Chapter Text
Hello, after such a long time finally, the second part of this short story comes now. Have a good reading time! :-)
Side note: The following text is just Kung Fu Panda talk, with a few phrases from Panda Po. :D I'm NOT a philosopher. All I'm trying to say is that Shen shouldn't live with the lie of being the pure evil. No, he isn't.
Shen didn't know whether to bless or curse the day of no longer languishing in the dungeon. Whenever he saw the panda, he was reminded of his defeat. At least, he couldn't complain about his current situation. Whenever Po could give him warmth, he got it in the form of warmed blankets or tea. The panda kept offering him herbal potions, which tasted terrible, but helped at least. But the peacock had to stay in "bed" for several days, because he was still too weak to stand up on his own.
After almost one week, his lungs had recovered to the extent that he no longer suffered from acute shortness of breath at night. His general condition was also reasonably stable again, but he was still very tired and he slept most of the time, so that there was never a conversation between the two unequal warriors.
Only in the second week was the peacock awakened by a strange occurrence. It rained that day. The sky was overcast with dark clouds outside, but this could not be seen in the stone house.
Shen was still in a deep sleep when he heard a soft clatter. He blinked, opened his eyes and looked around sleepily. It had gotten lighter in the room. There were candles all around him. Just at that moment the panda lit two or three more. Concerned, the peacock sat up and wondered if this black and white monster was preparing his burial or even planning his execution.
Noticing the movements in the bed, the panda looked up. "Oh, are you awake?"
Shen said nothing, he just looked around. As he had guessed, it was a stone house he was in, though with no decorations or anything. He also saw that the panda was wearing a green coat with yellow gold embroidery.
"How are you feeling today?" Po asked after he had lit the last candle.
But instead of answering this question, the peacock asked a counter question. "Do you think, it's wise to be in the same room with me?"
Po looked at him in surprise. "Why not?"
"Aren't you worried about your health?" Shen narrowed his eyes into dangerous slits. "You know I have no scruples about killing you. Have you forgotten that?"
Po cleared his throat. "Yes, I remember."
He crawled briefly on all fours and then he sat cross-legged on the ground a meter in front of the lord.
The peacock bowed his head skeptically. "Why did you bring me here?"
"There are a lot of reasons for that," Po replied.
"And which would be?"
"Well, first of all, you're ill. You need someone to heal you."
"Ill? Me?" The peacock threw back his head. "Bah! I feel good. As good as ever. I'm so fit I could fight against you anytime."
Po raised his eyebrows. "I wouldn't risk it," he warned.
But Shen wasn't even listening to him. Instead, he threw the blanket aside and got to his feet. But that had been an extremely bad mistake. He swayed and landed on the cold floor. Immediately, Po rushed over to him and helped him up. But the peacock pushed him aside, but he lay down again in the improvised bed voluntarily.
Po sat back cross-legged. "So, you wanted to know why you're here. You know the first reason now. But there is one more. You know, I'm not only a master now, I've also become a teacher."
"Congratulations," Shen remarked with dry sarcasm.
Po smiled sheepishly. At least the peacock hadn't lost his black humor.
"Did you kidnap me here just to tell me that?" the peacock growled. "Just don't ask me to confess."
Po put his paws together. "Well, I guess now that I'm a teacher, I thought that I... that maybe I could teach you something."
"You, me?!" Shen's beak remained open. "You've probably lost your brain over the years..." He paused briefly. "How long was I actually gone?"
Po rubbed his paws nervously. "Er, you mean how long you passed out?"
"Stop your jokes! You know exactly what I mean! How long was I in this dungeon?!"
"Uh, well... I wouldn't say it was long..."
"Panda!" Shen yelled at him. "How long was I in this dungeon?!"
Po bit his lower lip. Then he gave the answer. "Five years. But there wasn't much going on anyway." The panda bit his lower lip, wondering if those were even the right words.
He watched the peacock's reaction with concern. Shen had lowered his head and was staring at the bed blanket. His wings spasmed. 20 years he had sacrificed for his dream. Until the panda ruined everything.
Shen's beak began to tremble. "You stole five years from me! And now you just come along and want to preach to me?!"
"You don't even know what it's about."
Shen sighed deeply. "Then tell me before I make your life a lot shorter. And you'll be sorry if you have no good reason for your foolish deed!"
Contrite, Po twisted the corners of his mouth. "I can imagine how you feel..."
He faltered as a cold smile crept down the peacock's beak. "Understand? You?" He giggled hoarsely, but then started coughing again. His lungs weren't quite as fit as he thought they were. "What do you know about failure?"
Po raised his eyebrows. "Well, maybe even more than you think."
The peacock lifted his head and looked at him. It was a look of disbelief. The panda sighed briefly. "In my life, things have not always gone smoothly. In fact, in the early days of my kung fu career, I literally fell on my face more often than I stood up..."
"And?" Shen interrupted him viciously. "Did you then go to jail and think about ending your miserable life?"
Po looked down a little. "Of course not."
There was a period of silence. Finally, Po took a deep breath. "You wanted to know what I wanted to talk to you about, didn't you?" He paused, but Shen didn't answer, so Po kept talking. "Well, basically it all started here. I retired on the advice of my old master to try meditation. Well, not for 30 years or so, just as long as I thought I could. So then I squatted down here and tried to form a unity with the universe. Or something like that. Just clearing my head. I sat and sat and sat and sat… and then I realized something."
"And what?" Shen asked with disinterest.
"You know, back when the big explosion went off in Gongmen City Port, you remember?"
"Yes, I remember."
"The yin and yang symbol appeared in the sky."
Shen's eyebrows drew together. "And?"
Po smiled sheepishly. "Oh well. That reminded me of something and I talked to the soothsayer about it. And she said that you were kind of under a compulsion inside."
"Me under a compulsion?" Shen jerked his head up and glared at the panda. "You are crazy!"
Po sighed. "No, I'm serious. And you should take that seriously, too."
Shen avoided his eyes and stared straight ahead. Then he smiled coldly.
"I don't need therapy from you," he said in a derogatory tone. "No matter what that old goat drummed into you. If so, she's just lying."
Po narrowed his eyes skeptically. "But for someone who thinks she's a liar, you always took her words very seriously. And that you were just kidding yourself."
Shen glared at him. "What are you implying?"
"Well, she meant you thought you were born with a curse."
The panda noticed how Shen's eyes twitched slightly, but there was silence.
Po cleared his throat. "And… that you felt it was your destiny to continue doing wrong. Especially after having the yin and yang symbol in your mind..."
"It's none of your business what I think!" Shen snapped at him. "I can safely do without your psychoanalysis!"
"But Shen..."
"For you still Lord Shen!"
"Okay, then just like that, but you have to try to understand what I want to say. Even when we were talking about the topic of "scars"..."
"No, don't start that again!" Shen exclaimed desperately, putting his wings over his head. "I've puzzled my head over this long enough in the dungeon."
"Oh, see, so you've been thinking about that too. That's a good basis for our conversation."
"What else is there to do?" The peacock supported his wings on his legs. "There was nothing in the dungeon anyway."
Po sighed. "I'm sorry."
"Yes, yes! Everyone is sorry!" Shen yelled in exasperation. "I don't need pity, I need respect! Why can nobody understand that?!"
"Fine, fine," Po tried to calm him down. "Then let's not talk about scars, but about the principle."
"What principle?"
"Well, like I said, I spoke to the soothsayer a bit and she said that you're obviously convinced that you think you're going to fight me because firstly you're too stubborn and secondly because you think you're the complete opposite of me like the yin and the yang."
"Have you lost your mind?!" Shen snapped at him. "I wanted to destroy you so I could celebrate my victory. And as for that old goat, she can go hang!"
"But you think, you have to take your place as an opposite symbol in order to fulfill your so-called destiny, don't you?" Shen's wings began to tremble. But Po kept talking undeterred. "Yin represents darkness and negativity. Yang for the white and positive." He eyed the peacock sideways. "Since your feathers are white, that's proof you're no calamity."
"You're talking crazy things!" Shen snapped at him. "Your talk violates your own kung fu teachings."
Po contracted his brows. "In what way?"
Shen snorted. "Stupid panda. This black and white symbol exists everywhere in your poor kung fu. And I saw the yin and yang symbol in the prophecy." Shen paused. He shuddered at the thought when he saw the symbol in the menacing light. As a child, he would have run away. And once, when Po twirled the cannonball around the harbor, this symbol had burst into flames. In his own cannon fire. But he didn't want to say that now. Instead, he suppressed the growing feeling of panic and continued in an icy tone. "I don't know what color you are, but everyone tells I'm a curse and you the opposite of me, then I must be against you in this case. It is my destiny to fight you."
"No, Shen," Po said firmly. "It's not my duty to fight you. I only defended myself and others."
Shen narrowed her eyes. "You had to and should defeat me. With victory, there is defeat. With life… death follows." Silence came. "Why don't you want to fulfill this principle? Just by bringing me here, you broke the principle."
Po sighed heavily. "Shen, I don't have to kill you. Not for one simple reason. You are not yin and I am not yang. I'm not pure good and you're not pure evil. We are just part of these elements, we swim through them like in a river that constantly changes color. We can still choose which side each of us wants to be on. I'm not perfect with my goodness. I have my dark spots, too."
Shen gave him a skeptical glance.
Po tried to smile. "Maybe you have some good parts in you, too."
Shen's breathing quickened. "Oh yes? Then tell me one good thing I should have done – from your point of view."
From Shen's point of view, everything he had done was right up to the moment when the soothsayer informed him about his parents.
"Well," Po began hesitantly. "Maybe I wouldn't have become a Dragon Warrior without you."
Shen wrinkled his beak. "You couldn't think of a more pathetic excuse, could you?!"
The panda wanted to open his mouth, but he couldn't think of anything on this point. Shen narrowed his eyes so dangerously that Po found it a little frightening. But he calmly rested his paws on his knees and went on talking.
"You are under no obligation to be my opposite. You have free will. Don't think you were born destiny, which you are not."
"Then why was I born with that color?!" the peacock gasped so bitterly that he began to tremble violently. "I don't even look like my parents. Already after my birth, there were rumors that I was illegitimate. The result of an affair." He tensed briefly. "My color is the color of damnation. And I'm the death of your parents."
Po shook his head. "Shen, you're beating yourself up with that notion. Don't you think, it's time to change that mindset?"
Shen noticed that the panda was getting short of breath again. He shook his head. No, he didn't want to and couldn't allow this thought, which is why the panda dared to try again.
"We are not yin and yang personified. If you were pure evil, you wouldn't have any soft points in you."
"What are you babbling about again?!"
"The soothsayer told me about fear, hurt pride and anger."
Shen didn't know what happened to him. He would like to run away.
"If you were my natural destiny, you wouldn't have been afraid of me," Po continued. "You were afraid to compete against me."
"Soothsayer again?" Shen snapped.
"Yes."
"I was just pretending. I wanted to play a mind game with her!"
"But you were scared enough of me back then and killed my family for it."
"I... I did it for my parents!"
Po took a deep breath. "For the love of your parents. So you admit it?" Po watched as tears formed in Shen's eyes, but he tried to hold them back. "Love is not Yin," Po said in a soft voice. "It's Yang. There's a white spot on your dark soul again. I mean, look at me. Maybe I would be the bad guy today if I had had a different environment."
Shen avoided his gaze. "You can't tell me anything. There is no gray in this world, only black and white."
Po shrugged. "We may be in a gray area at the moment. We can still choose which side each of us wants to be on."
Shen folded his wings. He just didn't want to hear anymore.
Po scratched his head nervously. He had now said everything that had occurred to him. Then he made an "aha" gesture and pulled out a piece of paper. Shen looked up. It looked like a cheat sheet.
"Water is water," Po continued. "Fire is fire. A man is a man. A woman is a woman. The good is the good. The bad is the bad. Noodles are noodles... Uh, the opposite of that hasn't occurred to me yet... I... I mean, you're not evil. Although, I already said that. It's just a part of our lives that we live in and everything is constantly changing."
Shen felt Po gradually falter. Then he watched in amazement as Po reached into a corner and pulled out a bowl of dumplings
"I should eat more while meditating," Po said, putting a dumpling in his mouth. "It's so hard to think on an empty stomach." He held the bowl out to Shen. "One dumpling, too?"
Shen raised his wing in refusal. "Not hungry."
Po shrugged. "Okay." He put three more dumplings into his mouth. After swallowing them, he set the bowl aside again. Then he rubbed his temples as if thinking hard, then he lifted his paws. "I think, I know now. They don't fight each other, they complement each other. I meant, the contrasts around us. I think, some more contrasts will come in my mind. And what about you?"
He looked at Shen expectantly. There was silence between the two for a while. Then Shen lifted the corners of his beak slightly, which gave Po some hope.
"So, you mean, fight and win," Shen began.
Po nodded. "Yeah, that's it, I guess."
Shen looked down and stared at the bed blanket. "Then it's probably true. After the fight comes the victory. One wins, the other loses. And after life… comes death."
Po dropped his ears in disappointment. "Why are you saying that again?"
"One lives, the other dies. And to be honest, I would have preferred to die."
Po was now at a point where he didn't know what to do anymore. At least Shen was talking now. "Do your fellow combatants actually know where you are? Or do they even know that you illegally got me out of prison?"
Po looked down. "No, uh, I told the others, I was going out to meditate."
Shen narrowed his eyes and looked at him accusingly. "A lie."
Po smiled sheepishly. "That's a dark spot in my white fur."
Shen giggled hoarsely. "Panda, you live in a fantasy world."
Po raised his paw admonishingly. "I spoke to the soothsayer. I know what she said to you. You just don't want to publicly admit that you're wrong. You've sunk deep into the darkness, but you don't have to stay in there. After darkness comes light."
"Your yin yang stuff again. Finally, leave me in peace! My head is pounding. I need silence."
"So you learned your first lesson today."
"Lesson? What lesson?"
"By saying what you really want inside. Don't hide behind yourself."
"That has nothing to do with yin and yang!"
"Alright, in this case, Dragon Warrior wisdom."
"Stupid panda gossip..." Shen coughed violently.
Po cleared his throat. "I would say panda talk. You should get well again first. After illness comes health. Here Yin and Yang alternate again. We're well on our way to changing you inside."
"Now stop it!" Shen yelled at him. "I saw the symbol. It's my destiny to die."
"No, Shen. It was just the symbol between good and evil, victory and defeat. But you are neither of them, you are only surrounded by them."
Shen sighed in defeat. "You never get tired of repeating that, panda, aren't you?" Po pressed his lips together. He wanted Shen to come to a good conclusion himself. To his relief, Shen actually continued talking. "Assuming your theory is factual, why was your yang stronger than my yin of annihilation?"
Po rubbed his neck. "Well, there are much stronger and more powerful things in the world. Life, friendship, love, health, happiness."
Shen flinched. "Nonsense. It's easier to die than to live. And happiness has to be taken. Something like that doesn't just come to you."
"That would have brought us to a good point. You were in a different environment. Unlike me. I must have gotten too much of it. Accordingly, I'm like I am today. We become what is happening around us. But also internally, as we think, from birth. It just depends on how we direct and use it."
Shen rubbed his head. "You confuse me."
"Really? Oh, I'm sorry. I see, I'm not as far as I thought as a teacher."
"You failed."
"Okay, I'll speak normally then. I mean, that's what you've been looking for your whole life, didn't you? You were looking for respect, which you weren't given, especially real love, or at least your parents didn't show you..."
"Soothsayer again?!"
"Well, she mentioned that you had self-esteem issues before."
"Shut up! Be quiet!"
Shen jumped up and lunged at him. But he was still too weak. He clawed his finger feathers into the thick panda fur. Then he fell forward and cried.
Po stroked his back comfortingly. "Let it out."
Shen wanted to yell at him, but then a sob escaped him involuntarily.
"Why are you telling me all this?" Shen managed to choke out.
"Because I'm the Dragon Warrior."
"That's the most ridiculous explanation I've ever heard." Shen wiped the tears from his cheeks.
"I also have my duties as a Dragon Warrior."
"Well, well, it's your duty to make me cry, yes?!"
Shen cursed himself 1000 times. He couldn't remember the last time he cried.
"There's no shame in crying," Po said forgivingly. "I cried a lot, too. As a child, as an adult..."
"It's a weakness," Shen gasped.
Po smiled. "If that were the case, then I would be extremely weak." He had to smile about it himself. "You held back the tears on the wreck. Feel free to cry. There is nobody here but us."
He raised the peacock slightly and put his paws on his shoulders to keep him from falling. Although Shen had stopped making sobbing noises, but the tears were still there on his face.
"I think," Po said after a while, "it's time for you to change something about yourself. You mustn't curse yourself." He looked at him intently and pointed to Shen's chest. "Change your inner spirit. You must turn your pride into humility." He cleared his throat. "If you hadn't been so proud to begin with, you would have surrendered back then."
Shen sat up. "Never! I would never surrender."
He wanted to go for the panda's throat, but Po held him tight and looked at him steadily. "But you wished you could do it, didn't you?"
Shen struggled again. But when he had to realize that he simply wasn't physically able to do it, he gave up, but continued to look at the panda with angry, wet eyes. "Now don't tell me that all came to you while you were eating."
Po smiled sheepishly. "Well, opposites came to me between a soup and a yeast dumpling."
"You're kidding me..." Shen trailed off as he coughed heavily again. This time, it was so strong that he could no longer speak.
Worried, Po put him back down on the makeshift bed. He briefly considered using his learned chi, but then he decided against it. At least as long as there was no acute danger to life for the peacock. The defeated warlord had to come to terms with himself first.
"You mustn't get upset," Po persuaded him and covered the peacock again. "Stay calm. You have to try to relax. You're in no danger." A piercing look from Shen made him flinch again, but Shen was too exhausted to lunge at him again. Po thought it's the best to leave the peacock alone for now. "I think, I'll go outside for a moment. Maybe then a nice thought will come to me." With these words, the panda got up and left the house. As soon as he left, Shen pulled up the blanket and nicked his leg with a claw. The slight scratch bled immediately. Since dead people don't bleed, Shen had to realize that he wasn't living in a dream.
He struggled to get up from his sickbed. He was still unsteady on his feet. He felt dizzy, but leaned against the wall and shuffled toward the exit. Outside, a gentle rain trickled down onto the earth. He stretched out his wing and let the raindrops patter on his feathered hand. He triturated the beads of water between his finger feathers. In Gongmen City, he had only touched gunpowder.
Fire and water. Again the yin and yang. From fire to water. What was water? Yin or Yang?
The white peacock shook his head. It didn't mean anything to him at the moment. All he knew was that life had him back.
The End