"So, I was talking with my dad," Po said, a few days after his nice picnic with Ordai. "And we came up with a fun idea to try out.

The masters and the girls were all having breakfast and enjoying another nice morning without Ming and Superintendent Woo disturbing the peace. At the mention of a new activity, the girls interest immediately became peaked.

"Dad wants to spend a little more quality time with you guys to sort of be a personal judge, and he thought it'd be nice if you guys helped him out during different times of the day."

"As in, actually working in the restaurant and cooking?" Lam asked excitedly.

"That's no fair, Po! Lam would beat us all in that!" Ordai protested.

"It's not a contest," Po promised her. "Dad just wants to spend time with you guys without taking off shifts. That's all."

"I think that'd be nice," Lu-Shi agreed with similar eagerness. "We haven't hung out with Mr. Ping since that week Po was sick! I miss saying hi!"

"Are you sure he'd want me in the kitchen?" Destiny asked. "I'd knock into everything!"

Kay just patted her arm, promising she'd be fine.

"If Po can navigate Mr. Ping's kitchen despite being giant and ridiculously clumsy, you'll manage," Tigress brought up bluntly before taking another bite of her food.

"Hey! I mean, yeah, totally. But hey!" Po said, looking slightly offended.

"Oh knock it off. You get around here fine because the kitchen's wider. I've seen the inside of the noodle shop. It's claustrophobic. How your dad does it I don't know."

"Well there's no need to bring Po or Destiny's weight into it!" Ordai told her sharply.

Shifu cleared his throat before the conversation escalated into something more heated. "If the girls are to help Mr. Ping today, perhaps you'd like to help us catalog weapons in the Sacred Hall of Warriors this morning."

"Wait really?" Po asked in surprise. "You're not going to make me float on paper thin planks or get singed with flaming staffs or get dust in my eyes from those new extensions?"

"No. I've been meaning to do the cataloging, but with all the commotion and unfortunate tragedies, I haven't really gotten around to it."

"Next time, we'll give you your fan back," Tigress promised with a smirk.

Monkey laughed. "You're only saying that because you really want to blind someone with the staff," he pointed out.

"Yes. You got me, Monkey. However did you guess?"

Viper held back a snicker and took a sip of tea to hide her face.

Soon after breakfast, the group had traveled down the stairs and over to Mr. Ping's. The old goose was busy collecting bowls from different tables to wash in the sink when he spotted his new guests and excitedly waved them hello.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" he told them excitedly. "I'm looking forward to the extra help in the kitchen! And getting to know you too, of course!"

"Sounds like a fun way to spend the morning!" Lam told him. "And possibly afternoon."

"How did you want to do this?" Ordai asked.

"Well, you lovely ladies can just sit in the corner, and I'll have some of you come in during the morning to just help me out so that I can get to know you better and so that you can help me with some simple stuff. You'll have to remind me of your names though; I forgot a few of them."

The girls sat in the corner of the restaurant as Mr. Ping headed into the restaurant and put the bowls down in the sink. He glanced over at the group and asked, "The woman in the long brown top and green trim with the black pants and necklace. What's your name?"

"Tai Lin," the snow leopardess said, getting up. "Am I going first?"

"Might as well. You can help me with the dishes while the customer traffic is low."

Tai Lin shrugged and stepped inside the restaurant and immediately headed over towards the sink and took the soap bucket out to start scrubbing the dishes. Mr. Ping immediately set to the task of preparing more soup for some of the customers who were waiting on their order. The two didn't really interact much since Mr. Ping was quick to take bowls of soup out of the restaurant and deliver them to other customers and bring back more dirty dishes for Tai Lin to clean up. After a few minutes, the snow leopard asked Mr. Ping if there was anything particular he wanted to know about her.

"Well, not off the top of my head," Mr. Ping admitted. "Though I'd love to know how you got those silly romantic notions all bubbling and brewing in your head."

"I'm not a hopeless romantic," Tai Lin told him firmly, placing some of the cleaned dishes on a towel when the rack was full. "I know it comes across that way, but I can assure you I know what I'm doing with romance. I don't ask for much except for a nice guy with a nice home who respects my feelings and my boundaries and who isn't a weakling, a coward or a push over."

"What about personality?" Mr. Ping asked. "You need to know if you like someone if you wish to marry them."

"Not something I'm looking for at the moment."

Mr. Ping frowned in confusion and chopped up some of his vegetables. "So the last time I heard you speaking about romance," he said, trying to remember exactly what she had said. "You kept saying you'd like some strong honorable man to sweep you off your feet and marry you. And now you're saying you couldn't care less about what he is as long as he has good money and is nice to you?"

"I didn't say rich," Tai Lin corrected. She turned around and grabbed another towel before drying the dishes. "Look, I'm not asking for much," she elaborated. "All I want is to marry a guy who will be respectful and kind to me, who can provide for me and our kids without worrying about sudden poverty, who has my back, and has the mental and physical capability to defend me if something goes wrong. And those are pretty easy things to see in a guy after just a few minutes of conversation."

Mr. Ping frowned. "Well, if you insist," he said. "But if you suddenly get married and find you can't stand your new husband, you can't say we didn't try to warn you about the consequences."

Tai Lin sighed, sounding a bit fatigued in Mr. Ping's opinion, and resumed drying the dishes. After a few minutes, she said she was done.

"Already?!" Mr. Ping asked. "I just handed you those dishes not even a half hour ago! And there were a lot of dishes."

"I do dishes all the time," Tai Lin said matter-of-factly.

"Oh. Um...well...I don't really have anything for you to do...I'm doing the vegetables for the dumplings and that's pretty simple...."

"I can clean the counters," Tai Lin offered.

"Oh. Yes, I suppose you can do that before you head out."

The snow leopardess walked around the kitchen with a cleaning rag taking care of the little spills and messes that had been leftover from the soapy dish water and any other cooking messes that normally happened. She then got to Mr. Ping's side of the counter where she saw a giant dark brown stain on the wooden countertop.

"Oh, don't bother with that," Mr. Ping told her. "That stain's been there since before I even inherited the restaurant. Something about bandits and seaweed. Anyway, thank you for your help. Lu-Shi! You can come in next!"

"That stain isn't a problem for me," Tai Lin told the old goose. "I'll have that off the counter in less than a half hour. Don't mind me."

Mr. Ping stared at her with a mixed look of protest and irritation, but Tai Lin had walked off to grab some rags and vinegar and clearly was not taking no for an answer, so he gave up and focused his attention on Lu-Shi.

"Hey former soon-to-be-dad-in-law!" Lu-Shi exclaimed as she dashed into the kitchen. "What are we doing today?"

"You can help me chop some of the vegetables; it'll make the cooking process go faster," Mr. Ping said. He glanced at Tai Lin who was busy cleaning the counter and immediately frowned. "Well, there might be a small problem with elbow-room," he added.

"Ah, we'll be alright!" Lu-Shi said, washing her hooves and moving over to the counter. "We'll all squeeze together, right Linny?"

Tai Lin glanced at her with a confused expression on her face and a slight grimace, but she said nothing in reply and continued to clean the counter, dumping more vinegar on it, much to Mr. Ping's annoyance. Lu-Shi was directed to chop up the vegetables which she made quick work on since she helped her dad and brother with cooking on a regular basis. This helped to get the conversation rolling as Mr. Ping was curious to know how his old friend was doing and this opened up a whole other conversation about childhood memories, earliest memories, death of relatives, close friends, and businesses. Mr. Ping asked about how the pottery business was going for the family while delighting Lu-Shi with how he and Po helped the noodle business bloom despite the economic depression that occurred when Po was little.

"That Tai-Lung was such a nuisance!" Mr. Ping grumbled and complained as he quickly served a customer soup before going back to prepping dumplings. "I feel sorry for all the destruction in the Jade Palace, but his little tantrum hurt the business for years! Nobody would come to the Valley of Peace and a lot of people left because they were afraid something else like that would happen within the valley! And Po was a hungry little thing, so trying to feed him and myself and keep the restaurant afloat was a nightmare for those first three years! I owe Mu-Shi a lot! I didn't need to sell the business or move all the way back home and start again at my parents. Especially when they had just retired to the country...."

"Dad appreciated the new business deal you struck with him," Lu-Shi promised. "He thinks your food is the best he's ever had!"

"And he's the only person who gets it for free! Well, aside from Po and whoever Po's future family is."

Lu-Shi laughed. "I still remember that Po thought Tigress was jealous of us being engaged," she said. "I don't know where he got that idea from, but it was pretty cool having her hang around and support the wedding even though she didn't trust me that much."

"That seems logical. She seems to have a very keen sense of her surroundings. Though I'll bet you that guess from Po was only because he used to have a crush on her for a while. How that even happened I don't know, but I think he's gotten over it."

Tai Lin glanced over at the two, but then quickly looked back at the counter and moved back to the counter to re-wet the cloth she had before heading back to continue with removing the stain.

"Yeah, he told us he just thought she was cool and it went away after he moved into the Jade Palace," Lu-Shi told the old goose, not realizing the movements next to her.

"Ah! That makes sense. Well, I'll try to refrain from embarrassing him; I know how he gets. Besides, she's not so bad when you get to know her on a personal level. When the Five stop by, I get to hear what they talk about in the corner, and it's always interesting to hear what their interests are and hear them talk like normal people, so I think that helps with things."

They continued to prep dumplings and finally finished, though Lu-Shi couldn't notice just how slow she was in comparison to Mr. Ping.

"How do you do them so quick?!" she exclaimed. She gestured towards her tiny pile of dumplings and then looked at Mr. Ping's much larger pile.

"Years of practice," Mr. Ping told her. "But that's not something to be embarrassed over. At home you have more luxury to take your time. And you did them so nicely!"

Lu-Shi beamed happily and sheepishly added hers to the large pile on the counter. Mr. Ping placed the in a bamboo steamer on the stove and then moved on to his soup where he asked Lu-Shi to be taste-tester before she sat down. As she went to leave, Tai Lin walked towards the sink and took a wet rag and soap and did a final clean up of the counter before announcing to Mr. Ping that she had finished.

"Thank you, dear," Mr. Ping said nonchalantly, though he was quick to stop and pause in shock when he glanced over at the counter and realized the brown stain was gone. "WHAT?! But-but...that's impossible to take off!"

"There's nothing baking soda and vinegar can't fix," Tai Lin replied simply. "Well, maybe a broken heart. That one I think might take chocolate or red bean paste. Or maybe pumpkin...."

She left the kitchen and headed back to the table with Lu-Shi in tow asking how she had learned to get tough stain out of things, since she had no idea and could use some tips. Mr. Ping stood there in shock and surprise for a moment before regaining his composure and asking Ordai to come into the kitchen. Ordai, who had more experience with making silks than physically cooking, looked a bit overwhelmed by the idea of helping Mr. Ping.

"Usually the older ones cook for the whole community and then teach their replacements," she explained. "So I don't have much experience except during festivals when I help with some small stuff."

"Oh, well then you can help me with making bean buns," Mr. Ping told her. "I'm nearly out of them and that's something simple to make."

"I'm glad I chose black and white," Ordai noted, looking down at her hanfu. She had changed shortly before heading to Mr. Ping's not wanting to get noticeable stains on her clothes. Her top was an off-white color with sleeves that went just above the elbows (so they didn't drag across the counter) and black lining on the edges where the sleeves were and where the top of the hanfu closed. The skirt was pure black with a white floral pattern seen just along the bottom and came just above Ordai's ankles where it was clear to see she was wearing thick black shoes with a dark blue and green etched along the sides. (She clearly had anticipated standing for a while).

"Do you usually wear such fancy things?" Mr. Ping asked curiously.

Ordai giggled at the question. "Yes, but I consider this my messy outfit," she told him. "My village makes nothing but hanfus, so we just have some set aside for certain occasions: everyday wear, formal wear, sleepwear, so on so forth. This one is okay to get dirty, I promise. It's just my style."

"Ah, okay. I wasn't sure if I should warn you about some of the mess the kitchen can be or not...."

Mr. Ping led the young panther over to the back counter and directed her to grab some ingredients and come to the front of the counter to mix them together. Ordai listened to the directions, went back over the process in her mind, and immediately set to the task of quickly mixing the paste together and prepping the dough for the buns at the same time. She asked every so often about a specific direction just to make sure she was doing it correctly, but soon she had the paste all ready, the buns prepped, and everything ready to put together and plop in the oven.

"Not bad!" Mr. Ping complimented. "You're technique is a bit slow, but you have great task management!"

"Thank you," Ordai said, looking relieved and pleased by the compliment. As Mr. Ping gave her directions for what to do next, Madame Zhou walked up to the counter and asked if there was a bathroom she could use.

"Go through the door back there and it's immediately on your left," Mr. Ping told her. "And don't even think about going up those stairs. They're private."

Madame Zhou laughed. "I wouldn't dream of intruding on your privacy," she promised, and soon vanished into the back, leaving Mr. Ping to continue tending to Ordai.

While Mr. Ping and the girls spent the morning getting to know each other and helping out in the restaurant, Po helped his former master and his friends in the training hall with cataloging the weapons and artifacts that were on display. Most of the stuff was in the basement, but since Shifu preferred to work in the sunshine, (and also didn't want anyone to skimp on training), he had all the masters bring everything up to the top floor. He then brought out multiple scrolls to organize everything by type of weapon, dynasty, wielder, contributor, weight, and special abilities.

"I finished the last of the hats!" Po called over to Shifu, taking a hat off his head that gave the wielder the ability to yodel. (No one was really sure why it was even in the Hall of Heroes anyway, but it was there so it needed to be cataloged).

"Excellent!" Shifu said, checking it off of his list with a smile. "At this rate, we'll finish before lunch which will put us ahead of schedule."

Tigress stacked a box of swords against the wall that she had just finished and glanced around the Sacred Hall of Warriors with a deep breath. "I'm glad we're finally getting this out of the way," she noted. "This was supposed to be done weeks ago."

"Agreed. Thank goodness for extra time! Not that I wish the royal prince to be ill, but it does give us more time to finish instead of rushing about."

Tigress looked around the room, stretching out her muscles which had grown somewhat stiff from the repetitive movement of moving boxes and checking off categories on a list. "If it's alright with you master," she said respectfully. "I'd like to request permission to train before lunch, since we're nearly done."

"That's fine," Shifu told her. "We should be able to finish up pretty quickly since we only have just these last few boxes. And moving them into the lower level won't take us long to do."

"Perfect," the Dragon Warrior replied. She walked over to Crane and stood in front of him as he checked off a cape he had just pulled out of his box. "Come on, Crane, let's go."

Crane did a double take. "Huh?" he asked stupidly, blinking in confusion.

"You're my sparring partner. Let's move. I'd like to get more practice with the Hearts of Yin and Yang."

Crane immediately looked concerned and desperately tried to talk his way out of it. "But I haven't finished with the capes yet and they need to be organized and checked off!" he protested. "What if someone does it twice?! A-and Shifu only said you can leave. He didn't say anything about you needing a partner."

"I don't have an issue with you two sparring," Shifu assured Crane. "It'll give you two a chance to stretch and move while we finish up."

"Don't worry," Tigress assured him with a smirk. "I promise I won't accidentally break something."

Crane gulped in terror at the sudden flash of memory. "But...me? Why me? What about Mantis? Or Po?"

"I need an opposite and I've chosen you as my lucky sparring partner."

"I wouldn't call that lucky."

"Let's go, partner."

Without even waiting for Crane to respond, Tigress took his wing and half-dragged him towards the front doors. Crane mouthed a quick Help! to his friends in the hopes that someone would step in.

Knowing how meticulous and nervous Crane was, Po quickly asked, "Um...are you sure you don't want me to spar with you, Tigress?"

Tigress turned her head to look at him, her jaw cocking to the side as she considered the panda's offer. She then smiled slightly and answered: "....Tempting....Very tempting, Master Po. But I already chose Crane and I'd hate to disappoint him."

"No, no, please. I don't mind a raincheck, really," Crane begged.

"Master Crane, a spar with Tigress will not kill you," Master Shifu scolded, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Crane's childish terror. "Now go and practice with the hearts and be thankful you'll have an advantage the next time we train."

The masters then watched as Crane was helplessly dragged out of the Sacred Hall of Warriors and down the stairs. Monkey finished his box and then headed over to the one Crane had been working on in order to finish categorizing the capes. After about five minutes, Viper sighed in relief and said, "Thanks, master."

"Oh!" Po exclaimed. "Is that what was going on? Sorry! I didn't mean to almost ruin it!"

"Yeah, sorry everyone," Viper apologized as Mantis quietly groaned irritably and Monkey held back a laugh at the revelation. "Shifu and Tigress didn't want to risk anyone having bad acting, so we just kept it between us three."

"True; Tigress has a pretty good poker face," Mantis admitted, going back to his box.

"They're turning the corner towards the training hall, Master Viper," Shifu said, carefully listening to the footsteps of his students (which was easy to do since Tigress was still dragging Crane along the ground). "So you'll be free to leave for your date in a few minutes."

The master turned back to her box and tried to finish it as fast as she could so that it was completely done before she left. She laughed nervously and commented, "Tigress scared me for a half second. I thought she was actually going to ask Po to spar, since he's usually her favorite sparring partner."

Monkey laughed. "I'm sure she did that for show," he said reassuringly. "She probably knew Crane would get suspicious if she didn't even briefly consider it."

"Oh, true."

Po smiled. "Yeah, that sounds like something she'd do," he admitted.

As noon approached, Mr. Ping got the chance to go see most of the girls in action helping him out in the kitchen. He had been very pleased with Ordai's time management skills and had showered her with compliments as she left the kitchen. (Though admittedly her cooking could stand to be improved, though to be fair, she was still somewhat new to it). Xiao-Niao had gone next and had helped to restock the shelves with the supplies that had shown up in the back of the restaurant, which she was more than happy to do since she was much better at baking than she was at cooking. Mr. Ping did ask for her help with some chopping of vegetables before asking for her help with the dishes, which Xiao-Niao was more than happy to do, humming and flitting about the kitchen in quite a cheery mood, which pleased Mr. Ping. (nobody liked a complainer). Snow leopard went next, though she told Mr. Ping that most people just addressed her as Leopard since her name was a bit long. Even Po and the group tended to do this unintentionally. By the time she came into the kitchen, the rush hour had started to stream in, and though it wasn't nearly as bad as a full-scale rush hour, she did initially feel a bit overwhelmed by the speed of the orders and of Mr. Ping dashing hither and thither throughout the kitchen. After feeling like he was running circles around her, Leopard managed to pick up on little things he did that seemed to help him keep up with the long line of customers, and she slowly but surely began to fall into the rhythm of the kitchen world. Kay unfortunately had to come in the middle of the rush and was not as quick to adapt to all the tasks Mr. Ping gave her, nor did she feel comfortable talking to the customers. However, she was able to help Mr. Ping create a new pot of soup, not even needing the old goose to tell her the ingredients since she smelled everything from the soup pot on the way into the restaurant and could tell what exactly made the recipe. She was also very efficient at making complimentary tea in the back which Mr. Ping used to his advantage to get "sample tips", allowing every customer waiting in line to pay money to guess the mystery combo in the tea. Kay wrote the directions on a little card so that she didn't have to talk to the customers, so both her and Mr. Ping managed to get along during the early lunch rush despite not doing much communicating. Destiny on the other hand had to be given a lot of direction since she kept getting distracted by all the noise and commotion and different tasks that went into running a restaurant. She certainly tried her best, but her job was very low stress and thus she nearly panicked upon stepping into the kitchen and having Mr. Ping throw a bunch of tasks in her face. However, as her turn wrapped up and Jai-Rong was called into the kitchen, she told Mr. Ping that she would prefer to spend a whole day in the restaurant than spend an hour at school.

"This work is stressful, but at least it doesn't make me want to curl into a ball and cry for hours on the floor," she said with an erratic chuckle before ducking out of the kitchen with some slight embarrassment. Tai Lin and Kay patted her arm as she sat down and Jai-Rong entered the kitchen.

"I'm ready to help!" Jai-Rong told Mr. Ping. "What do I need to do?"

"The dishes need to be washed," Mr. Ping told her. "I was so busy trying to help everyone else in the kitchen I haven't had the chance to clean up the dishes from the customers."

"On it," Jai-Rong told him. She immediately headed towards the sink and turned on the water and put in the soap particles to start cleaning. "It's been a nice day at least hanging out with you," she told Mr. Ping. "I hear meeting potential in-laws can be stressful, but you seem very nice."

"Why thank you!" Mr. Ping gushed at the compliment. "I never had a wife, so I don't know much about that, but I know my parents absolutely loved my sister-in-law, so I just thought those tales were all exaggerated."

A scoff from the girls' table was heard, but Mr. Ping and Jai-Rong couldn't tell who it was, so they didn't bother asking. Jai-Rong placed the dishes on the drying rack and scratched part of her tail before resuming her task. "My in-laws all get along just fine," she commented. "I mean, sometimes there are things they get into heated disagreements on, but I think that's normal for anybody. No one's perfect. What matters is that you're willing to settle the dispute and try to make peace."

She quickly washed the dish she was working on and started violently scratching her tail again.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Mr. Ping said, chopping up his vegetables and setting them to the side to toss them in the pan he had on the stove. "Though it can be really difficult to do that if you have in-laws who are really annoying or who never know when to keep their comments to themselves."

Jai-Rong agreed, kept scratching, and then looked over at Mr. Ping and said, "Um...not to make you panic, but I think I'm getting hives."

"What?!" Mr. Ping exclaimed swinging around to look at the colubrid. "Why? Don't touch my dishes if you're sick!"

"I'm not sick," Jai-Rong told him quickly. Kept scratching. "I never get hives when I'm sick. Unless I'm having an allergic reaction."

"You don't need medicine do you?!" Destiny shrieked from the corner table as she and some of the girls got up to check on her.

"No no I'm fine. I can treat this myself." Jai-Rong quickly got off the counter and kept scratching. Wincing "But it's weird. I don't usually flare up like this unless I touch cedarwood. Never again!"

Mr. Ping glanced over at the dishes. "Oh...." he said knowingly. "That soap is imported....I never did ask what was in it, but the wood is foreign so that might be what it is."

Jai-Rong twitched as the hives started spreading and created a fiery itch along her spine. "Gotcha. Well nice talk. Really. I need to get home. I don't suppose you have any ice I can use to hold it off until I get back?"

"I'll be back," Mr. Ping said as he quickly headed into the cellar to grab some shaved ice from the most recent block he had had brought in. As he left, Madame Zhou came into the kitchen from the bathroom and looked at the commotion in the kitchen and at Jai-Rong whose skin had turned from red and white stripes to a pure fire red.

"You look awful sweetie!" she exclaimed in shock. "I'm glad that's not a bad reaction at least. It's not fun."

"As I've seen from yours. D'oooooaaaaagh! Now I have to check people's soap now?!"

"I can carry you back to the Jade Palace if it helps," Tai Lin offered. "So you don't have to go all the way up the stairs itching like that."

"I'll go too," Madame Zhou told her. "I have some of my medicine leftover."

"Is that safe?"

"I'll read the medicine bottle just to be sure, but it should be fine I would imagine."

Mr. Ping headed back up the stairs with the ice and handed it to Jai-Rong who was quickly picked up by Tai Lin and carried out of the restaurant. Madame Zhou quickly ran after them and was accompanied by Destiny and Kay who wanted to make sure Jai-Rong was okay. (Kay also more than likely wanted to get out of the busy restaurant, but no one bothered to ask her). The rest of the girls stayed at the restaurant as Lam, who was last, went in to take her turn. Her first assignment was to help finish the dishes that poor Jai-Rong hadn't been able to get to. It took a bit of time to finish since there were quite a bit and the lunch rush had drastically picked up. However, she had soon finished and finally was able to ask Mr. Ping if there was anything else she could do.

"Oh, you can help me make some tofu cake," Mr. Ping told her, directing her towards the back counter. "Have you made tofu cake before?"

"Um...no....and I'm not exactly the world's greatest baker."

"But you run a restaurant!"

"Baking and cooking are two completely different skills, Mr. Ping, and I'm not good with cakes."

"Well, there's no time like the present to learn. This cake's almost gone, so you can help me make some more."

Mr. Ping instructed Lam on which ingredients to get and in which order to prep them in in order to make the cake. (It needed to be very specific or else it'd come out crumbly or goopy). Lam did her best, asking questions frequently to make sure she was getting the directions right. (Which often took Mr. Ping from his work which frustrated him a little bit though he tried not to draw attention to it). Lam eventually got the cake into the oven and got it baked. However, when she took it out a half hour later, it was immediately clear something had gone wrong.

"I followed your directions exactly!" Lam complained irritably. "Why does it look like pudding?!"

What exactly did you do?" Mr. Ping asked, coming over to look at the mess.

"How should I know?! I crushed the tofu, I beat it, I mixed it with the ingredients, sifted flour, poured it right...!"

Lam took a deep breath to calm down before resorting to banging her head on the counter.

"Oh, there's no need to get so frumpy. Just start again," Mr. Ping told her matter-of-factly walking over to the counter to prep more dumplings."

"Why don't you make the cake and I prep the main orders?" Lam suggested flatly. "I don't want to waste your ingredients. Or your money."

"Oh, now don't use my words against me," Mr. Ping scolded, expertly flicking his wrist so that his cleaver stood rigidly on top of his cutting board. "Let me see."

"Whenever I make cake, it never comes out right," Lam told him as he examined the consistency of the cake. "It's too dry, or too salty, or too wet, or goodness knows what other kind of mess it is!"

Mr. Ping frowned in thought for a moment, examined the sad goop, and then finally said, "You over-beat the tofu."

Lam blinked. "You got all that from that mes- right, you know how to bake. Duh."

"Has anybody actually showed you how to bake?" Mr. Ping asked.

"Yes and know. My mom let me help with some of it when I first started, but then she let me just follow the recipes and learn from experience."

"Well then, maybe that's your problem. You need to learn how to bake a little differently. You need to know how it feels and looks and develop some actual instincts."

"Baking is an exact science," one of the customers said from the counter, overhearing the conversation. "Though on the bright side you can eat the messy cakes like pudding cups!"

"Thank you, Mr. Yulan," Mr. Ping said with a frown. "What can I get you?"

"Spicy tofu dumplings!"

"Be right there."

Mr. Ping told Lam to get the ingredients out again so that he could help her with the second cake. Lam did as was told and was joined by Mr. Ping once he was done serving his customer.

"Okay, let's start with actually cutting up the tofu and beating it again," he said.

Lam sighed and did as was told. "Sorry I have to make you babysit me," she apologized.

"It's alright," Mr. Ping assured her. He sighed, calming himself down from having his routine disrupted and added, "Po needed a bit of help too, now that I'm thinking about it. But he's much better now. It's just been such a long time since I've had to sit and train someone in the kitchen."

"When did you start baking?"

Oh, I started doing it as a kid. I used to help my mother all the time, but we specialized in noodle soup, so I never did anything with it. When Po became Dragon Warrior, I thought about my own child dreams and I decided I was going to add tofu to the menu, so I made tofu cake, tofu stir-fry, and a whole bunch of new recipes. It's actually been quite delightful blending tradition with my ideas."

Lam smiled. "That does sound nice," she admitted. She continued beating the tofu before asking, "So...Po quit being the Dragon Warrior because he needed to train kids, right? How did Tigress get the title? I thought titles needed high choosing ceremonies or something."

"Oh, she had one right before Po left. But he said that as current Dragon Warrior, he was allowed to pass down the responsibility to whoever he deemed worthy with permission and acceptance from the grandmaster, which would be Master- okay that's good- Master Shifu."

"Oh, I see. That's pretty cool," Lam said as she stopped beating the tofu. Mr. Ping helped her with the rest of the cake, carefully pointing out when to add things and how to fold and when to stop mixing. They finally got the cake put in the oven just as a flood of people came into the restaurant.

"Well, while that's baking," Mr. Ping said, picking up his cleaver. "Do you want to help me with prepping some of these orders?"

Lam grinned and cracked her pincers. "Now that I can do," she promised.