Chapter Text
The Memory Scroll records all that had ever happened. Supposedly.
On one of its many bamboo slips, the story went like this: "Thus the Lion, the Elephant, and the Golden-Winged Eagle were brought in front of this Sacred and Most Wonderous Scroll, to be sealed away unto Eternity."
But the scroll can always choose to record differently, can't it? Write down what might happen, had happened, would happen in another time and place?
Look, here. Take a peek at what's on these slips.
The Lion Camel Ridge brothers were not sealed away, as the Intelligent Stone Monkey believed. For Law had triumphed over Wisdom, and the only concession to Wisdom was a burning sword.
O', let his flames burn away the ignorance, burn away the pain, burn away the obsession, the laugher and cries and solemn farewells. Burn away the roars, the stubborn silence, the golden-winged blur swooping down into the blade's path.
Burn it all away, so seeds may sprout from the ashes, so a thousand years later, a lion may walk into a noodle shop.
Vroooooom. A truck's engine rumbled outside of the shop window.
Pigsy didn't care enough to look up until it screeched to a halt. And of course, it had to be a dumpster truck, parking itself right in front of HIS shop while there was THREE other dumpsters across the street, all filled to the brim, DAMMIT.
This late into the night, he was too tired to shout at the driver, so he just grabbed his trusty rolling pin, stood up, and poked his head out of the door to check the license plate, chuckling to himself because who'd rob a noodle store on a dumpster truck, and the old warthog in him was being a paranoid fool again.
...Okay, on a second thought, this lion might. With his bushy braided manes and hulking muscles and ne'er-do-well vibes. Now he had stepped out the truck, slamming the car door shut behind him, and here he came. Heading straight for Pigsy's Noodles like he was an old customer.
He wasn't.
Hmph. Pigsy was scared of no tough guys and ready to defend his turf. And since the driver was coming to him, he'd give the guy a piece of his mind about proper parking etiquettes while he was at it.
"Hey! The dumpster's over there, big guy!" Pigsy stepped outside and stomped on the sidewalk, to get his attention, "And your truck's blocking the driveway!"
"Oh, sorry for that! I'm leaving the moment I get my takeout," The lion put his paws up, then paused. "...Chef Zhu? No, Mess Sergeant Zhu?"
"Excuse me, who's your ser—" The realization struck. "Lao Qing? Old Azure? Is that you?"
"Yep. That's me." A finger snap, "The one and only."
Of course. Who else would call him by rank nowadays, in such a formal, goofy way too. The darn paper-pushers at Veteran's Affairs, maybe. "Long time no see! Come in and take a seat. I hardly recognized you under that mop of hair. What brings you here?"
He pointed to the dumpster truck outside. "New job. And dinner too. Hey, any chance you still serve the Special Friday Slop here?"
"Ha! You bet! With extra meat for ya' to chomp on!"
Look, when Pigsy heard "Dishonorable Discharge", the image that came to mind was someone who set the barracks on fire or stabbed a roommate because they looked at him funny. Did worse things than the ones Sandy went to therapy for, except they weren't haunted by the memories and showed no regret whatsoever.
He wasn't expecting the same old lion, ordering the same dishes, just hairier, sadder, and with dark inky tattoos all over his right arm.
"What's with these tattoos anyways?" Pigsy frowned. "If I don't know you and you just walk in, I'd thought ya' some no-good gangster, looking for trouble."
"My lil' bro's idea. A very drunken and badly-thought-out one." There was something more than run-of-the-mill embarrassment in his voice. Guilt, perhaps, before he covered it up with a laugh, "Sure didn't help this old lion get hired after he was kicked out."
"No shit!" Pigsy said. "VA's a pain in the butt even when they aren't tryin' to screw us over, the darn bastards." He paused. "I....can't even imagine how it's been like, with that on your record."
"Yeah."
Well damn, that was a dead end he just talked himself into, if the stiff silence that ensued was any indication.
"Hey, it's alright. If you want to know the whole story, Chef, just ask. Or don't." Azure spoke up first. "Either is fine by me."
"No, my bad. Shouldn't have brought that up. What's done's done. Enough of these sad old people talks!" Pigsy tapped on the table, "Start eating, your slop's getting cold, and no old comrades of mine are gonna leave this place on an empty stomach. When's your break over? I gotta start packing your takeouts, and...Tang's. Ugh."
"That your kid?"
"Do I look like a family man?" Pigsy groaned. "No, ya' big furball! I wish! He's this...annoying pest. Wears glasses, scholarly type, dunno what I have done to the Noodle Gods to deserve this man, but every time I told him 'This is the last free meal you are getting from me!' I ended up giving him more! Had I not met his parents, I might think he's a noodle bowl demon under disguise."
That got a chuckle out of the lion. "A cunning noodle bowl demon, beguiling our poor ol' Chef with his flawless disguise and charm? Sounds like something straight out of old folklore."
"Yeah, and a bottomless one, draining my noodles one bowl at a time, until there ain't any left, and the shop goes bankrupt! Straight out of a horror story, that's more like it!" Pigsy slapped the counter for extra emphasis. "If it's charity work I want, I'd be running a goddamn soup kitchen, not Pigsy's Noodles."
"Hmmm. That reminds me, how do you set up a small business like this? Asking for a friend."
"Why, with my sweat and blood! And generations of hard, unrelenting work!" Pigsy cried. "And you think that can be summed up in five minutes? Seriously. I know you aren't this 'friend', and before I go about creating more competition, lion, you gotta spill the beans first. Who's the unlucky fool and why does he want to do this to himself?"
"Why, it's Old Yellow Tusk, the madman!" He said, then sheepishly added when he noticed Pigsy's blank stare, "Quartermaster guy? Gruffy elephant? Played that Monkey Mech game ten billion times? Yeah, sorry, you probably don't know my friends that well."
Tang didn't know what he was expecting when he walked in. Not a giant blackboard propped against the counter, a lecturing Pigsy, and a big, scary lion taking notes, that was for sure.
"Again, can your guy really do the interior decor all by himself? I had to hire two people just to get the walls repainted."
"Not all by himself, I'd be helping out too——" The lion looked up. "Hello there! You must be Pigsy's friend."
"Uh, hi," he waved back awkwardly. Holy molly, this dude was buff personified. Hopefully, he wasn't the shop's new security guard. "Pigsy, where did even you get that blackboard? Are you starting a night school or something?"
"The previous owner couldn't bother to take their junks outta' the basement. Turn out there is something useful in there." The pig said. "And I ain't no stuffy high school teacher. Just helping an old comrade out here. Ol' Azure, meet Tang, Tang, meet Azure. The truck outside is his. Before you say anything, I have one bag, ONE BAG of extra takeout, and if you dare ask for a second, I'm asking the ol' lion to throw you out."
"At your service, Chef." Azure made a mock salute. "Just kidding, Mr.Tang. He's not really gonna strongarm you. I won't either, unless there's a good reason to. You want a second bowl, gimme a holler and I'm happy to order one for ya'."
"See? This ol' lion gets it." Tang instantly decided he liked this guy. He wouldn't really push it that far and let the guy buy him a second, but still. "The importance of generosity and customer satisfaction. You could learn a lot from Mr. Azure, you know."
"Ol' Azure! Don't encourage him, for heaven's sake!" Pigsy slapped his forehead, "Your elephant pal tries to do business like this, and he's gonna close shop before it even opens. And Tang, don't you dare make the poor lion spend a single cent outta' his pocket, just to feed your pampered freeloading arse! He's having a hard time gettin' by already!"
"Okay, okay! It's not like I'm going to," Tang said, then added sulkily, "My point about generosity still stands, though." He took a seat next to the lion and adjusted his glasses. "By the way, sir, allow me to formally introduce myself: Tang Shifu, food critic, young intellectual, and soon-to-be grad student! If it's lectures and free knowledge you want, I'll be the better teacher here, just so you know."
"Really?" Pigsy raised an eyebrow, "If you know anything about the woes of small business owners, you'd actually pay them, starting from this old pig here. And here's a tip, lion: don't even get him started on one of his lectures about some dusty paper piles and whatnots, 'cause he won't ever stop."
"Excuse me, the Four Great Chinese Novels are not your old wrinkly newspapers! They are classics and masterpieces and I'm studying the best of them all, Journey to the West!"
"Hmmm. That reminds me. I owe a lot to a retired elderly professor, Dr. Man," Azure said. "Used to teach literature, help me get this job. My, you two would get along swimmingly."
"Dr. Man? As in, Manshu?" Upon receiving a nod, Tang jumped up, "That's our old department head! Oh my stars, his magnum opus on Tang dynasty legends is still on our reading list, and I never got to take one of his courses before he left!"
"Heh. Small world, isn't it—?"
Azure dropped his pen mid-speech, eyes wide open. Pigsy looked like he had seen a ghost. Tang gulped, because whatever they were looking at, it seemed to be right behind him.
Slowly, he turned back and saw the tiniest little kid, butt-naked and covered in mud, poking his head into the shop like a stray cat.