Chapter 18
I scratched the back of my head awkwardly, feeling two very different weights of attention on me simultaneously: the reverent gaze of a child and the heavy, evaluating one of Shifu. Belated awareness settled inside me like a cold stone — my little performance, complete with threats of dismemberment and eye-gouging, had perhaps been slightly over the top.
*Well, there we go. Should have reined it in. Although — he had it coming, the radish, the sausage, the absolute galloping rooster!* The internal defense was gathering momentum, sweeping away the last traces of remorse. *If there hadn't been witnesses, I would have also— ahem.* I mentally stopped myself, working to steer the inner monologue into more acceptable territory. *…also given him a considerably more thorough lesson. Yes.*
Meanwhile the child had gone completely quiet. Her enormous, still-damp eyes — where tears had been replaced by wordless adoration — were practically drilling into me. Her long ears trembled with every breath, and her tiny face radiated the kind of awestruck reverence that made me feel just a little uncomfortable. *Right,* I thought with dry amusement. *I'm now officially the local hero-defender. Very good.*
Shifu stood at a distance, arms folded across his chest in the usual manner. His face was a mask of perfect composure, and my performance appeared to have made not the slightest impression on him. But I caught it — a faint, barely visible twitch just above his brow.
"Theatricality is not the finest substitute for effectiveness," he said at last, his voice its customary level and unrevealing. "But… it will do."
*Was that — praise? And no lecture?* Surprise and relief arrived in my head simultaneously. *Although — who knows. He might be saving the lecture for when we're alone.*
We left the village at an unhurried pace, passing a gathering of curious onlookers who had come out at the noise. They watched us off with awed and slightly nervous whispers, fingers pointing respectfully in our direction.
Before long the road took us into a bamboo forest. The rustling canopy closed over our heads immediately, cutting off the noise and bustle of the world. Tall, straight stalks formed a palisade around us, and between them lay moss-covered boulders.
The agitation from the recent skirmish faded quickly, giving way to the quiet that the soothing murmur of the leaves encouraged for thought.
I was still genuinely surprised by what Shifu had shared with me earlier. Not so much by the story itself, but by the fact that he had chosen to share it at all.
Yes, the same Shifu who had greeted me on the first day with a barrage of pointed commentary. Yes, his tone had shifted dramatically the following day, and now, today, he had opened a door to his past.
*Maybe he's just in a good mood today,* I thought. *And if the iron's hot, maybe I should strike. Maybe I should ask him about kung fu.*
"Master Shifu," I began, breaking the silence that had settled between us.
He was walking ahead without turning, but I saw his ear give a slight twitch. The silence and that barely perceptible gesture meant, if not agreement, then at least a willingness to hear whatever came next. He was listening.
"This morning, during training—" I paused to find the right words. "When I was working with the boulder, I suddenly realized I wasn't directing my body. It was doing everything on its own, following perfect technique, and I was only watching. It felt… like that moment on the lotus when I let go of control for the first time and simply stood."
"But afterward, on the lotus, things had been different — I was listening to my body, it was giving suggestions: 'shift the weight, bend the knee,' and I tried to follow them. With the boulder though… there were no suggestions. There was simply… action. Is that what dynamic balance is?"
Shifu slowed his pace slightly and threw me a brief, evaluating glance.
"You've asked the right question," he said, and for the first time an unusual thoughtfulness entered his voice. "But you've turned it upside down." He paused, his gaze going momentarily distant. "There may be an error on my part here. I should have explained everything from the beginning, rather than limiting myself to vague metaphors. At the time I believed you would understand nothing until you had touched one of the foundations of kung fu."
*So he simply thought I was too dim to explain things to properly,* the thought moved through me. I had been afraid all his future explanations would continue in the style of the first ones: *'stop being a boulder and become water'* and *'become part of the rocking.'*
He turned to face me, and his gaze became unusually focused.
"First, you need to understand what static balance actually is. It is not simply the ability to stand without moving. It is a state in which the separation between body and consciousness disappears — a kind of meditation in motion… or rather, in stillness."
Shifu made a light leap onto the thin, swaying branch of a willow. His body went perfectly still, becoming an extension of the flexible branch that rocked gently beneath him. He held the position for several seconds, then dropped back silently to the ground.
"Like that. First you had to find that point of absolute stillness — where you no longer try to control anything, but simply exist in harmony with your surroundings."
*So all those torments on the lotus weren't about not falling — they were about stopping the constant twitching and just letting go?* The thought moved through me.
He looked at me steadily and continued:
"Once you had learned to enter that state at will, the next stage would have begun — achieving dynamic balance."
He paused, and with a small sound continued:
"But you, Panda, rushed ahead to that second stage without having mastered the first. The essential difference is this: in dynamic balance you begin directing your body again — but now while listening to it. Every movement must be born from that inner stillness, which you never fully achieved in the first place."
*If someone had explained that properly from the start, I wouldn't have tried to run before I could walk,* I thought.
He made several smooth movements, demonstrating how static stability flows into controlled motion.
"And after you have confidently mastered both states—" Shifu's voice took on that particular weight again — "you will be able to move to the next level: the Flow. That which arises only from the merging of true stillness and achieved dynamic movement. When action and consciousness become a single whole. The mind is no longer listening and executing. It dissolves into the action. It becomes the movement itself."
Hearing his words, I felt something click in my head. Everything assembled suddenly into one coherent picture — his explanations, my morning sensations with the boulder, that session on the lotus.
He went quiet, and in the silence his words took on a particular significance.
"And your description of working with the boulder—" Shifu's voice became quieter, taking on special gravity — "bears a strong resemblance to a spontaneous manifestation of the Flow. It is possible that through years of physical training you have unconsciously developed something like it. But it only applies to familiar, mechanical actions."
*Ha — am I some kind of naturally gifted prodigy now?* A sardonic thought surfaced. *Though there's nothing to celebrate here. If Monkey is to be believed, most of the Five found their balance in childhood. And there's no guarantee this was actually the Flow — I get something similar when I'm cooking, when the knife in my hands seems to move on its own.*
*And watching Father cook,* I thought with an inward snort, *you'd be forgiven for suspecting he was a retired swordsman or a fugitive ninja.*
Shifu fixed me with an evaluating look in which I could read both scientific curiosity and a certain resolve.
"But we will correct that. Be ready, Panda." He paused. "Because when we return to the Palace, I will prepare something for you. An individual session. A special one."
Those words sent a chill down my back. The memory of the first "individual session" ached in response, and now the promise of "something special" sounded for all the world like a sentencing.
"And now—" his voice came softer, but no less firm — "be quiet and turn over what you've heard. Sometimes the most important discoveries come not in movement, but in stillness."
***
Deep in reflection, I hadn't noticed us reaching a fork in the path. Two trails diverged in different directions, making me hesitate for a moment — until memory produced a clear image: the view from a hilltop, a thread of smoke rising from the chimney of an enormous workshop.
"Left," I said with confidence, before Shifu's unspoken question could form. "Ten minutes at most. Comes out right at Tao-Tai's place."
Shifu nodded silently, and we turned onto the indicated path. I could almost physically feel the familiar smell coming — that particular combination of machine oil, hot metal, and old wood that had burned itself into my memory after my single visit to the mechanic.
Instead, what reached my nostrils was sharp, acrid, and almost physically painful — the smell of burning. Not the cozy smoke of a hearth, but a thick, suffocating trail carrying the scent of burning resin, wood, and something else. Something that had no business being on fire.
I raised my head instinctively, and through the dense canopy I saw a sinister sight: in the direction the path led, hanging motionless in the still morning air, was an enormous, living column of black, oily smoke.
"Master—" The word escaped me, but Shifu had already seen.
He stopped sharply, his back going taut as a drawn bowstring.
"Panda—" His voice came out quiet, but with a note of steel that sent a chill across my skin. "You are certain?"
The question was pure formality. Rhetoric. We both knew the answer.
"Yes," I said calmly, already understanding what he was thinking. "That's his workshop."
Nothing else needed to be said. The next instant, Shifu simply ceased to exist at that location. No sweep of motion, no sound — only a blurred streak tearing through the undergrowth toward the column of smoke, and the swaying bamboo stalks marking his passage.
"Damn!" I swore under my breath and ran after him.
But I was hopelessly behind. Air whistled in my ears, bamboo trunks flashed past like a palisade. Legs accustomed to pressing heavy weight now felt oddly inadequate in this particular kind of desperate sprint.
Then, without warning, a shadow burst silently from the dense wall of green to my right — like a ghost. Small, hunched, moving fast on an intercept course, aimed directly at me. I caught only a flash of some weapon and a pair of cold, gleaming eyes before the shadow slammed into my side.
***
*Shifu's perspective — near Tao-Tai's workshop.*
Shifu flew through the bamboo forest, barely touching the ground, his body cutting through the air like an arrow. Every muscle collected, every nerve drawn to its limit. Through the trunks ahead, the crimson glow of fire and the black column of smoke were already clearly visible.
Forty years.
The thought drove into his awareness, sharp and sudden. For many beings, such a span was an entire lifetime.
And now he was racing toward the old friend with whom he had once shared everything: first victories and bitter defeats, reckless dreams and the stubbornness of youth. He wanted to believe that this foolish idiot was still his friend. Despite the grievances. Despite that bitter parting which had smoldered in the depths of his memory for decades like a forgotten coal, and had now flared into a real fire.
A torrent of thoughts rushed through his mind, barely keeping pace with the speed of his running. *Why? Why couldn't this stubborn, brilliant wretch have understood that his worth was never measured in stances and strikes?*
Old, bitter disappointment churned inside him, fueling the furious pace. *His inability to master kung fu did not make him lesser! He was a genius in his own right! He built mechanisms that no one else could dream of! Why — why did he have to go into the vault? Steal the Jade Sphere of Boundless Power? To prove what? That he was capable of destroying everything?*
He saw it in front of his eyes as though it were yesterday: the obsessed face of his friend and the hands gripping an ancient artifact that radiated a threatening vibration, on the edge of consuming everything around it.
The memories came in heavy waves. The long, humiliating weeks after Tao-Tai's expulsion, when young Shifu had gone to Oogway again and again — pleading, imploring him to bring his friend back. He had been willing to do anything. The most grueling training regimens, the strictest austerity — anything, if only the old warthog could come home.
But Oogway had only shaken his ancient head, and his voice had carried that infinite, unbearable wisdom that had infuriated Shifu so much in those days.
*He will not find peace here, my young friend. His soul is the soul of a creator, an inventor. It hungers for a different forge — not the one that shapes warriors. A life within these walls, among those whose gifts are beyond his reach, will bring him only bitterness and sorrow. He must find his own path.*
*But he is my friend!* the young Shifu had nearly cried out, unable to contain the despair.
And Oogway had looked at him then with those all-seeing eyes, and in them had glimmered the knowledge of the years to come.
*Sooner or later your paths will cross again. The river of fate is already carrying you toward one another. But when that moment arrives… be ready, Shifu. For the meeting will bring not only the joy of remembering, but the pain of words left unspoken.*
And now, racing through the forest toward smoke and fire, Shifu finally understood the full, bitter meaning of that prophecy. The thought that he might arrive too late — that the pain of those same unspoken words might remain between them as an eternal curse — made him push harder, wringing every last drop of speed from his body.
Shifu burst from the undergrowth into open space, and what met him was terrible. Savage flames were already consuming the roof and walls of the enormous building. The air shook with the heat, a scorching wind struck his face, and sparks whirled up toward the sky.
And then his gaze fell on a figure near the entrance. A young warthog — a copy of Tao-Tai. The boy was darting in terror before the wall of fire, unable to make himself step through it.
Without a second's hesitation, ducking against the wave of heat, Shifu plunged into the inferno. Smoke stung his eyes, but for a kung fu master this was no obstacle. He saw with his ears, felt with his skin, navigated by the barely perceptible currents of air.
And there, in the very heart of the fiery hell, his gaze pulled from the smoky haze a hunched figure. A warthog. Even through forty years, even through curtains of smoke and sparks, Shifu recognized him without hesitation — by the distinctive angle of the right tusk, that old mark from their shared youth. His once closest friend knelt on the floor, paws reaching helplessly toward something at his feet. As though mad, he clung to an object that vaguely resembled a painting — a dark, charred rectangle, seemingly stuck to the floor.
Three leaps and Shifu was beside him.
"Tao-Tai!" His voice came out hoarse with smoke, but carrying the particular tone that required no response.
He seized the warthog by the scruff and, without wasting a moment on explanation, hauled him backward, toward the exit, toward the light. He dragged him with a force in which refined skill, fury, and forty years of unlived friendship were inextricably mixed.
Bursting out of the firestorm, Shifu shoved Tao-Tai forward toward his son, who immediately threw himself at his father and held him in a fierce embrace.
"Father!"
Shifu stood to one side, brushing black flakes of ash from his fur, watching the scene. His gaze, trained to note the smallest details, moved across the old friend's figure in search of injury, and stopped on what he still held in his powerful, burned paw. A painting. A small canvas, charred slightly at the edges.
It showed Tao-Tai himself — many years younger — his eyes bright with a pride and happiness Shifu had never once seen on his face within the walls of the Palace. And beside him, pressed close, stood a smiling warthog woman. In her arms she held a tiny pink bundle — an infant, one small paw wrapped tightly around its father's finger.
This was clearly his wife. His son. The life that had begun for Tao-Tai after. After the expulsion. After their friendship.
*Oogway was right,* the thought moved through Shifu's mind with a sobering clarity. *He found his happiness. Not in the shadow of the Palace, not in the shadow of my talent — but there, in his own world, with his own family.*
"Shifu?!" the warthog rasped, and his voice carried not the relief of someone rescued but the bitter, corrosive mockery of accumulated decades. He gently pushed his son aside, and his eyes — full of fury and old injury — fixed on the master. "Come to finish what you started? Or just to watch the ruin you helped create?"
Shifu went still. Genuine, unfeigned bewilderment settled on his face. He allowed a short but eloquent pause before answering:
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb!" Tao-Tai coughed at the bitter smoke, his body tensed like a compressed spring. "You were absent for forty years, and you appear at precisely this moment, during a fire? He got here ahead of you — that wolverine! One of your new students!"
"What student?" Shifu frowned, mentally scanning the population of the Palace. "There is no wolverine at the Jade Palace." The familiar, irritated condescension returned to his voice. "I always knew you were easy to deceive."
Tao-Tai's eyes, already red from the smoke, flared with fresh injury and anger.
"Yes there is!" He jabbed a burned paw toward the consuming flames. "He was here! Called himself Master Wolverine! Said he'd pass my 'greetings' on to you! Ask him!"
Shifu took a sharp step forward, his voice becoming firm and clear as a struck gong:
"There isn't. You were fooled. There are no wolverines at the Palace and never have been — not in at least the last hundred years. Are you really prepared to believe the first scoundrel who comes along calling himself my student?"
"YES THERE IS!" Tao-Tai roared, hauling himself to his feet with difficulty. His fingers curled into burned fists. The shout contained not merely rage but the desperation of a cornered animal.
"NO THERE ISN'T!" Shifu stepped forward in fury, coming nearly face to face with Tao-Tai.
"YES THERE IS!" the warthog insisted stubbornly, backing toward the edge of the forest.
And at that moment, Tao-Tai — still retreating in the heat of the argument — caught his foot on a protruding root and sat down in a puddle with a loud wet thud, releasing the charred painting as he fell. Shifu moved like lightning, catching the canvas before it could land in the mud, and extended a hand to his old friend.
A dead silence fell, broken only by the crackling of the burning workshop.
Shifu stood unhurried over the friend sitting in the mud, only one whisker barely quivering. Then a strange, hoarse sound built in Tao-Tai and broke into rolling, almost hysterical laughter.
"All right, all right!" he wheezed through the laughter, taking Shifu's extended paw. "Perhaps… perhaps I was a complete fool to believe the first passing fraud who came along. I was already drawing up revenge mechanisms in my head…"
"What made you think I would want you dead?" Shifu asked quietly, and for the first time his voice carried something other than its usual severity — something deeper and more exposed. "Did you truly believe I was so low as to wish death on my friend?" He shook his head slowly, his gaze becoming steady and sad. "And what exactly did you do that was so unforgivable? Yes — you took the artifact then. You were punished for it. Was that not enough?"
Tao-Tai didn't answer. He stood with his head bowed, shoulders rigid, burned paws slightly trembling. The silence stretched and thickened, becoming dense as the smoke rising from the ruins.
Seeing how difficult this was for his old friend, Shifu chose not to press. He turned his gaze to the burning remains of the workshop, and only now fully grasped the true scale of the loss. This had not simply been a workshop — it was an enormous, intricately designed home, whose sheer size and thoughtful layout spoke of years of hard work, talent, and genuine prosperity.
"Tell me what happened," Shifu said at last. His voice was quieter, but steady. "Start from the beginning."
Tao-Tai exhaled, his gaze dimming, and began:
"After the expulsion—" there was bitterness in his voice — "I spent years developing mechanisms that were meant to prove to you arrogant Palace people that science was stronger than kung fu. Everything was recorded. Every component, every equation." He gave a bitter smile. "But then I met Zhen Li… We had a son… And the whole idea of revenge suddenly seemed so… empty."
He ran a paw across the site of the ruins.
"So I reworked the old calculations. Started making safe versions — decorative things, novelties, toys for the nobility." A shadow of former pride crossed his face for a moment. "The best seller was the firework cannon. I sold through an acquaintance who found buyers among the capital's aristocracy. The money flowed, Shifu. Enough for ten workshops like this one…"
He fell quiet, his gaze turning inward.
"You could say I found genuine happiness and purpose in that life…" Tao-Tai's voice became suddenly softer. "But when our son Bian Zao turned three years old, Zhen Li… disappeared. She simply went to the market and never came back. I looked for her—" he closed his fists, and his knuckles whitened — "went to every nearby village. Nothing. Not a single trace. And so I was left alone… with a son."
"Time passed. I buried myself in work. Built increasingly refined novelties for the nobility…" A strange, driven gleam flickered in his eyes. "In exchange for a favor from a certain high-ranking individual, I… improved my novelty cannon. The same one that fired fireworks…" He gave a bitter laugh. "It became powerful enough that, despite its size, it could have served as an actual weapon."
He drew a paw across his face as though wiping away the past.
"And that was my mistake. A few weeks ago my acquaintance the merchant disappeared. Then someone showed up at my workshop. A one-eyed wolf. Crude and arrogant." Tao-Tai's voice hardened. "He demanded I produce an enlarged combat version of the cannon. Or at least sell him the schematics. I refused, of course."
Something resembling a smile appeared on his face, without any warmth in it.
"He tried to apply pressure, but… I activated one of the old prototypes. A security mechanism." Tao-Tai snapped his fingers. "Broke a few of his teeth. The scoundrel fled in disgrace, promising he'd have his revenge." He exhaled bitterly. "I thought it was empty talk. It wasn't."
"And you believe this wolverine and that individual are connected?" Shifu asked, his voice maintaining its cold clarity.
"Almost certainly. He destroyed the security mechanism, set the fire, and probably took the schematics — and decided to turn my rage toward you." Tao-Tai grimly clenched his fists. "When he announced he was a student of the Jade Palace, I… lost my reason entirely. I couldn't think straight…" He suddenly stopped and stared at Shifu. "Incidentally — why did you come?"
"The training hall is broken, and there is no one to repair it," Shifu said with perfect composure, as though reporting on the weather.
"BROKEN?!" Tao-Tai's voice cracked into a high, almost hysterical pitch. He lurched back as though struck physically. "My creation was engineered to last centuries! The mechanisms made from an alloy smelted by my own secret process!" His eyes darted frantically across Shifu, as though searching for confirmation of a nightmare. "What — what kind of CLUMSY MONSTER could have done such a thing? It's impossible!"
The last words hung in the air, breaking against the roar of the fire. Shifu stood motionless, his ears pressing back against his head. He swept his gaze slowly across the smoke-filled clearing, as though looking for someone in the billowing haze. Finding no one, he pressed a paw to the bridge of his nose and, with unfeigned exhaustion, gave a quiet, drawn-out groan:
"Yes… we do have one particular specimen."
He delivered it with such a blend of despair, irritation, and a strange, almost fatherly pride that Tao-Tai went momentarily silent, caught off guard.
And at that exact moment, from the depths of the forest, came a distant crash — followed by the deafening crack of a falling tree.
"Panda." The name came from Shifu as something between a groan directed at the heavens and the most comprehensive explanation of everything that had occurred on this particular insane day.
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