Author's Note:
Here it is, peeps. To all who have been waiting for this moment to see the angst and tragedy, I give you the last two chapters of Volume IV, featuring Li Shan and the past! The plothole for KFP3 should have featured Po's dad fighting off Shen, and the news part will fill in the blanks.
This is for you, my fellow writers Tay and Gabi. I hope you enjoy chapters nine and ten! The tenth will be released later this evening!
GrayZ
Volume Four: Snow and Fire
Chapter IX
Echoes of the Snow and Fire
"What? You are traveling again?"
Li Shan, who stopped sweeping the broom when cleaning off dust from the floor, widened his emerald eyes. "I thought you need to take breaks from your duties this week."
"I wanted to, Dad. But really, the Emperor of China needs me to do the quest," Po said, his face showing innocence.
"What quest?" his father asked, glancing at his son harder. The avian, Crane, next to Po, unveiled his shy pose, wanting to interfere and fill in the blanks. Near the archway entrance, the peacock Shen, in his black robe with silky yellow wings and a sigil of yin and yang behind his garb, listened to the conversation rather than appearing himself in front of Po's father's presence. Shen realized what could fuse Li. At first, coming by Mr. Ping's Noodle Restaurant, the peacock regarded the old panda's eyes that fastened with a disgusted glare. And Shen knew he would rather eat noodles in his chamber than be watched by Li Shan.
"The Emperor wants me to check his daughter in the Jin Dynasty," Po answered.
"Jin Dynasty?" Li gasped. "No way, son. That place is a hostile land."
"Was," his son corrected him. As he was a bit terrible at explaining, Po told his father that the two lands in China were not fighting as Jin and Song sought a peace treaty three years back. Still, Li Shan was concerned about him getting into unknown causes from perilous adventures. Neither he nor Mr. Ping liked to see their son gone. Some of the top priority missions had Po nearly murdered — because the panda faced all the hardcore fights — no stabs or deep cuts revealed.
The only exception, however, Po's wound was on the side of the belly where the Prince of Darkness stabbed him, but the panda survived, healed by his friend's qi. Shen's cannon almost killed Po but survived, thanks to a wok pan. Kai devoured the panda's soul but was freed from his strength, thanks to his people, including his fathers and Tigress using their qi to unleash him.
"I don't know, Po," Li Shan sighed with concern and worry. "Going to check with Princess Mu Jin at that dangerous land seems at risk. Have someone else like the Emperor's guards will do their job. Don't go."
"But I have to, Dad. It's the Emperor's order," his son whined. "Huangdi wants me to go there, and I cannot disobey his command."
"Po?"
Li Shan was about to object, but the kitchen door ajar emerged the voice. Mr. Ping, without his cap hat, moved closer to his adoptive son. "Did I just hear that you are going there? Where?" the old goose asked, his voice flooding with apprehension.
"Dad, there's nothing for you to worry about me," Po assured.
"Our boy is heading to Jin Dynasty," Li told Mr. Ping, crossing his limbs. "I told him not to, but the Emperor preferred to choose a big star to do the mission."
They could hear Mr. Ping's tone muttering. Worrying, the goose stared at his panda son. "Far from home. . . Strange country? Huangdi chose you?" he gaped. Without a warning, the goose jumped and clutched Po's belly. "How could you not tell me about this?! Don't leave me!"
"Dad, I wish I could," Po said, holding his goose parent. "This may be my last thing to do the Emperor's quest, and I swear to you, Dads, I will stay after the mission."
"Who will be looking after Shifu's palace, son?" Li darted his finger at the Jade Palace. "What about your friends?"
"They are heading to Hajin and Great Viper's village," Po answered. "Bao and Lei Lei will be guarding the palace under their supervision while Crane and Shen can come with me to Jin Dyna—"
"When will you be back?" his panda dad demanded.
From Po's perspective, he detected Li's stern tone. The panda had no other words to guess about the day of his return but had hopes that he could always come back with one piece. "I don't know, Dad," Po was uncertain, his doubtful feeling flooding his core. "But for real, after the Emperor's quest, I will stay."
"You think I would let you go while your student ca—?"
"Mr. Li Shan. May I?" Crane pardoned as he stood aside Po. "You both are worried, and I understand. I am worried, as well as that I do not want your son to travel alone. If one is not good enough, then may as well have two to watch Po's back?"
Mr. Ping, grasping his wings, relaxed his anxiety, still muttering under his breath. "Would you look after my son?" he asked.
"I would, Mr. Ping, with my life. You have my word," Crane promised. "The Masters of Jade Palace would do the same to watch our backs."
This gave Po a sense of alleviation, slowly grinning after Crane spoke what he meant. No friend or family could ever let one go on the adventure alone. Despite friendships occurring to them, Po thought the avian's words "With my life" that true friends combining their arms were real and meaningful.
Sighing in defeat after staring at his son moderately, Li Shan lowered his head. "Until you return."
"What?" Mr. Ping gasped, glaring. "That's not what I want our son to go!"
"It's our son's decision," Li Shan said, soothing the goose with his palm behind Mr. Ping's back. He looked at his son. "I don't like it or agree with you, Little Lotus. But I will not stop you. That you have been an adult and looked after yourself with your friends for responsibilities — you may go, son."
"I promise I will be back, Dads," Po said in a caring yet stern posture, patting Li's shoulder before he hugged Mr. Ping. "After the mission, then I will stay." The panda kept embracing the goose longer, though Shen could see the affection between the son and two fathers, reminding him of his own who welcomed the visitor in the Sacred Flame tower. Instead of emerging in the restaurant, Shen dodged Li Shan's sight before a few panda observers (four bears) crossing the main road stared at him with unfriendly faces.
Gladly, neither confronted the former tyrant, and Shen breathed out with relief. Crane made his way out from the archway, pardoning the peacock. "Are you alright, Shen?"
"Perhaps I am," the peacock replied, masking his downcast feeling. "I should be heading back to Jade Palace."
"Let's wait for Po," Crane said, standing beside the entry. "This will not take long."
They could see the old panda pardoning his son one more time. Their conversation was short, but were unable to hear either the two pandas when Mr. Ping went inside the kitchen with the twins Dim and Sum. From Po's perspective, Po was about to walk on, but Li Shan patted him.
"Listen, son," his dad began. "Only the two of us; you and I may need to talk when you return."
"Talk about what?" Po asked.
"Shen."
The moment of mentioning his student had Po concerned about his father's doubtful behavior toward Shen. Tigress initially never wanted the peacock to reside in the Jade Palace after the Emperor of China pardoned him, resulting in the removal of Shen's crimes when he saved Huangdi and Gongmen City from Huoju and his army. She, like Po's father, was on the same page as not trusting Shen but later accepted him instead. Neither Tigress nor Li Shan trusted the peacock, but they trusted the Dragon Warrior when Po was safe with his student.
Finding Li Shan's doubts about Shen, Po showed a solemn glance at him.
"He is not who you think he was, Dad. Not anymore," he shook his head.
Without letting another word out of his mouth to argue, Li kept silent rather than allowing himself to regret it in front of his son and Crane. Without warning, the old panda lurched and hugged him, his arms clutching as if his thought was flooded with worries, thinking he would not be able to see Po ever again.
"Take care of yourself, my Little Lotus," Li blessed him. Po returned his hug. "I love you son."
"I love you too, Dad."
The three warriors strolled to the river bridge and the Jade Palace stairway. Li Shan was the only one standing amidst the road, the breeze muttering as it drifted on his green vest. Passing by the group, emerging in rose-pink hanfu robes with a sky-blue sash, was the Pandiva leader. Mei Mei nearly attempted to flirt with the Dragon Master beside her but caught his sight well that she noticed Po's neutral face. Crane greeted her with the tap of his conical hat, but what happened next when the other panda faded her smile — Mei Mei avoided her sight of Shen.
Safely moving aside from the sheep's large cartwheel of apples, Mei Mei met Li. Her scent of sea waves blooms in his muzzle.
"Is everything okay, Li?" she asked, fiddling and caressing her paws close to her stomach.
"We're okay," Li answered. "Why do you ask?"
"I only asked because I thought about Po, who is always ahead of what he does since. . . since Shifu's passing," she admitted, expressing her face with minor concern and determination. "And then you as well."
"Yeah?" he looked at her.
"I know what is up to you," she raised her brows to her forehead. "When that person came from the city after a vicious battle, you never want your son to aid him. Our people are still —"
Mei Mei searched for words in her thoughts but lost to speak as Li Shan regarded what she meant — the bitter history. Mei Mei, troubled to reflect, asked him otherwise. "Does it bother you still? When you see him next to Po?"
Mr. Ping called Li as the half-dozen customers entered. "I should get back to work. Could you keep our words private, Mei Mei?"
"Of course," she nodded. "I'll see you later then?"
"Sure."
Mei Mei patted him in return, beginning to walk and join a group of Pandiva clanmates in orange, lime, and pink robes. The dancers before their leader quivered their fans side to side when one in the middle covered her round face with cinnamon eyes halfway. They merged one way towards the river crossing down south; by the time Mr. Ping called Li Shan twice now, he returned to his work.
At night, the old panda was in his son's bedroom after he escorted Mr. Ping in the other from upstairs. Most action figures were Po's valuable toys; his son bought or made them mainly because of the Dragon Master's curiosity to like them ever since. Li regarded how Kung Fu changed his son, the likes of Masters of Gongmen, the inspiration from Masters of Jade Palace before Po, and a few nemeses of a Mighty Crocodile, the Boar, Tai Lung, three wolves, and the Mightiest Warrior. Li Shan thought of his son more when the last thing he caught sight of was the model figure — the toy with a large red fan behind the gray and white figure next to the two former baddies; their previous conversation had Li Shan cornered to reflect Po, who had been aiding with his student.
From his people, they did not doubt wanting the peacock to stay dead otherwise. Those who had lost their homes and their loved ones wished what they deserved to find justice. Among justice, Li thought of the other that might or might not please him to avenge a few of the kind he knew, including his dead wife.
Revenge.
No. Li shook his head. I found my Little Lotus, but I lost Xiuying. My flower. . .
Crimson fires bathed the night before the cold storm, the bamboo residences swarmed by terrors and the howls of the wolves. Li Shan was the alpha of his people in the old place with rice hills and forest, the Thriving Village. Houses scorched, the grasses and the rice plants withering to black shrouds before the hissing fires dominated the whole. All those who controlled the raid were the ones responsible for the attack. And it was him, no doubt that a majestic avian appeared in a fancy silver robe, which the fire reflection glinted the fabric behind the avian's back.
Eyes filling with crimson fiery, Prince Shen twirled his guandao. "GET THEM ALL!" the peacock commanded the two wolves, who sprinted on fours, barking.
Li was right on time to interfere ahead of his son, swinging his hammer blow to one wolf before the second. The first bandit lost his left eye, and the other plowed away as both were in the air and fell next to the Prince. Without turning back, the father shouted.
"Take our son and run away! GO!"
His wife, Xiuying, clutched their son in her arms and dashed into the snowy forest where the raging fire had not yet touched. This was his last time to see them without knowing where they were. Facing the peacock, filled with grimace, Li Shan charged forward and bellowed, heaving his hammer in the air.
Delivering a sudden reaction, Shen curved his sidestep, dodging Li's heavy blow down to the soil, his seared talon bashing the panda's crown. Nearly disoriented but shook off dizziness, Li gained his feet and began rounding his hammer. One of five swings barely hit Shen's beak, but the peacock would not let him do so when the avian struck his foot before bashing the bear's knees, thrusting Li at a distance. As Li skidded and nearly tripped his right knee to the soil, Shen bounded in the air, screeching before sending his guandao toward the bear's head.
Right to the impact, Li heaved and deflected the blade mere inches before his muzzle. "Surrender!" Shen raged, whipping his weapon without hesitation.
"WHY are you doing this?!" Li continued parrying but slowly. The peacock was stubborn not to reply, but rapid bashes answered, delivering little cuts on Li's arms, giving the bird the violent advantage. The panda let out his sharp winces, beginning to aggressively round his hammer more, allowing the avian to diverge twice before Li tired his strength. Prince Shen hurled two silver knives and rolled to the soil with a quick, decisive encounter and twisted his body; once Li jolted his head to the right, luckily deflecting the second from the impact, Shen clobbered his feet the bear's head. Li flew backward after his head was struck into the grass, bounding him high before Prince Shen cast out his rope dart and rounded it on Li's chest.
Shen jerked the rope and slammed Li into the water pond. The water was not deep but did put the panda in a severe case of imminent defeat. Drenched and struggling to rise, Li Shan caught his hammer from his right foot underwater. The wolves near the fire supported themselves and saw their leader, whose crimson eyes flared.
"After them, you fools!" Shen snapped, and the two wolves (one with a mauled eye) ran on fours, barging in a thick mist of snow and puffs of ember smoke within the sobbing forest.
"NO!"
The bear snapped, and the peacock took a whirl and had his train slip below the bear's feet, falling Li back. The panda regained his strength, engaging Shen once more, but with slow and heavy rounds to catch hitting the bird, his weapon was disarmed from the guandao's spins, making Shen plunge his weapon pole into his belly twice. The avian, twirling his dao with haste, cut his blade through the panda's love-belly side near his liver. Grimacing in pain, Li attempted to clutch Shen's robe but was whipped by the blade's side, knocking him down.
"You disgust me!" Shen contorted. He snapped at three wolves farther down the rice hill ridges. "YOU! Detain this rebellious bear! I shall be punishing him later!"
The peacock ran into the woods and was nowhere sighted after Li woke from disorientation, the cut under his ribcage spitting gores, stinging like fire. The two wolves (two mediums) fastened his arms and dragged him before the captives as their third comrade, a large one with a peafowl sigil armor, smashed his head with his fist, preventing Li from resisting.
There were a few, about less than a hundred, fighting back while in chains. As the wolves were distracted when a villager, Grandma Panda, sobbed over her neighbor's death with a fatal throat cut, Li clutched his dominant fist and roared, hurling one and the other. Broke free, Li engaged the large wolf with his wavy sword, dodging the blade before throwing his stone fist at his face. A second wolf began to tackle, but right after getting clutched, Li Shan turned and tossed the guard into the house with blazing fires. The debris silenced his excruciating howl.
The panda threw the next wolf to the grass, and another attempt was failed, causing Li to continue engaging the large guard with his fists without letting him swing the sword. He clenched the belt and the neck of the armor, lifting and slamming him to the ground. Li retreated his steps as the first wolf wildly swung his dagger, nearly reaching for the bear's throat. Receiving a deep cut from his left arm, Li caught the wolf's neck and forced him down to the muddy water of the rice harvest, drowning him.
Li Shan managed to steal the guard's dagger and plunged his head thrice, shouting. Foams and light streams of dark cherry stopped foaming.
"Come here, you piece of filth!" the panda headed to the third guard, whose terror face drenched in mud and snow. Only half of the wolf guards were overwhelmed in failing to handle the pandas, who knocked out several of them with shovels and pitchforks. With rage and aggression, Li only focused on the frightful guard, storming on full force. Yelling in pain, Li stabbed the grass near the wolf's head.
"NO! PLEASE! I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THIS—!" the wolf guard begged in fright, but the panda, so ignorant, Li clutched his chest armor and slammed his fist to his head twice. The third halfway stopped by another panda who contained Li.
"LI, HE'S OUT!" the villager cried.
He winced and let out his fatigued grunt. Before the forest, the wolves heightened their howls as their calls approached them closer, including some of theirs beyond thick trees, covered by thick snows from the falls. Li's mind began to flash while rising from his knees, flooding with countless blames to condemn the tyrant, his friend's son who created the storm on this farmland of innocence. What was in the name of all the dragons and gods did Shen try to seize and arrest all the pandas for? What did all the bear do to him wrong? Several questions were overfilled, but thinking about the two he adored the most sparked his mind out of other killing attempts.
"XIUYING! LITTLE LOTUS!" He screamed, and the villager in a dark gray vest coat with beige trousers ceased him with his old and firm grip.
"Li, no!" the panda with a round face and a square chin pulled Li.
"My wife and son are there! I must save them!"
"You can't! More wolves are coming!" he warned. "We must get the hell out of here!"
Forcing out his wince and grunts in pain, clutching his fists after crashing his knees against the muddy water, Li thundered and snapped.
"DAMN YOU ALL!" Li Shan cried, cursing the wolves in the forest, where the embers swam in the dark surroundings. "I WILL GET YOU FOR THIS, SHEN!"
"LI! COME ON!"
Li glared at the woods, wanting to snap the bird's neck and split every wolf's mouth wide open with his claws. He would dare to do his will if anything could happen to his wife and son. They were the two he had left, the change of his life after he first met Xiuying, and their lives changed when the dragons welcomed Little Lotus at childbirth. Most of the fathers were like that when they first sighted their son, and Li was one of them to be a whole-hearted figure.
Now Li Shan's fatherhood had drained to waste.
All he cared about now rather than grieving was escorting pandas to safety — away from Shen and his wolves and the near calamities. After minutes of endless sobs and horrors when hastily searched for a few survivors, Li Shan, his neighbor, Grandma Panda, and more than fifty bears in line walked on towards the valley clearing before the shadowy ridges, which the moonlight clouds shone on the dark sceneries. Behind the victims, the crimson fires and the embers swirled with radiance, scorching the green to ruins, the snow pulsing into silvery steam of hisses.
Several years went ahead, and the revenge progression did not go as expected, either way. Li Shan had been primarily focusing on recovering himself and his people. They trekked across a thousand miles away to the west, seeking shelters before the forests and before the high snow peaks. From there, their grandparents used to reside in the abandoned temples of the Panda Monks, and neither of them knew about their ancestors at that time. The group of survivors found their new homes among the high ridges of the tundra areas before the Western culture of Tibet. After several months of hiking and hiding in plain sight throughout the harshest environments, no one in China knew where the pandas were. The bears were long gone after they had found new homes to recover.
The pandas took refuge in the mountains to begin a new life instead of returning to their old homes. Trepidations encroached when the Lord and Lady of Gongmen exiled Prince Shen and his forces; when the avian swore revenge if anything tried to stop him, they were recuperating before the wolves could hunt and slaughter pandas for Shen's protection. Every day, in his wooden house, perching on the steep ridge, Li Shan prayed to the dragons and the gods to protect his son and wife. Miracles and hopes drained when he saw only fourteen survivors arrive, but one died of severe fatigue and sickness.
Thirteen had lived, but Little Lotus and Xiuying were still missing.
I hope there are more of us out there somewhere. I want my son. I want my wife.
Li Shan lept in his paws without the pandas sighting him nearby when alone.
Seven years went from the stiffness of the icebergs, with melting waters from the summits and endless season cycles. From here and there, Li Shan, being wary at times, patrolled the whole village on his own, surveying the pandas of forty. Some of the survivors did not last from the winter storms. Not only feeble, but only five accepted their fates to ending their misery. Winter came as the sky of a charcoal white and silver summoned the stream of petals.
The next day went well after the pandas obtained their woods last week and burned plenty for all the houses. Surveying the yard hill, which had blanketed with white puffs of snow on roofs, Li Shan was glad to regard his people in their bamboo houses. Every day, he thought of Little Lotus and Xiuying; only the two were enough for him to fill his heart. He thought one of the spirits spoke to him - a gold dragon in his dream that night. The spiritual creature gave Li support, not giving up his own. Li Shan had always reflected hope in his mind, thinking of Little Lotus and Xiuying alive in his heart and mind.
"Somebody help!"
The moment when the girl screamed at the foothill, Li fastened his hammer and ran to the girl. The panda was in her emerald-blue ao and midnight gray skirt, her brown eyes shedding. "LI!"
"What is it, sweety?"
"MEI MEI IS DROWNING! AT THE LAKE UNDER THE ICE!"
"Call for help! I'll get Mei!"
He sprinted and arrived at the frozen waterfall lake, where the other three pandas in flowing aos and skirts screamed on the thick ice, sweeping their paws where their friend was under. "MEI! BY THE GODS!" the girl in an orange screamed.
"Call for help, NOW!" Li Shan shouted as he landed, his feet skidding wildly, causing him to tumble his butt. He crawled on the ice, making his way to where the girls stood and had struggled to move away. The ice stung his belly and winter coat, but he ignored the frost stings. The flow was quick as he remembered where he had swam before on summer days; the water was reaching the next waterfall, and the wall of ice underneath became the barrier.
Without hesitation, Li slammed the hammer and shattered the ice, making a large hole; the tears cracked, the ice drummed, the sound of fragments booming in the distance. "Mei!" he dipped his limb under the cold stream. The current was slow and rough, and his breaths rigged with fast breaths as the nippy water triggered his flesh.
Li swirled his slow arm to where the stream carried the panda. Something flowed with pink from the depths, and Li caught her, yanking Mei out.
"I got you, Mei!" Li grasped her when one villager on the bank was right on time, hurling a rope before five bears joined a tug, assisting him and Mei Mei.
For the past few days after the incident, Li Shan had been eying the girl closely, wishing Mei Mei to recover from the cold sickness. Grandma Panda, so gifted to searching for a remedy, gathered herbal plants and flowers, brewing them into a tea with a cherry flavor. From the old's perspective, the remedy medicine was effective against the cold; her grandmother from her father's side was a monk who initially made herbal tea from the healers, and their cure was once called Ying's Healing.
The next day was such spirits to all the pandas, including Li. He was the first to arrive at his neighbor's cottage and visit Mei Mei. By the next day, the months after, and then years before the eighth, Li Shan treated the girl as his daughter when her parents were able to search for herbs, food, and wood. He held her on his back, wiggling the star fan as she giggled.
The eighth year became Mei Mei's fifteenth. Watching from above, leaning against the wood railing, Li Shan simpered and waved at her, the teen who twirled her body to swimming motions, rounding her pink sash. Mei had studied the serpent's dance from the posters she received from her mother, who caught sight of the painting of a snake without fangs who curved the red sash in a twisted motion in the air. Li Shan thought the girl would be the best ribbon dancer in all of China.
The season summoned the spring breeze, and Mei Mei's parents were volunteers. The couples and twenty pandas began to go on a daring quest to search for Thriving Village survivors after countless moons of home recovery. Li Shan was willing to partake in helping with volunteers. But the old villager, who prevented Li from murdering the third wolf, interfered in front of the archway.
"No, Li. The Panda Village needs a leader to look out for our people," the sage bear regarded. "We will find Little Lotus and Xiuying."
"Boqin. . ." Li worded but lost his tone that he knew the elder was right. He had his thoughts about a bitter craving. "If I could just. . . find the peacock who was responsible. He took everything from us."
"Not everything," the sage said. "I know what you want, Li. I feel what you are going through. That path for what you find ahead of you is not worth it."
"What do you mean?" Li Shan asked, quite dumbfounded.
"Revenge," he answered. "Killing the murderer will not bring back the dead."
He would not want to be sure if this "revenge" was a good or bad thing to slay the peacock who burned down the panda village. "I want to find him," Li glared.
"I would rather let nature take him than snap his neck with my hands," the villager expressed. "We are not born to be killers, Li. We are pandas who are born with fortune."
But I murdered two wolves. Li Shan thought, remembering the haunted faces in nightmares.
"Under my stead, be our people's leader. Be the role the pandas saw leadership in you," Boqin said, handing the greet coat to him. "Promise me you will not venture and hunt Shen; let the masters handle the justice."
Li lowered his eyes. "I promise."
"We'll meet again, my friend," Boqin hugged him. "Stay strong."
Boqin and his volunteers were the last to enter the bamboo hoist and lower themselves to the valley ridges. Into the thick mists, their souls swam away and gone.
March, 1200
Li Shan perched himself within the shrine with scented candles and a chime, meditation in isolation. At that time, there was no news from the volunteers or their arrival. Ever since then, he had prayed for their safety every day and night, wishing that hopes could spark. No matter how he could count on Boqin, his expectations faded, yet highly anticipated from the whispers who mentioned the tyrant. News looming in Li's core had not only kept him aware of Shen's forces where they marched, but the name of the psychopath was gripping his mind.
That murderer came back home, reclaiming his throne. Lady Muqin, Lord Feng — why did your son hate me? What did I do wrong?
If only he could hear their answers because Shen's parents rested on their royal deathbed, and their suffering was no more. He barely remembered Lord Feng's face, but Li Shan could no longer see what he was like. Only a faded smile after Li Shan traveled away with his wife. Their last moments were when the pandas met the peafowl nobles as honorable guests.
Midday floated from the starry morning, inviting the cold breeze. Still meditating within the shrine, Li Shan focused on his empty thoughts rather than reading more news. Onward through his mind, the voice from the water beaten from the ripples, encroaching near him. The sensation of entering the restaurant was authentic when Li arrived, with the smell of radishes and noodles wafting. In broad daylight, the entry from the archway, tables filled with customers eating their meals, and posters of all five known warriors were on the walls. Their sixth fighter was in a heroic garb with a billowing cape and a conical hat. The last illustration had a majestic lung creature with gold and white scales reflected from the sunlight, the red cape displaying the dragon before the beast above the warrior figure on the boulder soared in the velvet red sky.
This warrior wielded a sword with an emerald dragon before the blade cast its raging green across the sea of shadow army with halberds, slicing the armaments to pieces.
Wait? Is that? You?
Under the conical hat, manifesting the face of the black and white bear, the warrior's eyes were velvet green, like Li's.
Dominating his nippy breaths in his lungs, his mind filling with surprise while pressing his heart, Li Shan saw him. There was no doubt that the eyes of his cub were identical compared to Li, who had the same color of iridescent emerald. The universe showed the boy, all grown up, and Li Shan's hope raised to ecstasy.
"My son is alive."