Po made it clear before going down to the village to eat that he didn't want to tell the villagers about picking a new Dragon Warrior just yet. Po had been the Dragon Warrior for a long time and he had absolutely no idea who the new one would be, so he didn't want to overexcite people when it wasn't quite time. Shifu agreed with this and Li reluctantly complied, though he said that it would be good to get the villagers used to the idea of a new potential Dragon Warrior so that there would be no shock. The masters talked about this after lunch, (after informing Mr. Ping who Po made sure to keep in the know), and decided on a compromise: Po would tell the villagers that he had a vision about a future Dragon Warrior who would replace him. Whether this was after he died or before he didn't know yet, but the villagers could be confident that they'd always have a Dragon Warrior to keep them and all of China safe from harm. Po thought this was a good idea, and at the end of the day he announced this to the villagers, keeping the other bits of information they had learned from Oogway to himself for the time being. There wasn't much to tell anyway. The villagers were surprised to hear this news, but they did seem happy to know that, if Po wasn't around to save them, somebody else would, and soon speculation on who would replace Po began. (Most of the villagers assumed Po would be replaced when he died).
Once this was out of the way though, the masters counsel had a serious sit-down discussion with Po about his time management. Po had gotten a lot better with managing the tasks that Shifu used to do as grandmaster. However, Po also had the duties of Dragon Warrior to perform as well as drop everything and keep out invading bandits, so it wasn't a surprise that he tended to forget things that even he was excited about. It was eventually decided that the master needed extra help since he got easily flustered and forgetful, someone like the Soothsayer who helped support the masters counsel in Gongmen City. Po didn't think he needed a soothsayer or somebody important since all he needed was an extra reminder here or there that he had something else to do. However, the palace servants weren't always readily available to help Po. He needed somebody specifically there to remind him of important meetings and who could help do little things that could take some weight off of Po's shoulders. And after some debating and thinking over the matter, Po eventually agreed to this.
Master Shifu and Zeng offered to help Po in this area and soon had a couple of candidates lined up at the door, though since everybody and their mother wanted to be assistant to the Dragon Warrior. The two planned clever and helpful questions to help separate the people who were there to actually help and the people who signed up just to follow Po around and swoon every so often. When they finally finished, they had about 33 candidates available for Po and the Five to interview which they promptly sent to the Jade Palace.
"This is weird," Po admitted when the day for the interviews finally came. "I know this'll help me, but it still feels like a lot having an assistant. That's like, fancy emperor or noble stuff."
"Well, you're a Grandmaster Dragon Warrior," Mantis reminded him. "Sounds like a pretty big deal to me."
Seeing he was still nervous, Tigress put a paw on Po's shoulder and promised that he'd be fine. "Think of it as having a glorified secretary or on-hand servant," she added. "Then it won't be so strange."
"I'll try," Po promised.
He and the Furious Five had set up an interview station by the moon pool in the Sacred Hall of Warriors in order to give themselves plenty of space and privacy. It was agreed that each interviewee would come in for about fifteen minutes just to see if they could make a good first impression, and then come back later when they had narrowed down the list for a more in-depth interview. Since there were many people available, the masters had decided to conduct the interviews early in the morning.
The first person to be interviewed was a middle aged goose who was so boring and monotone that Po nearly fell asleep during the interview process. However, he had good time management skills and clearly had no problem with slapping Po awake, so Tigress told Po to at least keep him in mind as a possibility.
"Of course you'd say that," Po grumbled, rubbing his cheek where the guy had hit him. "You like anyone who has no problems beating me to a pulp."
"I'm being practical," Tigress retorted flatly.
The next person to interview was an old goat who was very good company and had done many years of service under a high official of the eastern province. However, he had a lot of difficulty with his hearing, which meant Po wound up practically screaming and meticulously enunciating the entire interview. Because of this, the Dragon Warrior wore his throat out by the end and the furious five had to ask the questions for the third interview, though this wound up insulting the man who decided to walk out since Po couldn't be bothered to greet him above a raspy "Hey."
The fourth interview went okay since the person wasn't too boring nor a pain to interview, but they had pretty generic answers to Po's questions and pretty much seemed more like a yes-man if anything. The next candidate reminded Po a lot of Shifu since the woman gave him a measuring look the entire time, scolded him for slouching and not addressing her properly (Po called her ma'am and not Mrs. Eleida-Chou, ma'am). Viper wondered if she was a school teacher at one point since she reminded Viper of her primary school days, but since Mrs. Eleida-Chou, ma'am did most of the talking and was fairly intimidating, the masters never did find out if this was the case.
One by one the candidates that Shifu and Zeng had picked out came and went. Some of them were fairly decent people who Po was more than willing to write down, while others were so bad or annoying not even Tigress wanted to hire them. By the time the interviews started finishing up, it was close to lunch time and the last person to be interviewed was currently running five minutes late.
"Well that's not promising," Tigress noted after Po poured the tea back into the pot to warm it up. "Should I just cross them off the list? Or do you want to wait?"
"Let's just wait a little longer," Po told her. "Maybe she has a good reason for being late."
He glanced down at the name on the list, which read Jun, Wan-Xia. According to her information, she was the third oldest interviewee they had, being 75 years of age. She was described as quiet but hard-working and with sterling qualifications. She had served several nobles in the past and had been born and raised in several big cities in China, so she was familiar with bustle and chaos.
Another ten minutes passed by before finally a knock sounded on the door and the big doors creaked open after Po called out for them to enter. An old looking sheep slowly walked in huffing and puffing, leaning on her cane for dear life. She paused half-way to the table and apologized for her tardiness. She hadn't been informed about the large number of stairs and would have come earlier so she could take her time going up them.
"Oh, there's a riding platform," Po said. "Sorry about that. It's relatively new and Shifu I think keeps forgetting they're there."
"It definitely beats the stairs," Monkey agreed with a little laugh.
Po walked over and helped the old sheep sit down in a chair and quickly poured her some tea to help her hydrate.
"Thank you, dearie," the old sheep said gratefully. She took a few long sips of tea before sighing and giving Po a smile. "So, what can I answer for you?"
"Well, we have all your qualifications on paper," Po said. "So, why don't you just tell us a little about yourself?"
"Oh. Well, I was born seventy-five years ago in a little town, and there were lots of nice people around. I was an itty bitty little thing, but I had a lot of ambition in my youth, so I put in a lot of hard work to be useful. I married a charming young man, but he died shortly after our wedding. There was a bad flood."
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. What was he like?"
Mrs. Jun smiled. "He was my perfect match," she reminisced. "He would have walked on air for me. He loved poetry, had such a wonderful mind....no one really understood him, but we could talk for hours the two of us. And he always bought me red orchids since they reminded me of my childhood home. He was so wonderful. But life happens, and you have to deal with it as it comes."
"Yeah," Po agreed. "I know that feeling."
"How good is your memory?" Tigress interjected.
Mrs. Jun looked at her and smiled. "Tell you what," she said. "Give me a random phrase or string of numbers and I will repeat it back to you at the end of the interview."
Tigress frowned in thought, but Monkey beat her to the punch and called out, "Parsiplang road has five hundred thousand four hundred and ninety two noodle shops that Mr. Ping stalks in the day!"
When Tigress gave him a looks he added, "What? She asked."
Mrs. Jun laughed. "I like you lot already," she said. "What else can I answer for you?"
Po looked at the list of questions he had written down and asked, "How did you hear about this job and what made you want to reply?"
Mrs. Jin poured herself another cup of tea. "I may be old, but I'm not quite ready for retirement," she told the Dragon Teacher. "My last place of employment decided they needed someone younger, and since I'm a lot slower than I used to be, I was told to leave and retire. Enjoy things. Of course, I don't mind, but I admit I got rather bored fairly quickly. I need to be active. So I looked around for anything to do. I'm not very quick, but I still have a spry mind, so I hope it doesn't deter you at all."
"Of course not," Po promised. "I just need a little reminder if something's coming up so I don't forget."
"So Shifu told me. And I hear good things about the Valley of Peace and of you young ones, so I thought it was a nice place to be and I thought it'd be peaceful enough to act as a...work-on-vacation kind of idea."
"Really?"
"Well as I always say, if you love your job you'll never work a day in your life."
"I couldn't agree more," Crane concurred.
The masters continued on with the interview for the next ten minutes, learning more about the old sheep who was more than willing to do a whole bunch of talking. In fact, she talked so much about several of her jobs and the people she used to work with that Po barely had time to ask any questions. Tigress soon glanced at the timer by Po's desk and informed Mrs. Jun that the interview was over.
"Well, thank you for such a lovely time," the old sheep said. She slowly stood up with her cane, drinking the last of her tea before putting it back on the table. "It was so nice to chat. Just remember that at 12:06, Monkey said that Parsiplang road had five hundred thousand four hundred and ninety two noodle shops that Mr. Ping stalked in the day."
The masters stared at her in surprise. "You remembered all that?!" Monkey exclaimed.
"Of course I did. I also remember I was 15 minutes late, since my interview was supposed to be at 11:45, I generally walk at a speed of seventeen steps per minute which means those stairs have about a thousand steps, give or take, and Master Tigress switched which hand was on her hip about four or five times which tells me that she's ambidextrous."
Tigress just stared in surprise, too startled to say anything in reply.
Po was just as amazed and immediately gasped and said, "You're hired!!!"
"Really?" Mrs. Jun asked in surprise. "Don't I need a follow-up interview?"
"Yeah, but I decided you're perfect! And I can totally show you where the elevator is so you don't have to walk up and down the stairs."
"Oh, well that's wonderful! Thank you, Master Po. But let's be serious for a moment here. You haven't even told me the specifics of the job. Is this a board and breakfast advisor position or is this a nine to five kind of job? Do I need a uniform? Where am I working? Do I need to be in one place or am I allowed to wander around and smell the grass outside?"
"You can decide if you want to stay here or find a house in the Valley," Po promised. "I'm sure the villagers would love to help you out. You don't need a uniform; just wear something nice. And you can work outside if you need to. I just need to collaborate with you so that the two of us know where we are during the day in case I need you for something or you need to remind me of a task or appointment."
"Well then, that sounds just fine. I think a house in the village will work well for me. If there was no elevator we might have a different situation on our hands."
"Totally! So uh...when can you start?"
"Well, I would need to pack my things and move in, and that could take about a week, maybe longer if incident shaken, so perhaps we can settle it for two weeks from today?"
"Works for me!"
Mrs. Jun smiled at him and waved him goodbye, though she paused and asked if someone could show her where the elevator was. Monkey and Viper offered to help, and the three soon disappeared from the Sacred Hall of Warriors.
"That seemed a little hasty," Tigress finally said, finding her words. "Po, we still have a bunch of candidates on the list...."
"I know, but her memory was so good!" Po protested. "And she has a good eye for things. I think she'll be perfect!"
"She does honestly seem like a decent candidate," Mantis admitted.
"But what do we tell the other people we interviewed?" Crane asked, eyeing the names Po had written down earlier.
"We tell them Po made up his mind," Tigress said simply. "Not much else to it."