behind shoji structures freshened the Nine's Leader from receiving his main nightmare episodes. The best he remembered his recent dream was dining with his brothers and two sisters of the Nine at Shui Palace, celebrating a birthday to his adoptive mother, the Nine's Mother, Lady Xia. Sadly, this day, his mother's age, would have lasted forever to each soul's aging, as he asked her about nature's mortality. He craved to embrace her longer rather than send a birthday card to the Nine's Mother in Gongmen City (he had to this year without seeing Lady Xia).
The Nine's Leader made the guest goza bed with proper cleaning without one wrinkle before folding the cotton cover seven inches front, just as the fading chimes from the bell outside rang, appearing Masters and Students of jade Palace out of their chambers. Finished guzzling a bowl of the Dragon Warrior's noodle for breakfast with the Furious Five in the kitchen, Chen Xing returned to the room, packing his cleaned pairs of garment and trousers in his bamboo pack. For a moment, the tiger sat on a chair and wrote a parchment to send his mother's wishes with endless blessings.
To the Nine's Mother,
Hello, Mom. Your birthday is right around this week, and I hope you have a wonderful time with your son and the Nine's Heavyweights over there. I wish I could be there with you and my sister. Complications are happening here and across China now, as I may have difficulties dealing with the Iron Antlers. My student, who slowly deteriorates each day and night, wishes to cease my sister and me from aiding him. The Magnificent has hope on his brother to begin his path, a path that the stubborn warlord thrilled within battles must seek the outside what he's been missing. The Mightiest Warrior must keep moving forward, one way and the other.
As Chen Xing was halfway writing his letter, the guest room tapped thrice. "Come in," the tiger offered one warrior who wished to meet the Nine's Leader. The shoji door opened slightly, and the Dragon Warrior's disciple pardoned, appearing the peacock a little sympathy in a gray silk robe.
"Good day, Master Xing. I was hoping you were going to rewrite the last scripts with Crane and Tai Lung before your departure."
"Indeed. I'm just filling this letter before I must go on," Xing beckoned his half-grin while writing.
The former Lord of Gongmen entered with refined composure. A small catch on the parchment's emblem had the peacock spot a cyan lily flower. This symbol was one of the royal houses of the Western Xia family Shen regarded, recalling other house sigils across three prominent dynasties. His own family was the tower icon with yellow and red flames, several generations of Shen before Li Han House brought down to his grandson. Day by day, around his youth age, the peacock studied several house sigil names and their background quotes. As he used to crave his mother's words about the proposal, the marriage was not good enough for Shen to wed one from either Jin or Western Xia. Lady Muqin, Shen's mother, had a colleague who had known a peafowl lord and his traditional land, although equity was common to two houses. With the same comparison to Shen's refusal, Lord Xia's daughter once rejected the proposal after hearing Grandfather Xia's death. By delivering critical anticipations from regalia families, the prince and princess were their major roles to continue legacies.
"I recognize the lady's sigil. This day is my former partner's anniversary, her gifted life," the peacock flattened his pale feathers on his upper chest. "A month of January was within the North's rime storm; the ice and snow flooded tundra once the outcast of powder and crimson eyes strode upon steep ridges, mounting against the shrilling air. There, laying ember lanterns across timber houses stood turquoise eyes. Lily scents paddled from billowing hanfu robes of light rose and jade. Like no other from the void prowled behind the outcast, lily and lotus blossoms swam the red and turquoise, her rose ensnaring his sunlight. The night drowns the deathly flower, and the morning reincarnates the lotus."
Shen huffed his soft chuckles. "The House Xia were finest individuals with gifted intellects. The phrases I worded in the last sentence defined this everlasting purity."
"What is she look like when you met her?" Chen Xing pondered with curiosity.
"Lady Xia is such a majestic appetite, more encouraging with delight. Determining the Nine's Leader and my son are the closest brothers, their mother always with her as a mother, you and Xia have a strong sense of connection," the former Lord of Gongmen crooned him with slight expression, beckoning slow nods. "A rare sight to see the father bonding with his son would have been more touching; if this weren't for catastrophic events I caused, the relationship between Dongji and me would have changed everything."
After a while, for Chen Xing to hear the peacock speak with his son's brother to share thoughts, crackling woods of heavy steps encroached near the guest door. In a council gray coat with flared-up shoulder pads, a white robe, and a yellow strap, the Dragon Warrior met their eyes with enthusiasm. "Oh, there you guys are. Hey, I'm almost done cleaning the kitchen, and we'll be practicing in the Training Hall, Shen. Are you two getting along well?"
"With such spirit, panda."
"Same here, Po."
Chen Xing placed the ink brush in a small red jar, retracting his back against the chair's head. The Dragon Warrior let the back of his robe flow as he strolled back to the kitchen with Tigress and Viper. Monkey, Crane, Tai Lung, Mantis, and two panda teenagers departed toward the door.
"On the night, the Company of Dragon Warrior went in the mountain to rescue Po, gather scrolls, free many people," the Nine's Leader spoke out his calm voice, leading the former Lord of Gongmen to rotate his view to Chen Xing. The tiger's stone eyes cast down to the floor before continuing. "When my brother Lao fought against you for the way you accidentally hurt your son by my worthy opponent's doing and other commitments, I never wanted to see anyone die."
The Nine's Leader leveled his glance from rather suppressing words. "Mom sometimes spoke of her husband before, knowing I wished to see him but said he did terrible things to protect his inheritance. She was not wrong about who he is but thought to myself that I had to know who Lao's father was, but here you are."
"You reckon that I was a madman," Shen regarded, not insulted from the young warrior who had cautiousness.
"Not only you were, Shen. I healed one who took away most of the pandas, who many scarred for life. I never thought of anyone who offered his return," the Nine's Leader lowered his head before he softly shook, meeting the peacock's ruby eyes with free. "I kept asking the Nine and Masters who saved me after returning from the Spirit Realm during my recovery. I thought of Lei Lei when the bat mauled her horribly, and I cured her with my chi. She should have been the one to offer my return. Instead of seeing you suffering in the mountain, I let you live. Because Po envisioned you a second chance, and that chance is for you to escape the past. I do not see if I did the right thing."
"Right thing or not, Xing, you had fulfilled something worth priceless. How could my son and my wife have been in touch with the Nine?" the peacock fixed his insisting tone. "You and Zhong's daughter watched over my family because they sought a horrifying glimpse of me willing to achieve my goal to seize Gongmen City on day one. Neither of them deserved to be spreading hate," Shen counted his matter-of-fact perception. "Lady Xia mentioned you have a soul that cures one thing that I should have used to be within the years of darkness."
The Nine's Leader raised his brows. "What is, Shen?"
Allowing the peacock to guide his primary feathers, Shen touched the tiger's center, sensing throbbings. "Love," Shen said, retracting his wing into his sleeve. "Intentions of mine broke my mother's heart, and my father spread his cold veins in his back. Blindness made me into cruelty, which I was tempted to keep myself from what both lord and lady could have craved their compassion to their prince, but their son was a fool, never to say fondly words back as if there was tenderness. And tenderness was fragmented."
The peacock let out his long sigh, having his gaze glance on the vibrant ember light behind the shoji structure in Lei Lei's chamber. With his thought on that seemed only yesterday, reminiscing in his old chamber from the Sacred Flame tower, the light invited the two birds and one goat embracing the young bird; his slight grin shattered once more until faded by a hissing silver smoke of white peacock. He was dissipated into a gale, unmasking his previous fate.
"Hate had been growing, and only fear existed to see what subject sought destiny, where explanations may not be either redemption or death," the former Lord of Gongmen gave his soft hum under his throat, turning to the guest room. "The warrior of black and white had haunted the prince ever since and did only way for him to put away pandas, to stop this prophecy. The son never wished to murder pandas but burned their homes. The past exists not to linger but to learn history. And the present pursues the path to amnesty within the years of peace. I will go through harsh roads until what is left of me can be laid to rest."
The peacock's words may be searching for his journey towards redemption; the calamities had Shen as the mark of shame. Despite his bear teacher explaining one of his philosophy words, the peacock's changing course would never be too late. The Dragon Warrior mended his student from the peacock being into fragments. The Nine's Leader left his slow nod with understanding.
Shen drifted his glimpse on a few wrapped scrolls in Chen Xing's traveling bag. "Is there anything new to Li Han's scrolls?" he asked with anticipation.
"Nothing new yet, but only mentioning the end of the Great War. The rest have me know several," Xing reflected. "Li Han's flow of writing undulates well, the way you sail further on to the sea of calm and tempest until you seek the land ahead."
Exquisite details. The former Lord of Gongmen crooned his buzz with an interesting posture. "Reading volumes require growth of knowledge. That seems to scrutinize my ancestor's scrolls; they are stern to acknowledge lethal enchantments."
"Speaking of lethal enchantments, knowing some people have visions," the tiger began. "I witnessed the boar named Lim who kept babbling what he had seen. I cannot be possibly sure to imagine how he was the crazy bandit that no one believed in him, but I do."
"Those phantasms," Shen raised his head, "they still bother you once more, did it?"
"At some other time. Not recently," Chen Xing straightened his back against the top of the chair. "Since that boar has been dead almost two weeks ago, there's no need for me to continue what Lim mentioned quills, but no other words to describe what he saw. Hopefully, others out there — like him and me — are not the only ones to see. My Ox student has, but it's not that simple to pardon his dad to let me talk with his son."
The former Lord of Gongmen lowered his throat's drone with a deep grasp. Across the path registered triumph hails; the Dragon Warrior was the one who performed his succession. "Alright! Let's get ready to feel a thundah, Shen!"
Leading toward the shoji door, Shen held his feathers on the structure. "A family member favors the young who watches the prince and his mother," he turned to Chen Xing, whose silver eyes vibrated while raising his brows. "In case of wondering who brought a warrior with the good heart home. Be seeing you, Master Xing."
"Be seeing you, Shen."
After seeing the peacock with a farewell, Chen Xing flickered his ears from fast, heavy steps. The Dragon Warrior leaned his head to the guest room. "Crane and Tai Lung are ready for you, Xing," Po reminded his colleague, waving his paw. "See you around, buddy!"
"See you later, Po!"
Chen Xing filled his parchment and packed his belongings, later striding with Tai Lung and Crane toward the Palace Library to finish several original copies of Kung Fu Scrolls. The Nine's Leader offered his aid with his messenger Kong to deliver the tiger's parchment to Gongmen City, letting Xing wish the Nine's Mother a wonderful 63rd birthday. Sixty-three years of her gifted life by the Nine's blessing to live more. After piling the last scrolls of Kung Fu revisions as Crane delivered the moving crate toward Hall of Heroes, Chen Xing received parchment news banners from Zeng. Opening the yellow scroll after Tai Lung searched for any interests, the tiger's breath stiffened under his throat, scrutinizing the title's forewarning words above jombie warriors and their "master" advancing across meadow opening hills.
Rampage continues in Jingzhao. Twenty masters and students of North Temples become the Iron Antlers's Stone Warriors.