True to her word, Mrs. Jun started working at the Jade Palace two weeks to the day that she was hired. Li and some of the villagers were quick to help her settle into a house down along the riverbed close to the Jade Palace, and once this was taken care of, she immediately went to work. The Jade Palace servants directed her to a nice little desk in one of the rooms in the Sacred Hall of Warriors where she got to work writing down incoming meetings Po needed to have, as well as Po's usual schedule of teaching the Five, teaching the villagers, and noting when Po had to interrupt his activities to fend off bandits and other evil personnel.

Something she noted quite frequently were any incidents regarding the bakery thieves, which was becoming a sore spot for Po and the Furious Five. When the thieves first struck, the masters had asked around to see if they had struck anywhere else, and it turned out that the answer was yes. They usually robbed several bakeries and restaurants in a particular province for two or three months, usually causing the owners to go out of business. Once the area was cleaned dry, they would move on to a completely different province and repeat the process all over again. What was so strange was that they never stole money or anything valuable. They stole bread, pastries, vegetables, fruit, noodles, and much more. The masters initially tried to set traps and catch them in the back of the alley when they tried to escape, but usually the mysterious thief leader would cause a distraction and the thieves would escape. And since the masters tried to keep the robbed bakeries in business by supplying them compensation, it didn't take long for the thieves to strike again.

One particular day, while pacing the Jade Palace trying to figure out what to do, Po decided to ask Mrs. Jun if she took any notes on the thieves. Mrs. Jun, being extremely organized and meticulous, took quite a bit of notes on the different incidents. She noted where they attacked, the days they attacked, the times, which bakeries or restaurants, and how the masters approached the issue and how the thieves vanished. A surprised and impressed Po looked over the notes and soon noticed something interesting: usually the thieves scattered about, grabbing the attention of every master until all six of them had them cornered into an alleyway. Then the leader would strike. On top of that, the thieves had robbed almost every single place on the map, since the masters didn't have an endless supply of money to offer compensation. The only place they hadn't attacked was Mr. Ping's noodle shop. And when Po saw everything clearly, he suddenly had a very interesting plan.

"You're going to let thieves rob my shop?!" Mr. Ping cried in shock. "How on earth is that going to help anything?!"

"It'll help a lot," Po promised. "I have a plan."

"Better than what we've been doing?" Mantis questioned.

The Furious Five were gathered in Mr. Ping's noodle shop enjoying a nice quiet breakfast before the rush of customers that came in. Po was excited to get there and put his new plan into action, so much so that he wanted to tell it in one go to everybody involved. Li was also there super early, though since he never got up before noon before, most of his contribution to the conversation was loudly yawning, falling asleep for a few minutes and snoring, and then suddenly jerking his head up with a startled, "huh-wha-where-who ate my dumplings?!" Currently he had fallen back to sleep on a table right between Tigress and Monkey.

"We've been seriously underestimating these bandits," Po admitted. "I think we're dealing with a legit crime syndicate, not just a ragtag group of thieves. They're very organized, they have a good element of surprise on their hands, and they obviously have a method to their madness. But we can give them a taste of their own medicine. We have a couple of surprises in our corner too. We just have to actually use them."

"Like what?" Mr. Ping asked.

"Well dad, you're full of surprises," Po told him, tossing a dumpling into his mouth and swallowing it. "We only got robbed once, remember? And you didn't know kung fu back then."

"True," Mr. Ping reminisced. "Though I think that guy was just plain stupid. You don't rob a guy in broad daylight when there's so many things I can throw at you. Like a semi-boiling pot of soup."

"Yeah, I'm just glad he didn't have that bad of an injury."

"Oh please. A small slip and a broken nose is survivable."

"Well anyway, I'm sure you could pull a few tricks at least to stall them. That'll give us time to actually show up at the scene and catch them off guard."

"But we always show up altogether when they rob people," Crane pointed out. "What's the difference?"

"Ah, I didn't say altogether, did I?" Po responded with a grin. "That's where the surprise comes in. Dad?"

"Yeah?" Mr. Ping called over from the counter.

"Li."

"Oh."

Li let out a loud snore, clearly still tired, so Tigress gently tapped his back, resulting with him waking up with a start.

"Dad! You're up!" Po said happily. "Great! You're my second secret weapon!"

Li blinked. "Huh?" he asked.

"Hot tea?" Mr. Ping asked, bringing out a pot of tea to Li as a way to wake him up. Li immediately took the pot and poured himself a full cup to gulp down.

"You're my second secret weapon, dad," Po told Li.

Li yawned. "Oh, really?" he asked. "How? What do I have to do?"

"The most important job that we need done to take care of these thieves once and for all......"

Po proceeded to explain they would set a trap for thieves at Mr. Ping's which would hopefully allow them a better view of the leader and help the masters capture them. Then the thieves could finally be brought to justice once and for all. He gave everyone specific roles to follow, and once there was familiarity with each role they were to do, the plan was sprung.

Mr. Ping put a cushion on a chair and got comfortable waiting for the thieves. He took a tray and put a large tea pot and a teacup on top, provided by the masters so that he didn't have to pay for new ones. He then filled the teapot with steeped tea, blew out the lantern in the kitchen, and sat on the chair on the corner to wait for the thieves. The plan was for him to sit unnoticed in the dark and throw the tea tray wildly onto the floor to alert the masters that they were here. However, this contradicted Mr. Ping's usual sleeping regime and thus he accidentally wound up falling asleep, still holding the tray. Because of this, he didn't hear or see the thieves quietly sneaking into the kitchen and gently take the tea tray from him. One thief grabbed a nearby blanket and laid it over top of Mr. Ping before returning to the group to stuff their bags with all of the supplies from Mr. Ping's pantry. They made quick work of it and most likely would have slipped away unnoticed if it hadn't been for a sudden loud snore that came out of nowhere, causing one of the members to scream.

"Wha-?! Who's there?!" Mr. Ping cried, jumping up from his chair and looking around utterly confused. He found himself face to face with the thieves who were now frozen looking at him, though they were quick to get back to stuffing their bags.

Offended, Mr. Ping grabbed some nearby spoons from the counter and started to throw them at the thieves' heads.

"OW!" one of them cried.

Mr. Ping kept on throwing spoons, resulting with one thief, a rabbit with white fur and brown spots, snatching them away.

"If you don't knock it off, we're going to tie you to that chair," he threatened.

Mr. Ping immediately flew towards the back door as fast as he could screaming, "POOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

"Right. Goose. He can fly," one of the thieves noted. The group quickly abandoned their packing and made a bee-line out of the front of the restaurant where they were quickly intercepted by a large figure holding back a yawn.

"What's with the late night shoplifting?" Po asked. "Are you scared of me?"

"Well, the same routine does get boring," a thief told him. "Now please move before somebody gets hurt."

"Lady, you hurt me pretty deeply when you robbed my dad's restaurant."

Po and the thieves immediately began to engage in combat where they were quickly joined by the Furious Five who were confused by the lack of cues but quickly realized the thieves had infiltrated the noodle shop. The bakery thieves were a little easy to knock around at first since they were caught off guard by both Mr. Ping and the sudden snore, but they were just as quick to recover and start their usual routine of maneuvering themselves into corner. The Five at first thought they might actually catch them this time, but as predictable as it could be, a cloud of flour made its way into the masters' eyes, blinding them as the culprits slipped out of the noodle shop and into the alleyway. They then quickly ducked through the main part of the valley with the goods they had managed to snatch and made their way through the nearby forest. As the thieves slipped away undetected, one thief silently made their way through the trees to meet up with the group. However, they were suddenly jumped and rolled across the grounds until they found themselves pinned by a very heavy master. They tried to punch their attacker in the face but there wasn't much they could go.

"Get off of me, you big blundering blubber-face!" the thief snapped. 

"Hey, that's Master Big Blundering Blubber-face!" Po snapped back. "And your thieving days are over, miss missy!"

"Don't call me that!" the girl growled. "How do you know I ain't old enough to be grandma?"

"Look, I may look stupid to you, but you should learn to not judge by the cover," Po scolded. He stood up and grabbed the girl by her wrists and dragged her out of the forest and into the main part of the village. He was quickly greeted by the Furious Five who had been looking for him, along with a familiar face.

"What the-?!" the thief cried. "That ain't you?! Who's that?!"

The Po look-alike immediately took out an orange and red stone and quickly shifted back into their normal state, giving the thief a grin.

"You should remember this is the home of kung fu masters," Li told her. "We have all kinds of stuff here to outwit you."

The thief growled but said nothing. Po took a good look at her, noting that she was a small brown fox with a wicked looking scar on the left side of her face. He was tempted to ask if she was okay, but he knew now wasn't the time to ask personal questions. The thief was also wearing a dark green hanfu with a brown belt, short sleeves, and a small bag wrapped around her back, probably filled with her arsenal. Tigress was quick to cuff the girl with acupressure handcuffs and then helped escort Po to the local police station where the girl was immediately thrown into a cell.

"How about a little chivalry, you overgrown brute?!" the thief snapped. "Or manners?!"

"Lady, your offers of chivalry were suspended when you started robbing helpless locals around China," the constable scolded, and he immediately went into another room to get paperwork. The thief was then left alone with Po and the Furious Five who all stared daggers at each other.

"I hope you know this doesn't change squat," the thief girl told them roughly. "If you think you're getting off scot free, think again. We're taking the old man's food and that's final."

"If you think you're going to go around and rob my dad, you got another thing coming," Po told her sternly. "Or anybody else around here."

"Besides, we've got you stuck in here and your team has no idea how you got caught," Mantis added. "If they even bother to come back, I doubt it'll be as good as all your previous attempts."

The thief girl just stared at them venomously, but then turned around and put her head against the wall of the cell. The constable soon came back into the room, and asked the girl for her name. The thief just laughed at him.

"What, you think you're gonna' catch me and then I'll sing you the story of my life and all my woes and troubles?" she mocked. "I ain't telling you anything. You can pry my name off of my cold dead corpse!"

The constable growled at her. "You'll comply with protocol or else-!"

"Or else what? You're gonna' arrest me? Clearly that's working out for you."

The constable had some words to say to her, but held his tongue and went back to his desk to fill out paperwork.

"Now what?" Tigress asked.

"We keep an eye out for the thieves," Po said. "They didn't finish robbing dad, so they might be back. It should be easier without a leader."

The thief snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Well, we always have more tricks we can pull out," Monkey assured him. "And they didn't know anything about the shift stone so we can probably do it again just in case they get more rogue flour."

"I'll keep an eye on her in case she talks," Po promised. "You guys go figure out where the thieves went."

The Furious Five agreed to this while Po sat in the cell staring the girl down just in case she tried to make a run for it. The thief wasn't too interested in chatting however, so Po wound up camping at the station for the whole night. When the next morning rolled around, Mr. Ping wound up bringing a few meals to Po since the thief still refused to say anything, and after some light conversation, Po was soon left alone again with just his thoughts. The day soon drifted to night, and the night soon drifted to the next day. As predicted, the thieves had come back around for round two. However, they had not attacked Mr. Ping, but instead the constable station in order to break out the thief. Thanks to some quick interfering from the furious villagers and the Furious Five however, the attackers were soon caught and placed into a separate cell from their leader. More reports were filled out, and day drifted back into night once more, and the night soon bled into midnight. Po wasn't that tired, strangely enough. He just glanced out of the window of the station and every once in a while stared the girl down. Then sat against the wall to play with some of the dust bunnies he saw on the floor. It was quiet. VERY quiet. Uncomfortably quiet. Po wished the girl would just talk, but every time he tried to initiate a conversation, he didn't get much out of her. If he got anything at all. He yawned, laid on the floor, stared at the ceiling, and finally resorted to borrowing the paper from the constable's desk and calculating how much would be needed to resupply his dad's shop.

"You know," the girl finally said, interrupting the tense silence in the room. "You're a real hypocrite."

Po jumped in surprise. "What do you mean?" he asked, turning to look at her from his spot on the floor.

"You talk about your dad and protecting his shop but you won't prioritize anyone else since it ain't personal."

"That's not true," Po retorted irritably. "We've been prioritizing every single shop here! I'm only one guy; I'm doing the best I can with who I have on me, and that's not always enough! Dad just happened to be the last person you tried to rob. He's offended about that, by the way. He thinks you don't value noodle soup enough to rob it."

"Soup ain't easy to carry out the door," the girl told Po. "And vegetables go bad fast. That's the most valuable stuff. We do it last for that reason."

"Oh. Well I'll tell him that then."

They were quiet for a while before the girl spoke back up. "I saw the picture on the shop window," she said. "You're adopted?"

"Yeah," Po said. "My family was attacked by a madman when I was a baby, and my mom was killed. I got separated from my birth dad and wound up here, and dad took me in and raised me in the shop. Then I found my real dad, and we defeated a super crazy bad guy trying to steal chi, and now we're all here together."

The girl sighed. "Sounds picture book perfect," she grumbled.

"Do you have family?"

"Died years ago. It's just me."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

The girl just rolled her eyes and waved a hand lethargically. "Don't act like you care; I hear that every time I say it."

"But I am sorry to hear it. Loss hurts. And it can be hard to move on or deal with it."

The thief said nothing.

"My name's Po, by the way," the Dragon Warrior offered. "Well, Xiao Po, but I prefer Po. Sounds less stiff and formal."

The thief laughed. "You sound like a causal guy," she admitted. "I can see that." She was quiet for a second before asking, "Do you go by Po Ping or Po whatever-your-real-dad's-name-is?"

"Po Ping. Apparently my real name is Lotus Shan, but I prefer Po."

The thief snorted. "Lotus?" she repeated. "Ain't that a girl's name?"

"Not always. Why are you laughing? You wouldn't like it if I laughed at your name."

"You can't laugh if you don't know it."

"Why, is it stupid?"

"No!"

"Really? Because you seem pretty adamant about not telling people your name, so I just assumed maybe you had a stupid sounding name and you were embarrassed about it."

The thief gave him a death glare. "Take that back!" she snapped.

"Why?"

"Don't insult me!"

"How can I insult you? I don't know your name. Technically it's speculation, not insulting."

The thief growled at him but then relented and sighed. "My name's Zhen," she told him. "Zhen Hongyuei."

Po looked at her and smiled. "Hey, that's a cool name!" he told her. "Sorry I thought maybe you were embarrassed by it."

Zhen snorted. "I'm not embarrassed by it," she scolded Po with a hint of a smile at the compliment. "I'm wanted. I don't trust people to not track my family."

"I thought you didn't have family."

"You call the goose guy dad. He ain't family by blood."

"Oh. Ohhhhh!"

"Uh huh...." Zhen said. She sat against the bars of her cell and added, "I know we ain't lawfully good people, but you don't know everything. If things were that easy, nobody would be thieves. But there's always somebody out there who's greedy just because they wanna' be, and that makes more people thieves, and more people thieves, and then you got one big fat mess."

"Really?" Po asked in surprise. "Is that why you guys are thieves?"

"Well, we all have different stories, but kinda'. My parents got tricked by an old lady con artist and gave away all their savings and ended up on the streets. Old people and kids. Those are always the ones to look out for. I wanted to at least get them a house, but doing it the "good" way wasn't working. So I stooped to desperate measures. And I got good at it. And it turns out there's lots of people like us who can't get by because somebody up top won't let them. So we're a little community, the lot of us. And I got kids to feed, so if you would kindly let me out?"

"Easy there...." Po said seriously. "Look, I totally get it. That's not fair what happened to you. But if you keep stealing, your going to make more people homeless and then that's just going to hurt even more people!"

"We don't steal money. Food's what we need."

"Yeah, but the bakeries need to buy food. If they keep going out to buy and never sell anything...you know, the shop will go under."

Zhen groaned. "I get it," she said begrudgingly. "But what do you expect me to do about it? Unless you want to magically feed everybody and get them a job, I'm just gonna' keep doing mine."

"If you're really considering thievery as a job, you're seriously levels of messed up."

"Really? You don't think developing good strategies and physical skills qualify as a meaningful a job? You just sit up there in your pretty palace and punch pieces of wood for a living."

"Uh, excuse me, but kung fu is a superior job. I train everyday to prepare my body to fight off people like you who threaten the peace!"

"Uh huh. And how many robberies did it take for you to catch me?"

"Says the fox sitting behind bars being cranky."

Zhen laughed. "Please!" she exclaimed. "I bet I could catch thieves ten times faster than you if I was a fancy flying master!"

"Sure, with a ton of training maybe you could," Po countered. "Kung fu isn't easy. And there's a lot more to it than punching pieces of wood."

"Sure it is."

"Well, maybe if one day you stop by the Jade Palace, I'll show you exactly what I mean."

"Okay."

Po blinked. "Okay?" he repeated.

"Yeah. Show me. Think of it as community sentence."

Po kept blinking in surprise. "I meant that in retrospect," he countered.

"Yeah, and I'm being serious. You're a fancy kung fu teacher. Teach me kung fu and let's see how hard it is for me."

Po gave her a suspicious look. "How do I know you're not going to make a break for it if I let you out?" he questioned.

Zhen smirked and rolled her eyes, but held a paw to her heart and held up the other. "I swear on the graves of the Hongyuei family I will not trick you."

Seeing that she was dead serious, Po agreed to let her out. However, Zhen had an extra condition: Po had to find proper homes and jobs for the thieving community she led. This took Po by surprise, and for a second he worried this might be a really bad idea. However, if Zhen was telling the truth, it meant that there were families in the group who could starve on the streets without proper care, and Po was never one to turn down helping others.

So he agreed.