As the afternoon led to night, Po couldn't help but sit in the kitchen with a plate full of steamed dumplings worrying about how well he had done. Considering how difficult Shifu's training session was in comparison to his own attempt, (and quite honestly, any attempts he had made in the past), he didn't feel confident that he had done too well. 

What exactly can I teach them?! he thought to himself. Shifu's on a totally different plane of kung fu mastery than I am! And let's face it, those guys could easily kick my butt if they wanted! We all learn the same stuff!

Po sat there for a considerable amount of time before his friends started to pour into the kitchen and looked surprised at the bowl he had eaten out of. Po assured them that he hadn't eaten dinner without them and got up to make food. (He decided to go with noodles this time). The masters told him how fun the lake had been and how they wished he had joined him. Crane had actually been in the village drawing a few things for some of the newcomers coming to settle in, so he had been kept pretty busy for the remainder of the day. Po explained that he had written a letter to his dad (Li) before heading over to the kitchen as he was too nervous about his performance to do anything else. 

"I mean honestly, I think I might rewrite that letter," Po lamented as he slid some diced radishes and bok choy into the pot. "I couldn't stop thinking, and I think I accidentally wrote some of that onto the scroll."

"Hey, it's alright," Crane assured him. "I actually hear that writing about your thoughts helps relieve anxiety." 

"Well, Shifu will be in here soon, so I'll get that part over with." 

The masters continued to chat, giving Po reassuring words that he would get better with time, just as he got better at his kung fu just in time for the arrival of Tai Lung. Po knew he was going to have to wait a while in order to get to that point, but it still felt like an impossible task that was too far away to even be achievable. He soon finished dinner and passed everything out on the table, though three of the chairs were empty at the moment. Still nervous, Po immediately took to slurping up his food while his friends began to engage in light conversation. Mantis even made a little suggestion that maybe, if Po could tap into Shifu's mindset regarding training, then maybe the lessons would improve."

"Don't tell him that!" Monkey exclaimed. "Then we won't get the chance to sleep in! Or at least know we can ask for a sleep break every once in a while." 

"Master Oogway once stressed to me the importance of responsibility and hard work," came Shifu's voice suddenly from the doorway. "And in my mind, it's better to rise early and catch others off guard than sleep through what could be potential havoc." 

His sudden arrival had startled the Furious Five, as it generally did when he often suddenly appeared in a room. But for Po, who was already on edge about his assessment, he wound up jumping so suddenly in his chair that he tipped backwards and crashed onto the floor. Shifu naturally had continued right on talking through the commotion, but then paused for a second to wait for Po to stop rubbing his head and sit back down in the chair.

"Are you okay, buddy?" Monkey asked with a look of concern on his face. 

"Yeah, I'm okay," Po promised with a slight wince. "I've been hurt worse." 

Shifu and Mei-Ling sat down next to each other at the table and ate some of the noodles Po made before continuing on with the conversation. "How was training, Dragon Warrior?" Shifu asked.

Po swallowed nervously. "Um...he stammered. "I..thought you were supposed to tell me that...."

"I'm simply asking how you thought you did." 

"Oh. Um...well....I...think I did okay. It was short...."

"You don't look very confident." 

"I've never trained people before!" Po exclaimed. "I don't know how bad I sucked!"

"If it's any consolation, Po," Viper offered kindly. "You're a lot better than the last time you were left in charge of our training." 

"Ah," Shifu interjected. "So I take it kite flying and playing on swings was not part of your training session today?" 

"Nope," Mantis added. "Just good old fashioned arrow shooting." 

"Hmmm....That's definitely much better than previous. But there's still much to learn I would imagine. What did you notice, my dear?" 

On cue, Mei-Ling pulled out the dreaded scroll that Po had been eyeballing all day. She cleared her throat, announced she would be reading verbatim what she wrote, and began reciting her notes: 

"Began reading training instructions from Shifu. Tigress joked about him wasting time. (Based off of everyone's tones, I'm assuming he's tried training before. [Note to self: ask Shifu about this]). Monkey thinks Po being a teacher will be strange, especially if Po lets them sleep in. Mantis is looking forward to it. Said "Don't tell Shifu."" 

"Hey!" Mantis exclaimed. 

"Po decided to have Five shoot tiny tea cups with arrows. Tigress asked if they or him were setting it up. (She's being very teasey today). Five joked about how easy the training exercise was going to be. Viper scolded them."

Po turned a dark shade of red after hearing this but said nothing. 

"Sorry, Po," Crane apologized. "We weren't trying to be mean, honest." 

"I know," Po answered quietly.

"Po is gone for five minutes. Ten minutes. Tigress keeps staring off into the distance. We made eye contact once. Po is gone fifteen minutes. Oh, he's back with the tea cups. Heading over to Earthen Marks of Eternity with Furious Five."

"Oh boy..." Shifu muttered to himself. 

"They're alive!" Po protested immediately. 

"Set up tea cups on Earthen Marks of Eternity. I'm moving over here just in case. Turned on machine and all the tea cups smashed to the floor."

Master Shifu slapped a hand to his forehead as if to say, Really?!

"Monkey laughed."

"It wasn't deliberately!" Monkey cried. 

"Po is staring off into space. He keeps looking at Earthen Marks of Eternity every once in a while. Almost five minutes have gone by and Tigress just asked if he was okay. Po is leaving the training hall and said he'd be back. Promised to replace broken tea cups later."

"Yeah, I'll get on that tomorrow when I get the time," Po promised Shifu who now had his usual I am not amused expression on his face. Mei-Ling continued on reading what she had made note of. 

"The Five went ahead and did warm-ups, with Tigress' initiation. I think I'll draw a pretty picture while I wait."

Mei-Ling then showcased a very nice looking doodle of a grassy cliff with pretty flowers and reflections of moonlight. Po turned a little red. "Was I really gone that long?" he asked. 

"Only for twenty four minutes," Mei-Ling assured him. 

"That's very pretty," Shifu told her. "Reminds me of when we first met."

"That is where we first met," Mei-Ling confirmed. 

"Oh! Wow!" Shifu took hold of the picture and smiled, his face turning a little love-struck in the process. "That really takes me back. I hadn't actually planned to be out training that night. But Oogway decided that I was tired and offered to watch Tai Lu-" 

Shifu suddenly paused and froze mid-sentence. After a second he cleared his throat and completely reworded his sentence. "Well, I'm glad I decided to head out. That'll be a night I won't forget." 

Mei-Ling chuckled. "Yes," she agreed. "I especially enjoyed beating you. It was by far the most romantic moment in my life!"

Monkey sighed. "I hope I have a love story like that," he gushed. 

"I know," Mantis agreed. "Po's definitely got one...if he and Tigress would date already!!!" 

"Look, I like Tigress, but if she's not ready to date, then I'm not going to pressure her," Po defended. 

Mantis started stuttering and pointing and letting out irritated noises of disbelief. "YOU KISSED!!!!!!!!" he screamed. 

"Mantis, that's enough," Shifu scolded. "Leave them alone." 

"I need some air! I can't handle this!" the bug yelled dramatically and he cleaned his dishes and left the kitchen with another sigh of irritation. 

"Speaking of Tigress, where is she?" Viper asked. "She hasn't come in for dinner." 

"Maybe she's training again?" Crane offered. 

"We can determine that in a moment," Shifu said. "For now, I'd like Mei-Ling to finish her report. 

Po swallowed. "Ah, right," he said. "That little thing." 

Mei Ling cleared her throat and began to read her notes again, picking up when Po walked into the training hall 24 minutes later. "Po is back with more tea cups. Seems a little better and less embarrassed. His idea to hold the tea cups in place requires the Five holding them while the equipment swings around."

"Yeah, Mantis wasn't too happy about that idea," Crane admitted. 

"Five seemed skeptical about it being a wise idea, but went along with it. (Since Shifu always makes Po do exercises he hates). Tigress threatened to make someone a target if they hit her. Tigress held the tea cup first and Monkey offered to shoot first. Didn't hit her, so I suppose he's safe. Mantis wanted to get on the Marks of Eternity to get it out of the way and held the tea cup for Viper. Crane shot next and Monkey held the cup. Mantis then shot the tea cup while Viper held onto it. Tigress went last and Crane held the target tea cup. Tigress put weapons away and Po dismissed students."

When Mei-Ling finished, Shifu sat back in contemplation over the report. Po fiddled with his thumbs nervously. The masters remaining at the table fell into dead silence as they waited for the verdict. After what felt like forever, Shifu spoke back up. His face indicated to Po that the news wasn't fantastic.

"Time," he said as he slowly chose his words. "Is easily lost and not so easily gained. A split second can be the difference between life and death. While we of course cannot always control our placement in a moment of time, it's imperative that we try to lose the least amount of time as possible. While target timing is in itself a form of time, the exercise that was performed was more demonstrative of precision. And on the note of performance, it was, as mentioned, a bit too novice for the Five."

Po's face completely fell. He sighed. "I'll try to do better next time," he promised. 

"There's no try," Shifu answered immediately. "Only do." 

Po blinked a little. "Have you been hanging out with Master Yao at all?" he commented. 

"That's all I have to say on your attempts at teaching," Shifu told him, completely ignoring the question. "We have early training tomorrow to measure adaptation, so I want you all in bed early." 

The students bowed and silently left the table to clean their dishes and leave the kitchen. After watching them leave, Mei-Ling turned to Shifu and asked, "Who's Master Yao?"

"Only one of the greatest kung fu minds in the entire universe!" the grandmaster answered excitedly. He then quickly corrected himself and added in a more subdued tone, "He's stopped by the Jade Palace a few times for matters of security and we've had the honor of sharing wonders with him since he spends most of his time meditating in a box, and rarely sees the outdoors. And of course he can do many impossible kung fu moves with his mind, he invented the abacus, perfected pruning, could unlock the meaning of the Sacred Scrolls when he was only five years old-!!!"

Mei-Ling smirked at him. "What a wonderful sounding guy!" she teased. "Don't make me jealous." 

Master Shifu looked a little offended. "My dear, that's an insult!" he exclaimed. "I only meant that...as a kid when my father abandoned me here-"

Mei-Ling cut him off with a warm kiss to the lips. "Don't trouble yourself, my love. I was only teasing you," she giggled and kissed him on the forehead. "Honestly, you take everything so seriously."

Shifu turned a light shade of red and coughed into his fist. "Well...I suppose I should work on that then...." he stammered out. He quickly changed subjects and asked, "You didn't happen to see Tigress anywhere, did you?" he asked. "She wasn't at dinner, I noticed." 

"She and Crane hung around the Jade Palace for a little while, but I don't where she went off to after that," Mei-Ling admitted. "I thought about making small talk with her, but knowing her relationship with you, I wasn't really sure how to start the conversation quite honestly."

Shifu sighed. "I need to talk to her about that," he admitted. "I'm glad she sees me as a father figure...a somewhat decent one anyway...but it's not as strong as it should be. I'm honestly shocked she didn't hate me after she heard about the whole...the history I shared with Tai Lung." 

"I'm sure she understood you were going through trauma," Mei-Ling assured him. "In either case I was shocked when I heard about that. I was near one of the local guards trying to get away with a priceless jewel when I heard about the incident. From how you talked about him, you'd think he'd be better behaved. How old was he when we met, six?"

"Four," Shifu corrected. He then chuckled in memory. "I think he knew I was romantically involved with someone," he recalled. "But he didn't say anything about it. It just dawned onto me that once when I came back from our evening walks, I went to kiss him goodnight and he started mumbling something about how kids without moms got another one. Of course he was also four so the dialogue was more adorably bad, but I'll spare you myself trying to recreate it." 

"Aw," Mei-Ling gushed. "Kids are so precious at that age. It's a shame we didn't tie the knot back then. Now they're both all grown-up." 

"Tigress wasn't around at that time," Shifu corrected. 

"No, but I could have been there when Tai Lung abandoned everyone. Maybe we could have balanced each other out raising her." 

Shifu grew melancholic and he stared off into the distance thinking about what could have been. Then he sighed. "I guess the timing was off for both of us," he said finally. "We had different priorities." 

Mei-Ling gave him a sad smile and simply wrapped him in a hug. Shifu buried his face in her shoulder and the two stood in the kitchen for a long while before they decided to head off to sleep. 

Po walked into the barracks along with the rest of the Five and headed over to his room to get some sleep. As he began to open his door, he noticed that Tigress' room was unusually quiet. Curious, he opened her door, only to find that she wasn't there. Po frowned. He hadn't seen her since the afternoon, so he had zero idea as to what the master was doing. As he went to close the door and head into his own room, Viper slithered up next to him and looked around herself. 

"She's not in here either, huh?" she said to Po.

"No, and I haven't seen her since my very disastrous training session," Po told her. "I hope she's okay."

Viper frowned in thought. "I'm surprised we didn't see her when heading into dinner," she commented as she thought back to before. "Maybe we missed her?"

"Maybe.... But then where would she be? She's starting to make me nervous."

Unable to really figure out the answer to this mystery, both masters decided to call it a night and figure out the problem in the morning. Tigress, as it actually turned out, was sitting quietly underneath the Sacred Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom munching on the fruit. Granted, Shifu would probably get a little annoyed knowing that she was eating "sacred" fruit, but everyone ate from the tree and everyone knew it. They just didn't speak about it. The master had decided to have her peach snack a bit late into the night as she hadn't really been hungry for dinner and was a little more concerned about other matters that were present before her. Leaned against the tree exhausted, being kept awake by her racing mind, and feeling tossed about like leaves in the wind, she was glad to have the silence. Here she could think, plan, adjust, relax. The master let out a tired sigh and looked out past the dark horizon. It was getting really late and she should probably head off to bed soon. 

I don't feel like getting up right now though, she thought as she finished her peach and laid down on the ground to rest her racing head. Maybe in a little bit when I've calmed down. Or at least have a plan of action. That might be best. 

The master decided to stay at the peach tree to collect herself, feeling that it might better help her have a clear head in the morning. And so she stayed. And thought. And thought. And thought. And thought. And thought. And sighed. And thought. And thought. And thought. And thought. And cursed Mei-Mei's existence. And thought. And thought. And thought. And thought. And thought. And fell asleep.