The Last Chance

24. The Goodness of a Foster Father

Carefully and slowly, Shen opened the door to the kitchen, where light was still burning. Mr. Ping stood in front of the worktop and hashed vegetables. Shen didn't want to attack him in surprise. He liked it more to see his victims into their faces at the critical moment.
Slowly, he opened the door wider and walked in quietly like a cat on the prowl. When he almost reached him, he scratched with his claws on the flagged-floor.
Mr. Ping turned his face in his direction and winced.
"Oh! Sir! I was worried about you! Why did you disappear? Po said, it would be a bad idea for you to go outside!"
Shen narrowed his eyes into slits. A wintry smile crossed his beak. "There is no reason anymore to hide me."
Mr. Ping looked at him in surprise. "Is that so?"
The gander looked around. "Where is Po?"
The lord grinned with mischief. "He will come very soon."
Very soon... but I hope not too soon.
Mr. Ping opened his eyes with shock. Shen didn't know about what he was afraid. Did he reveal himself somehow?
"Oh, dear me!" Mr. Ping cried in horror. "You are dirty and... You are bleeding!"
Shen looked down at himself. Indeed, the crash had scraped his knees a little.
Mr. Ping ran around like a crazy man. "A royal guest of my house has to receive medical attention!"
For the lord's confustion, the gander grabbed his wing and pulled him to a little stool.
"Sit down."
Shen didn't contradict and sat down, while Mr. Ping ran away to bring materials for wound cleaning.
In clenched position, Shen looked at his scratched knees.
You will see more blood soon.
Mr. Ping came back, put a box on the floor and got out wound cleansing tissues and a bottle with a liquid. Shen hissed sharply. The liquid hurt badly, when Mr. Ping was cleaning the wounds. Suddenly, he winced. In the sink lay a cleaned knife.
"I had to take care for Po like this very often," Mr. Ping said. "In his childhood, he did so many crazy things. That's it. I don't think it will inflame."
Mr. Ping turned around and put the box away.
Shen's glance wandered back to the knife. Now it was the chance. Who knew how long the panda would be away yet.
"Oh yes," Mr. Ping continued in thoughts and walked back to his workplace. "I still remember how he came into my restaurant. As a little baby. A little baby panda."
Shen looked back at the knife. The gander was hacking the vegetables again and had turned his back on him.
It's now or never.
Slowly, he picked up the knife and wrapped his fletched fingers closely around the knife handle. Gradually, he walked with slow footsteps at the gander.
At this moment, Mr. Ping turned around and was face to face with the lord and a knife in his wing.
Shen smiled devilishly. This was the moment where he would beg for mercy.
"Oh, thank you."
With these words, Mr. Ping took the knife, without fear. Shen was so confused that he opened the beak speechlessly. Mr. Ping didn't think about it anymore and put the cleaned knife into a box.
"Yes, I was a handyman. I had to feed him, bathe him... I was mother and father in one. It wasn't very easy for me to take care of him. He ate so much. I can imagine, you had no problems with such a topic. What about your parents?"
Shen winced a moment. His face like stone.
"They aren't alive anymore," he answered emotionless. Bitterness lay in his voice.
How shall I kill him now?
Mr. Ping put his wing on his beak with regret. "Oh, I'm sorry."
Shen shook his head with disgust and snorted. "Why should it?"
"Well, it's very sad if parents die, doesn't it?"
Shen avoided his glance. He didn't want to answer.
Mr. Ping sighed deeply and skewered his knife on the wooden countertop.
"Po lost his parents many years ago, too."
Shen narrowed his eyes more. "I know."
"Oh, he told you?"
"Yeesss," Shen became nervous. "He told me, I know every detail."
Dark shadows lay on his featured on his face.
"How died your parents?" Mr. Ping continued with his questions.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"An accident?"
"No," Shen answered annoyed. "It has been just a... because... a bad guy murdered them."
The panda killed them! Yes, he killed them indirectly.
Mr. Ping eyed the lord and realized a sadness in his face.
"You loved your parents, didn't you?"
Shen blinked. "Not really."
"But your parents loved you, didn't they?"
"Stop talking, is that understood?!"
Mr. Ping closed his beak anxiously.
The lord sighed internally. He already had put the past behind himself, but there were still old memories with confused emotions.
"Well, Po is not my real son," Mr. Ping continued. "But I still love him like my own. Oh, by the way, I have to think about something..."
He ran to a shelf and took some photos out.
"Here, this is a picture with me and Po, where we are eating noodles. Here, he is sitting on my lap. Oh, and here I was bathing him. Oh, and here..."
"Well, very nice," Shen cut his word and pushed the photos away. "Every creature in this world has a cute side before it becomes a revenger."
"Pardon? I don't understand."
Shen put his wings together and looked at the gander with ominous glance. "I could imagine he would take revenge for his parents' death. And to kill the murderer of them."
Mr. Ping put the photos away angrily.
"No, he would never do something like that. He is the noblest, honorable person who I know."
Shen snorted in disbelief. "Don't be silly. Everyone would take bloody revenge for this."
"Not Po!" Mr. Ping said with firm voice. "He would never..."
"OH, of course not!" Shen's voice became more mockingly. "The great Dragon Warrior, all in all just a little innocent. But behind the funny mask a cruel black soul."
Mr. Ping had no idea what he should say and watched the peacock with big eyes, while Shen continued: "The "Dragon Warrior", doesn't know how it is to be born as a bad omen, just because of another color. And how hard it is to work for his success in dirt and isolation. He has no knowledge about how it is to be a fool in the eyes of others."
Silence fell. Mr. Ping didn't reply and looked outside through the big window of his restaurant deep in thought.
"Po had had the same troubles."
Shen winced in surprise and confusion.
"The panda? But, but he is...," Shen shied away from saying the word. "A he-ro... for you."
"From time to time, Po had problems to be accepted from others. Especially after he became the Dragon Warrior. He had no talent for kung fu. His friends gave him a hard time." Mr. Ping sighed deeply. "I still remember how he came one night back to my home, and, I will never forget, he was so sad and depressed that it he wasn't successful to be a great kung fu warrior."
Shen blinked.
"Never in my life, I saw so much sadness in him. And I... I was such a bad father that I didn't tell him the truth about his real parents. Instead, I talked about a noodle meal."
Mr. Ping sobbed a little and wiped over his nose. Then he took a deep breath. "But he never gave up! And he didn't need to use scummy tricks to reach his target. Now he is a son, about I can say, I'm proud about him."
Shen's face muscles twitched a little.
"But...," Mr. Ping remembered. "There was also another time where he was sad like similar. After a won fight against a ruler... no, maybe a lord, his name was... Zeng... Zong... no, not sure. I forget his name. I remember like yesterday. One night, we were eating noodles together. He talked about the adventure in a town which called Gongmin or similar. But at the end of his tale, he talked, that he had wished, that the ruler had found a better end."
Shen raised his nose and snorted with trembling beak. "Maybe he was sad that he hadn't the chance to kill him with his own hands."
Mr. Ping shook his head slowly. "No, it was more than this."
"He was angry, wasn't he?"
"No, it was pity."
Shen gasped for air with disgust. "Pity?"
"He said, the ruler seemed to be a bad guy, but even he had murdered his parents, he thought, that he has been a poor person, who never turned his future to make it into a success. A soothsayer had told him that. If he had changed his bad way, maybe he would be still alive and be a great ruler. That's what she told him as a possible chance for his future."
Mr. Ping sighed again. "Oh, but what am I saying? I have to finish the meal for tomorrow. Oh, oh, this will be a day!"
Shen looked at him with silent look. Then he made a few steps forward.

Po's lungs ached. After he had begun to run down the stairs, he had rolled down. But he had rolled in the wrong direction. It had cost him a lot of time to run back to the right way.
Panting and exhausted, he reached the home of his father. In the kitchen the light was still burning. Po ran forward and teared open the door.
His eyes filled up with horror.
"DAD!"