The Last Honor

2. Kung Fu Training For Children

Present Day, Gongmen City

The sun had long since left the horizon and towered proudly over Gongmen City. There was already a lot of activity in the streets that morning. The construction works on the palace was almost complete. Only a few fine handicrafts were still done here and there. And even if so quietly that it didn't bother anyone. Even the gentle hammering couldn't wake up a certain person on the fifth floor. But when one of the craftsmen hit harder than wanted, the figure began to stir in bed. The white peacock straightened up, tired and yawning. His wing palpated automatically to the right. But the side of the bed next to him was empty. With a deep sigh, Lord Shen dropped back on the pillow and looked up at the ceiling. The room was painted exactly like he knew it when he was a child. It was strange that he'd missed it so much. He never wanted to rise nostalgia inside him. But it did happen from time to time.
After a while of deep reflection, he got out of bed, pulled on his silver robe and marched down the steps of the palace to the first floor, where he came to the kitchen.
He was already expected there. "Look at that. Who crawled out of the bed?"
Shen rubbed his face as Soothsayer greeted him so cheerfully. The peacock did not answer immediately, but he simply sat down on one of the wooden chairs at the table. The goat looked at him thoughtfully.
"You look a little shattered. Didn't you sleep well?" she asked.
"Did you get a message today?" Shen asked without answering her question.
"From Yin-Yu?" The goat shook her head regretfully. "Not yet. But I'm sure she'll get in touch as soon as possible. After all, you left Yin Yan City first so that she can then travel to her former hometown. Only then, she wanted to join us..."
"Yes, yes," the white lord grumbled sullenly. "As long as she is gone, she wanted me to go back to kung fu training with the children... By the way, where are the children?"
The old goat smiled as she filled a bowl with rice. "They already had their breakfast and are on the training ground now."
Shen stood up. "I'll check in on them."
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" The goat held him by the sleeve as a warning. "You will have breakfast first!"

On the training ground, or more precisely on the forecourt of the palace, a mess was already going on. Master Croc jumped and threw himself from side to side to avoid the blows of the peacock boy Sheng. The piebald peacock made fun of chasing the reptile a little with the stick, what the crocodile didn't like at all.
"Hey!" the master complained. "Slow down! We're training kung fu here and not stick stabbing- OUCH!"
Suddenly, the master was hit from behind with a stick, but it was not Sheng's. A small figure whizzed around the crocodile like the wind and poked the crocodile with its training stick.
"Ouch! Ow! Ow! Don't be so wild!"
The next blow hit the reptile on the shin and the master landed ungently on the bottom.
"A good performance, Zedong!" Sheng praised.
Immediately, another small peacock landed next to the big peacock. It had colored almost exactly like him. Green-blue basic color with white spots. The little peacock jumped up and both shook hands with their wings.
Master Croc rubbed his bum and frowned at the sibling duo. "Control your temperament, otherwise you will fall on your beaks in the worst case."
"All right, master." Sheng bowed respectfully and his little brother Zedong did the same.
The crocodile got up again, grumbling, gazing mainly at Zedong. "Four years old and already so combative. Not even his father was like that at that age."
Sheng giggled. "Maybe there is something from mother in there, too."
"Alright," Master Croc mumbled and straightened his back again. "You'd better take a break and let Fantao practice a little..." The crocodile looked around in surprise. "Where did he go?"
"Over there," Sheng said, pointing to the wall.
The crocodile's jaw dropped. "Is he smearing the walls with his painting again?!"
Quickly, the reptile raced to the wall, where another small figure crouched and jumped up against the wall now and then. He was just as small as Zedong, only the plumage was different in color. His body was partly light blue with dark blue feathers, whereby his finger feathertips and part of his face showed a dark purple. His still small peacock feather tail carried all three colors: light blue tail feathers with dark blue violet spots at the ends.
"What are you doing there?!" Master Croc exclaimed angrily. "How often should I teach you that the wall is not a painting board?"
The little blue-violet peacock turned to face the master. He was holding a paintbrush in one wing, the paint buckets stood next to him. Sheng and Zedong, who had just walked in, had to stop giggling at the sight of their brother covered in paint.
"What am I doing here, you ask?" Fantao repeated the question of the master. "While you three were playing, I was designing this."
He pointed to the wall with the brush. Only now Master Croc noticed what the little peacock had painted on the stone wall. It was Master Croc himself, in a pride-swelling pose - and with some more muscles than usual.
Master Croc looked at his arms, only to see if he really had that much muscle.
"Well, how do you like it, master?" the little artist asked. "Is this picture your equal?"
The crocodile was still busy looking for its invisible muscles. "Well... I have to say..."
The little peacock Fantao frowned. "But there is still something missing."
With these words, the little peacock took a short run up, swung himself into the air, made a few powerful turns that propelled him further into the air, then he came to a halt halfway up the wall for a short time, and quickly painted a few Chinese signs of his name on the stone wall. Then he dashed back to earth and landed elegantly on his feet. He looked proudly at his work.
"No picture without a signature," he commented.
"And you are again a case for the bathtub," his brother Zedong teased and pointed with a snappy nod at Fantao's clothes and feathers, some of which were smeared with blobs of paint.
Master Croc had now regained his composure and shook his head. "It may be that you are very skilled, but still, I don't think that your father will be enthusiastic about it..."
"Fantao!"
Master Croc lowered his arms. "Didn't I say it?"
In the next moment, Lord Shen appeared on the scene. Quickly, Fantao hid the brushes behind his back, but that couldn't hide the course of events either.
"How often should I tell you not to paint during training," his father rebuked.
Fantao shrugged innocently. "I can concentrate better with that."
Shen viewed the painting of the Master Croc picture with skepticism. "And where is the rest? You should watch each other while training."
"Xia is coming with Jian," Sheng announced.
Everyone turned around where the young peahen Xia was crossing the large square. A little peacock boy was holding the wing at her side, who in turn carried a small string instrument that looked like a lute, a Chinese pipa. His feathers were an iridescent green and the tips of the feathers had white spots. His peacock spots at the end of his feather tail were white, too.
"Look what I painted!" Fantao shouted and pointed proudly to the master crocodile picture he had painted on the wall.
Xia screwed up her eyes a few times before taking a look at Master Croc. "Oh, well, that's very..." she began hesitantly. "Corresponds very much to the original."
Master Croc took another look at his arms and grew a few inches higher.
"What colors did you choose?" the shimmering green peacock boy asked next to Xia.
"Green, of course, for the master," Fantao answered.
"Green," Jian muttered to himself and stroked a few melodies over his little pipa.
Shen sighed softly. Jian was the last of all who had hatched. He had beautiful plumage, but he had inherited his mother's color blindness.
As Shen scanned the others, something else occurred to him. "Where's Shenmi?"
The bystanders glanced at each other.
"Uh... Shenmi?" Xia repeated hesitantly, which immediately made Shen sit up and take notice.
"Yes, where is your sister?"
Everyone seemed to hesitate with an answer. Eventually Shen's gaze fell on his youngest son. "Jianyu!"
The little peacock looked up, startled. Whenever his father called him by his full name, he always had a serious word to say to him.
"You know where she is, don't you?"
Jian tapped his finger feathertips together. "How so?"
"Shall I take your instrument away from you?"
That threat always made him talk.
"She wanted to go down to the harbor!" Jian babbled. "Playing with the paper ship there."
Shen widened his eyes. "Without training?"
"Let her do something else, too," Xia said timidly. "And besides, nothing can happen to her. Master Storming Ox is with her."
Shen narrowed his eyes and turned away indignantly. "If I say she should go to training, then she goes to training!"

"Fold the edge down... then bend it like this... then like this..." She smiled and held the small folded paper ship in her wings. "Done."
The white peacock girl bent down and let the paper boat slide into the water, where it was driven to one side by the current. She didn't let it out of her sight. Like a little ghost, Shenmi wandered along the grassy bank. Fitting to her white plumage, she wore a silver robe with dark gray stitches on the hems and sleeves.
Master Ox was sitting cross-legged not far away. Outwardly, he looked like he was meditating, but in truth, his senses were fully focused.
"Shenmi! Shenmi!"
The white peacock girl with the silver eyes looked up when she heard her father's voice. Master Ox was also startled from his resting position. And before anyone could say anything, Shen was with his daughter. Since the winter time was long gone and there was no snow on the ground, Shenmi could not be overlooked. No sooner had the lord discovered his daughter, he dashed over to her and held her by the shoulders. "Shenmi! Why aren't you on the training place?"
The girl ducked her head, a little intimidated. "I wanted to try my ship. Master Ox said I can do that."
Shen's next withering look was on the big ox, which had risen in the meantime and was walking towards them with brisk steps.
"How can you dare to keep her back from training?!" Shen snapped.
The ox snorted. "Who says training is the only thing she has to do here? If she wants to do something else, then she should do it."
"I will not allow you to interfere in how she has to organize the day! She can still do everything else at home."
Master Ox crossed his arms. Had Shenmi not been around, he would have challenged the white lord to battle long ago. "You don't seem to care about anything else, do you?" He growled as composed as possible. "I'm surprised that your wife even allows you to leave yourself with the children."
Shen's eyes narrowed dangerously. "How I have to raise my children is my business, isn't it?!"
"Since when do you understand something about good parenting?!"
"At least more than you!"
"I'm amazed at the result of your parents!"
Shen's eyes widened in horror. He did not yet adore his parents in any way. But that the cheeky ox assumed that his parents had failed in his upbringing hit him hard.
Shenmi, frightened by the tension between the two large animals, looked from one to the other. "Papa, are you arguing?"
"No," Shen hissed, picking her up. "We only have a conversation between adults."
With these words, he turned his back on the kung fu master and marched back towards the palace.

The old goat was taking a little stroll around the gate when she saw Shen come back with Shenmi in his wings. But the old woman immediately noticed from the tense demeanor of the ruler that he was not in a good mood.
"What happened Shen?" she asked worriedly.
But the white lord set his white daughter down, gave her a slight nudge in the back and the girl hurried off. Then Shen's grim gaze shifted to the old goat.
"As soon as my wife is back," he hissed. "We will leave this city!"
With that, he folded the two wings under his sleeves together and walked away.
The goat sighed and watched him go. "Then I will probably have to write to my great-nephew."

The paper folding that Shenmi likes so much is often used under the Japanese term "origami". In China, this art is called "Zhezhi".

The name "Jianyu" means something like "building the universe", but it should actually have a different background. First Shen wanted to call him "Jian" (healthy, strong), but Yin-Yu would have liked to give him the Japanese name "Ryu" (dragon spirit). [Presumably because of Ryuga's help, who came from Japan.] But Shen was against it, fearing that people would think the child could be from Japan. In the end, both agreed on a compromise and combined the names "Jian+(r)yu". So, don't be surprised if someone calls him "Ryu".