The Last Victory

28. Parents' Happiness

In confusion, the friends stared into the basket, which was partly filled with straw. Po couldn't explain everything at all. He had seen exactly how the crow had thrown the eggs into the ravine. He couldn't have imagined that. What about the broken empty eggshells? The Chinese signs were on it...
"How... where, how, why, I thought they were... I saw..." Po was so confused that he had to sit down on the floor and chew his fingernails. He no longer understood the universe.
"So, do they belong to you or not?" the little ram asked impatiently. The basket in his arms slowly getting too heavy.
"Where did you find them?" Tigress asked, who felt extremely sorry for Po's confused state.
Sighing, the ram set the basket down on the floor. "Oh, my buddy and I had lost each other in the mountains. We found this hidden between a few rocks."
"In the canyon?" Mantis wanted to know.
The ram shook his head. "Nope, somewhere above and..."
He broke off. Po had jumped up thunderstruck and sped away. "SHEN!"
Shen, still holding his wife, seemed to have forgotten the world around him. He was all the more surprised when the panda pulled him out of his hug and looked at him with wide eyes.
"Please, tell me that I am not dreaming!" Po begged him.
The lord didn't understand what the panda was talking about. "What are you talking about?"
But instead of an answer, Po just dragged the white peacock with him, closely followed by Yin-Yu. Xia, who had still a discussion with Soothsayer, became aware of the commotion now, too. Only Sheng remained calm as always.
Po pushed the white peacock so roughly that the lord almost stumbled. When his eyes fell on the basket with the eggs, he stared at it in disbelief. They had numbered with exactly the same signs as his wife had drawn them on. Yin-Yu pressed her wings on her beak. She felt like she was falling to an infinite depth. Xia quickly supported her mother on the side, even though she didn't know what to say. But at some point, she managed to get a word out of her mouth. "Mother, are they yours?"
"No!" Shen yelled, pushing the basket away. The ram was just able to prevent the basket from tipping over, which elicited a startled, choked cry from the bystanders. But the lord didn't care what was happening around him and turned to Soothsayer, who caught his evil look in fear.
"You threaded that!" Shen snapped at the goat. "You think, I don't know what you're doing behind my back. Or did you foresee that again?!"
The goat ducked her head, tilting her upper body so low that she had trouble keeping herself on the walking stick. "Shen, I swear by my soul, I would never dare to do that. If I had foreseen it, then I would never have kept it from you. I swore myself never to see your future again. Never again. How could I have guessed anything?"
Shen snorted in anger and narrowed his eyes. "And how do you explain this?!"
His gaze fell on the panda. But he fought off vehemently. "I haven't done anything! Honest injun! I did nothing! I don't know what's going on here either."
In despair, Po looked around in all directions. In his distress, he turned to the ram and his yak friend. "Now tell me where you got them?"
But the ram just shrugged. "As I said. We found them in the mountains near Yin Yan City. There we asked about the owners. In town, a lady named Xinxin identified the eggs and said we had to take them to Gongmen City immediately. That was all."
A silence spread across the room. Everyone was confused. Nobody could explain that. Especially Shen, who could not and would not accept the facts.
"That's impossible!" he said breathlessly.
However, Yin-Yu, who dared to take a closer look at the clutch, had to contradict him. "No, look. Not only the painting is the same. Here, the egg with number three had a light gray line on the side. I still remember that very well."
She looked at her husband. He just looked at her in astonishment. Then, to everyone's surprise, the lord sank to his knees. He held his head with one wing and propped himself up on the floor with the other. "This can't be, this can't be."
"It must be a miracle of the universe," Po breathed. "I can't explain it any other way."
"Oh, I can tell you that was the worst trip we have ever made," the little ram switched on again, wiping his forehead. "With all the care that we had to do. Including the coldness. Fortunately, my buddy has a thick fur."
Shen winced when Sheng and Xia joined him and grabbed his shoulders. The lord looked up at them. When he looked into the eyes of his older children, the search for an answer shook him off. Had the universe mercy on him?
"Hey, guys!" Po suddenly shouted. "Am I wrong, or is the egg cracked?"
All eyes stared at the clutch. Indeed. The egg with the painted number two had cracked on the surface. Quickly, Yin-Yu picked up the basket and carried it to a table that was almost in the middle of the room. There she put it there so that everyone could gather around it.
Everyone held their breath. Suddenly, there was a small hole in the shell. A little beak looked out of the hole. It was light gray. There was a faint beeping sound. And with a few jerks, the egg broke apart. The chick toppled over, exhausted. Everyone looked down at it speechlessly.
It was white. Whiter than Shen. There was no other color in its plumage. Even the feet, unlike the father, were completely white-pink. Only the little beak was gray. A little lighter, but gray.
When the peacock chick blinked open its eyes, silver pupils looked at them. Worried, Yin-Yu leaned down to it and stroked the newborn's plumage, which was still damp and still clinging to straw.
"Does anyone have a towel?" She asked.
Immediately, the goat approached and held out a towel. The peahen took it gratefully from her. Then she pushed the empty eggshells aside and rubbed the baby dry, the chick squeaking happily.
"It's a girl!" She exclaimed.
"I have a sister!" Xia was so excited with joy and watched as her mother then wrapped the chick in a small blanket, where it kicked with its little feet. Gently, Yin-Yu took the baby in her wings and rocked it.
"Look. That's your father."
Shen was frozen when his wife held his daughter in front of him. He suddenly had a feeling that hit his stomach. The lines in her letter that she had written to him so many years ago called out to him again. She had wished so much to see him hold her baby in his wings. Yin-Yu seemed to have guessed his thoughts and held the baby out to him.
The lord hardly dared to breathe. Usually, he always knew what he wanted and what he was doing. Still, he was excited. Would the baby like him?
Carefully, he took the bundle from her. The baby squealed softly. Eyes half open, it tipped its head back and looked up at the large white peacock while Shen looked down at her.
His daughter.
He didn't even know how to behave. In front of so many people, too.
The baby began to loll in the blanket and yawned. Her first yawn. Then she nibbled on her tiny finger feathers. Shen gently pushed the tips of his fingers to her beak. The little one sniffed briefly. When she noticed that the large white finger feathers were not hers, she stretched out her little wings and held them. The white lord couldn't stop her putting it in her mouth. While his daughter nibbled at his feather tips, he had to smile.
"And what's her name?" Po asked curiously.
Before anyone could suggest anything, Yin-Yu intervened. "I already have a name."
Po pressed palms together. "Oh, and which one?"
"Shenmi."
Shen looked at her in amazement. "Shenmi? But she has your eyes. Why not something like Yin-Yin?"
But she shook her head. "No. She's like you." Yin-Yu smiled and stroked the baby's forehead. "Maybe she is you."
"Shenmi," the lord muttered slowly and looked down at his little daughter who lie in his wings. "Was that the name you chose?"
The peahen smiled at him and Shen had his answer. Was she hoping one of the kids looked like him?
Yin-Yu's gaze fell on Po, who rubbed his eyes. Apparently, he couldn't get his eyes dry today.
"Would you like to hold her, too?" She asked.
Po looked up in surprise. "Am I allowed to do that?"
"Why not. Can he?" Yin-Yu looked at Shen questioningly. First, he hesitated. But then the lord gave himself a jerk and held the wrapped baby in front of the panda.
Po made big eyes. "Really? Wow."
Carefully, he took her in his arms. The baby was almost asleep. When it saw the panda, it chuckled uncertainly. But Po smiled at her and the baby seemed to be reasonably calm. His five friends looked over his shoulders and looked at the white chick. Monkey couldn't help it and waved his fingers over her so that it squeaked out its wings.
Shen was still a little tense. But when he felt his wife's wing on his wing, he relaxed again. Sighing, he looked at the picture and wondered how his parents had felt when he was born. He was white, too. So it was normal for him. What would become of the child? Perhaps the name fitted to her. Maybe she will be something very special.
"WHERE IS HE?! WHERE IS HE?!"
In the next moment, Master Storming Ox thundered into the room with brutal steps. Because in the meantime they had also been picked up in the dungeon and convinced that the city was no longer in danger. But now a different one. With snorting anger, Master Ox went straight to Shen. Quickly, the peacock pushed Yin-Yu aside and took up a defensive position. He was ready at any time to fend off an attack by the kung fu master. Xia and Sheng stood protectively next to their mother. Even Po turned pale around the tip of his nose at the ox's anger.
Master Croc came running quickly behind the ox. "Please, calm down!"
But Master Ox pushed his colleague aside and reared up dangerously in front of the white lord, showing him his fists threateningly. "Didn't I tell you never to come back?!"
Shen's eyes narrowed. "I haven't forgotten," he hissed. "I always kept it in my mind."
Master Croc cautiously tapped the ox on the shoulder. "Buddy, calm..."
"Shut up!" The ox yelled at him. "I'll show him where his place is!"
Master Ox was about to strike, but then...
"Excuse me."
"WHAT?!"
Frightened, Po backed away when the ox yelled at him like this. But then he gathered all his courage. "Could you hold her?"
Before the ox knew what was happening to him, Po had already pushed the chick girl into his hooves.
"What...?" Master Ox was completely right out of all when he looked at the white chick that had started to cry.
Master Croc looked over his shoulder in amazement. "Oh! How cute! What's this?"
"This is Shenmi," answered Po.
"What is a Shenmi?"
"That's her name."
"It's my daughter," Shen replied timidly, worried the ox might hurt her. The girl's crying had meanwhile turned into low sobs.
"And this is my wife. And my two older children."
Master Croc was completely irritated by the word "older" children. "Two older children? Where are they from?"
Po giggled. "Oh, oh, oh, oh, wow, wow, wow... that's a very, very long story."
All eyes wandered to little Shenmi. The little one had never seen an animal with horns and tried to reach for it. Master Ox had every effort to hold the white chick in the blanket so that it would not crawl out.
"Now let's be honest, buddy," Po tried to calm the situation down. "His daughter was born at this moment. Do you really want her to grow up without a father?"
The ox's gloomy eyes wandered to Shen, who was now surrounded by Yin-Yu, Xia and Sheng. Shen's gaze was neither frightened nor angry, but a tension loomed between the peacock and the ox that could have set a whole forest on fire.
Master Croc, however, touched this idea deeply and had to sniff.
"Well," the crocodile said. "That would be unfair to the little one..."
"Wait a moment! Wait a moment!" Master Ox cut in abruptly and shook his head violently. "That's not how it works here! He is and will remain an exiled man from the city! He offended against it and must be punished accordingly. So it is in the law of Gongmen City, in black and white on the parchment."
"Uh, do you mean the little pile of ash in the backyard?"
"What?!" Master Ox ran to the window, where Po pointed outside. In the distance near the palace wall, there was still a slight column of smoke to be seen.
The ox's jaw almost dropped. "What the...? Who was that?!"
"Well," Po said meekly. "Apparently, Xiang misinterpreted the word "cleaning up"."
Quickly, the ox turned away and ran down to the yard without realizing that he was still carrying Shenmi, who was squeaking happily.

"Shenmi" is the Chinese name for "mysterious girl".
The answer to the mysterious appearance of the eggs follows later. ;-)