If only things could really last like that. 

It's certainly been very pleasant exploring romantic moments and events of action and fun! Catching up on times gone by and times that would be. Nothing could please an author more than to present their readers with a pleasant atmosphere to lose themselves in and feel happy and content. Of course, those who have chosen to read this story and have gotten this far would no doubt be aware that the summary included a love interest of Po's stooping to murder to claim his love. And naturally at this point in the story, 36 chapters in, most are probably wondering where the murder and intrigue is? While I am more than willing to dive into a story that starts off with a bang, (something I actually might consider for the future as an experiment), I'm also an old-fashioned story teller, so I like to take things very slowly. I'm sure by now though most have been speculating on who the murderer is. I have an idea of who the most popular candidate is, and I'm genuinely curious to see who can correctly guess the murderer before the story is over. I'm not going to say anything, but I'm also not subtle, so my wonderful readers might probably guess anyway. We'll see how I do.

The reason it's taken this long to get to the murder is because quite honestly, nothing shocking really happened aside from the thievery incident. For the first two weeks that all the potential love interests arrived at the Jade Palace, nothing major happened aside from of course two people being sent home and being a bunch of angry toddlers over it. After that, everything else that followed went down pretty smoothly for the most part. However, from this point in the story and out, nothing else too much happens either. The thievery incident was still taken pretty seriously and obviously needed to be investigated, but aside from Song getting an ominous note in her room telling her she'd come crawling back to her old ways (wonder who sent that), and Po leaving the ring with Lu-Shi for safe keeping, nothing else too massive happened. 

Okay, almost. There was a little incident in the training hall just two hours or so after Po and Song had watched the sunrise: 

Po dodged one of the arrows being fired at him in the training hall as he desperately ran for cover. Master Shifu had once again suggested that Po come and participate in the training regime he had planned for the Five which had Po secretly convinced that his master was determined to torture him as much as possible while he was there. (Mostly because the training days Shifu convinced him to join were always significantly harder than the other training days the Five described). The type of training they were in today was in the style of an ambush training. The masters had to avoid a hail of arrows, booby traps set up around the training hall, weighted nets, and pop-up swords. (Which Po was quite frankly not too happy to deal with). The girls, as per usual, were sitting on the sidelines enjoying the show and rooting for Po and occasionally for the Furious Five if they did something impressive. The goal of the game was to find a golden key and use it to turn of the training hall's defenses (specially made by Shifu), but the key was well hidden around the training hall, so the masters were taking a while to find it, though they worked well together to ensure no body got hurt during their exercise. 

At some point while leaping through the air to avoid the barrage of traps, Monkey noticed a tiny glint in the one side of the wall and excitedly pointed it out to his friends. "There, on the top right!" he called out. 

"Got it!" Crane said, flying up to grab the key. He avoided some of the arrows by quickly hiding behind the pillars and started making his way up and over to get the key to his friends. Halfway over however, his head started to feel a little heavy and he stopped for a brief moment to hide and collect himself. 

"Crane, what are you doing?! Hurry up!" Mantis called up. 

"Sorry! I don't know what's wrong with me!" Crane told him, suppressing a yawn. "I just feel really tired." When he felt a little better, he turned back and started heading over to the key, flying as fast as he could to avoid one of the traps. However, as he reached the key and took it out of the wall, the exhaustion suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks, and with the room spinning around and then going black, he suddenly just started falling to the ground. 

"CRANE!!!!" Po screamed. 

Tigress immediately lunged towards her falling friend and quickly caught him before he could hit the ground. Po and the rest of the Five managed to follow after her and while she went and hid somewhere safe with Crane, Po grabbed the key and quickly turned the machine off. Shifu, too concerned to say anything snarky or sarcastic, immediately ran over along with the other girls to check on Crane. 

"Is he alright?!" Viper exclaimed. 

Mantis hopped onto Crane who was still being tightly held by a semi-shocked Tigress and examined him for a brief moment. Shifu noticed he was still breathing and announced his relief at this idea. 

"Should we take him to a hospital?" Xiao Niao asked after a few moments of silence . 

"He doesn't seem ill," Mantis pointed out. More examination. "I actually think he's just sleeping."

"Sleeping?!" Shifu exclaimed, somewhat irritated at this thought. "How?!" 

"Maybe it was a side-effect of his sinus medication?" Monkey suggested. "He took it this morning." 

"I don't recall sleep-deprivation ever being a side effect," Tigress pointed out. 

Tai Lin, who had her brow furrowed in deep thought, suddenly asked, "Was his medication in the brown bottle with the blue top?" 

Everyone turned to look at her. "Yeah," Mantis agreed as Tigress gave her a suspicious look. "How did you know that?" 

Tai Lin frowned. "Do you want the long version or the short one?" she asked. 

There was a strange silence for a moment before Po said, "Long." 

"I noticed when we were settling in that Master Crane liked to linger around Master Viper a lot," Tai Lin began to explain. "Which you guys confirmed after the Weiqi game we played. Anyway, they were gone for a long time and I didn't feel comfortable with that, so I decided to check up on him and Master Monkey to see what was going on, which was just a conversation about letting her have a life. Which is good advice. But I figured he was gone too long a time to just be sulking, so I decided to look around the barracks for a bit to see if anything was out of place. And I found that the bathroom medicine cabinet was missing a bit of sleeping tonic. So I checked out your room Master Viper, if you'll forgive me for that." Tai Lin gave her an apologetic bow. "And I immediately smelled it in the tea drops you kept in your room. I didn't really know what exactly he was up to, but I decided he needed to learn a lesson. So I dumped out his medication and placed the drugged tonic in there and then put the bottle back in your room. His sinuses are messed up so, he probably didn't even notice." 

"That explains why my bottle was suddenly empty that day!" Viper exclaimed, more to herself. 

"Why didn't you tell us this?" Shifu asked sternly. "This is a very serious matter, Tai Lin." 

"I know how men like him work. Nothing personal Shifu. They don't want to listen to reason, and quite frankly I've met too many people who dismiss that kind of stuff, so I didn't want to risk it." 

"Gee, your friend must have had a real bad experience with bad boyfriends, huh?" Po noted.

Tai Lin looked confused. "My friend?" she questioned. 

"The one you said had a stalker ex?" Viper elaborated. 

"Oh. Right," Tai Lin said quickly with a bit of an embarrassed flush. "Yeah. My friend....Sorry. It's just....it's been a while. And I haven't really kept in touch with my friends in some time. What with moving and everything." She quickly cleared her throat and told Shifu she could show him the drugged tonic if he wanted her to. 

"Yes, thank you very much," Shifu said with a slightly relieved look on his face. "I'm just glad it was nothing serious. I'll be having a serious conversation with him when he wakes up. Could someone help bring Crane to his room so he can rest?"

"I'll do it," Tigress volunteered, carefully getting to her feet as Crane started snoring. "It'll be easier." 

As mentioned already, not much really happened. 

Of course, even the most mundane of tasks can be made exciting and enjoyable, but really truly the next few days passed along just like the last two weeks. One day, Po made everyone breakfast in bed and everyone upstairs just sort of hung out for the morning talking things over and getting to know each other and making note of which bed and breakfasts were their favorites and what food they liked best. Another day someone suggested camping, which meant a nice overnight stay at the Wu Dan mountains where everyone  could watch the sunrise. At this point, Po admitted to his friends that he was planning to tell Shifu about asking Madame Zhou to leave (since he only really let her hang out to taste the cake. The Five just laughed and called it typical Po), but Madame Zhou informed Po that she had a business partner in town she wanted to meet with covertly before heading back (she did not like to waste time), so Po reluctantly allowed her to stay an extra week or so to do whatever business transactions were necessary.  After that Po offered some more one on one kung fu sessions, which just Tai Lin, Leopard, and Lu-Shi accepted, and Ordai suggested one day to have brunch at one of the local cafés. It was a bit of a big group, but the café was more than happy to collect extra revenue. 

It was after this that the girls started to really settle into the Jade Palace, despite the little hiccups that occurred. Shifu had warmed up a little to the idea of reminiscing with Leopard while Lu-Shi, Song, Xiao-Niao, and Po did their own reminiscing here and there. The masters kept to their training and occasionally dealt with some local bandits who attempted to raid the valley (with Po joining in once since he was coming back from visiting his dad) and the girls were starting to really warm up to Po, some of them being a little more obvious than others. Some of the guests had even started striking up conversations with some of the guards, who hadn't really had much else to do aside from keep vigilant for anymore thievery attempts. Lu-Shi asked Shifu at some point why they were there for just a simple dating group, but Shifu explained it was in case of the unexpected, and brought out the thievery incident as a great example. 

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Shifu and everyone inside the Jade Palace, there was a greater and more fiendish unexpected lurking just around the corner. And in the third week of everyone being at the Jade Palace, this unexpected finally reared it's ugly and lethal head. 

It started off as a typical day at the Jade Palace with everyone up and waiting for breakfast to be served. Lam and Po had decided to take turns with serving breakfast and on this particular day it was Po's turn. He was making a delicious rice porridge for breakfast and having some light conversation with the Five and the girls who were already awake. (Which really just consisted of Tigress, Mantis, Monkey, Kay, Leopard, and Lam). It was surprisingly pretty quiet in the kitchen as Tigress was more focused on getting some tea for everyone, Kay was quiet anyway and thus didn't offer much, and Leopard didn't usually like talking to people until she had her tea and was more awake, so the chatter was kept to the minimum for the moment. Until they heard loud bickering coming from down the hallway. 

Leopard groaned. "Not again," she grumbled. 

Tigress handed her a cup and placed the one pot of tea in front of her. "You can have first dibs on the first pot," she offered as she went back to make the rest. 

"I mean, at least Crane hasn't been stalking her as much," Monkey offered in hopes of lightening the situation. "I say arguing is an improvement." 

Hearing Crane and Viper's voices getting louder and louder, Po just winced and said, "Not by much."

"I still cannot believe you tried to drug me so that I'd miss my date with my boyfriend!" Viper snapped angrily as she slammed the one door open and she and Crane walked into the kitchen together. "That's low even for you!" 

"I was just looking out for you! I don't even know this guy!"

"Good! I don't want you to!" 

 "Look, I'm sorry, okay! I promised Shifu no more of that! I know that was pretty bad! Honest! No more cheap tricks to get you to rethink your relationship!" 

"There's no need to rethink it! We're perfectly happy together!" 

"That's what you said about our relationship and then you broke up with me!"

"We're not compatible! How many times do I have to tell you that?!"

"I don't know! Maybe you should explain to me why this guy is so much better than me! Why him and not me?!"

"Well, here's an original one: you hate kids!"

"I do not!" 

"Yes you do; you've told us that over and over again!" 

"I don't mind kids, I just don't want any." 

"You called the kids in the kung fu class germ factories." 

"They are!!!!!! They wipe their noses on their sleeves, cough on you, and have no sense of personal hygiene whatsoever!!!!!!" 

"Well I don't mind having my own little germ factories as you call them, so that was red flag number one. Out of many. I'm sorry you have problems with that, but why don't you find yourself a girlfriend who doesn't mind not having children and then you'll be happy!" 

"Even if I wanted to do that, I'm pretty sure most women want kids! That wouldn't work." 

"That's not true, and you know it. Look at Tigress."

"Viper, you better leave me out this conversation," the Dragon Warrior warned as she finished prepping the second tea pot.

As Viper went to her chair, Crane tried to sputter out something in protest, but only got as far as "But....I love you!" 

Viper let out an exasperated "Ugggggghhhhhh" and sat down at the table. "Then fall out of it!!!" she yelled. "Look, I tried to be nice and gentle with you when talking about this, but you've pushed my buttons one too many times and I've had it! Now just sit down and leave me be!" 

Crane inhaled sharply in anger but went to the opposite side of the table and stood there in a huff as he waited for Po to finish breakfast. The room was now tense, and all anyone could really do was sit there and wait for someone oblivious to come into the room and start a whole new part of the conversation. Kay tried by sliding the tea pot over to Viper, and quietly asking, "Tea?" but she didn't say much else aside from that, so the room remained silent. 

Finally, Destiny walked into the room with a big loud yawn and said, "It smells yummy in here! What's for breakfast?" 

"Rice porridge," Po announced, grateful for the intrusion. "How'd you sleep?"

"I slept okay," Destiny admitted as she sat down next to Monkey. "I had a really weird dream that I could see everybody's organs, and I was able to tell what activity everyone was doing based on how fast their heartbeat was or how full their stomach was."

"That sounds creepy," Tigress told her. 

"That sounds gross," Crane added. 

"Actually it was pretty cool," Destiny admitted. "They showed us charts of the inside of people's bodies in class, and I always liked watching how they worked. Don't ask me anything technical though. Not really my strong suit." 

As Po began finishing up breakfast, more of the girls came into the kitchen followed by Master Shifu who seemed a bit tired, though everyone was soon to find out this was because he was up half the night filing reports. 

"There's still no trace of the thief, but we're getting a better idea as to where the splintered troupe of the Ladies of the Shade might have gone," he informed the Five. "With Song's help of course." 

"Anything I can do to help fix the mess," Song told him as Po got out the bowls. 

Master Shifu sat down and suppressed a yawn. "I have something to announce," he said, directing his attention to the Furious Five. "But you probably won't like it."  

"Master?" Tigress questioned. 

"As you know, we have the upcoming Presentation of Legends, to the emperor and his family. Because the emperor's wife is from the southern region of China, the counsel has decided to allow one of the local superintendents to help oversee the arrangements. And unfortunately, the supervisor they chose is Superintendent Woo." 

"He's not bringing Ming, is he?" Po asked worriedly as all of the masters groaned. 

"Ming goes wherever he goes, so presumably yes." 

"Wait, Ming wasn't kidding when she said her dad was overseer of the imperial law system?" Destiny asked in surprise. "I thought she was hyperinflating herself." 

"They're not in charge of the creation and annulling of laws in the imperial palace," Shifu explained. "But Superintendent Woo is in charge of distributing the laws and making sure local authorities comply with the regulations the Emperor makes. So in a way yes, they do have charge of the law system." 

"That's scary," Xiao Niao noted. 

"As we know from previous experience," Shifu concurred. "But hopefully things will go smoothly. Superintendent Woo will be staying at the house of a nobleman who is a close advisor of the royal family, so they'll only be here for the preparation and actual presentation. I figured we should probably arrange the schedule for Po and the rest of the ladies still here to try and minimize any outbursts from Ming. Just to stay on the safe side." 

"Yes, please," Po agreed quickly. 

"When are they going to get here?" Leopard asked. 

"Next week. We have some time to plan ahead." 

Po finally finished breakfast and dished out bowls for everyone just as Tigress put the second pot of tea on the table. Shifu started giving out suggestions for activities they could do within the next week or so that would be fun but keep them either out of the Jade Palace or tucked somewhere safely out of the way of Ming. A couple of ideas came up around the table and were noted, rejected, and tweaked. The masters helped Po and his guests arrange the activities according to what the schedule for the masters was (Shifu had some paper close at hand so this wasn't too difficult of an issue) and managed to put down some activities that were pretty fun. Afterwards, the masters were dismissed for training and the rest of the group sat around trying to figure out what else to do. Po beat them to the punch though and announced that he had an idea of doing a picnic for lunch down by one of the rivers close to the Jade Palace. And if it got too hot, they could go swimming. This idea sounded like a pleasant one and everyone started immediately making plans for the afternoon. They started trying to figure out what they wanted for lunch (Po offered to make rice balls with bean paste), how much they needed to pack, would they need a lot of blankets or was eating on the grass perfectly fine, did they need shade, and so on so forth. Once all the details were hashed out, the group quickly began to plan for the excursion. They finished packing shortly before the Five finished up their training and Po quickly made lunch for his friends before the group headed outside, waving goodbye to the Five and Shifu before leaving the Jade Palace. 

The place Po had chosen for the picnic lunch was a good half hour away from the Jade Palace. The river snaked around some of the trees before opening up to a giant lake in the center of a beautiful clearing. The lake was very wide with shining waters which traveled a great distance before narrowing again into the river up ahead. The waters were pretty calm today, so it was easy to see the very bottom of the lake. Po decided to set the blanket up on the grass just a few feet away from the water, leaving plenty of room for everyone to gather around and eat some of the lunch. In consideration of the large size of the group, they had brought two large blankets and split the lunch and group into two. It was a pretty simple meal containing some water, rice cakes with bean paste, fried tofu with sweet and sour sauce, and almond cookies, though the group spent a good hour eating everything and just talking to one another. They admired the view on the lake and gently splashed the water from where they were. Kay plucked at the grass for a little while before deciding quietly to go admire the flowers around the water. Destiny decided she felt like splashing in the water and ran into the water and proceeded to do a cannonball in the deeper part of the lake. She was soon joined by Lu-Shi, Po, and Ordai. (Who waited a few minutes before actually getting into the water). Madame Zhou and Tai Lin decided to go for a walk around the perimeter and check out the local forest while the rest of the girls stayed on the blanket and admired the view. 

Those in the water wound up getting into a bit of a water contest which was started by Destiny to see who could make the biggest cannonball. Ordai wasn't too used to splashing around since she had been taught to be graceful and silent in the water to avoid splashing those working in the water. But she soon got the hang of not pointing her feet into the deep end to make a big splash. Lu-Shi made a splash that was considerably bigger and Destiny eagerly made an even bigger splash.  Po, who had been practicing his cannonballs for years, was able to create a wave so big it nearly hit the picnic blanket that some of the girls were sitting on. Leopard and Song moved the picnic blanket back a little bit to keep it from getting soaked while Jai-Rong took little nibbles of some of the foods while moving them out of the way. 

"Ooh! Can you toss me a cookie?" Po called from the water. 

"Sure," Leopard said, taking one of the almond cookies off of the plate and throwing it with great force towards the water. 

Po quickly caught it, breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't dropped it, and stuffed it into his mouth with a loud, "Thank you!" 

"Good catch," Jai-Rong called over. 

"My turn!" Lu-Shi called over excitedly. "Toss me one!" 

Leopard obliged, tossing another cookie over towards the water. Lu-Shi caught it, but stumbled a bit due to the force and fell backwards in the water, holding the cookie above her head for dear life as she went down. Po quickly grabbed it from her before she went completely under the water and got it wet. 

"You need to teach me how to do that!" Destiny said excitedly. "I want to catch stuff midair like a boss!" 

Ordai patted her shoulder. "I think catching things like a boss takes time," she told her. "But yes, that's pretty impressive, Po." 

Lu-Shi emerged from the water as Po smiled sheepishly at the compliments. Lu-Shi glanced at him and said with a relieved look, "Oh, thanks Po! I was afraid for a second I got it all mushy." 

"Nope. It's still fresh and moist! In a good way, obviously." 

Lu-Shi snatched the cookie from Po and, with an excited flourish, tossed it into the air and caught it with her mouth before devouring it. "Yum!" she commented happily. 

"You know, that reminds me of Fetch," Leopard said from over on the moved blanket. "My kids always bring one of their water toys whenever we visit the lake, and we made this game where I toss it somewhere in the middle and they had to get it. It was a good swimming lesson." 

"Oh, I know that game!" Ordai exclaimed suddenly. "My village plays that game with all the children. It helps us swim and move quietly through the water so we don't get people wet when they're working with the fabrics." 

"Oh, then you should be really good at it then." 

"Let's test it," Jai-Rong suggested. She picked up a rock, marking a giant X on it with a nearby stone with a sharp edge. "Let's toss this in the water, and then see who can get to it first."

"I'm game!" Destiny agreed readily. 

Jai-Rong weighed the stone with her tail before spinning it wildly and skipping it violently across the water where it proceeded to sink in the middle of the lake. 

"Ooh," Kay complimented from the side. She had gone back to picking at the grass.

"You got quite the arm! Er-tail," Po complimented as Destiny, Ordai, and Lu-Shi immediately went after the stone. "Hey, wait for me!" 

Jai-Rong laughed. "My record is 387 meters!" she called out. 

"Come again?!" Song exclaimed in surprise. 

"Are you sure?" Leopard asked. "That's an impossible feat." 

"We measured it." 

They looked back out in the water as Lu-Shi came up for air with a triumphant pose. She waved the rock around while Ordai gave her a disapproving frown. "You need to stop elbowing people out of the way, Lu-Shi. You're going to give me bruises." 

"Ah, it's all in good fun!" Lu-Shi promised, eagerly swimming back and returning the rock to the shore. 

Jai-Rong tossed the rock again, upon which Song laughed, stood up, and ran into the water with a graceful leap. Ordai was quietly moving through the water, ducking under it every so often to avoid the splashing of Po and Lu-Shi, and Destiny alternated between swimming after the stone and jumping around in the water to get ahead faster. Song swam pretty quickly, but since the group was farther out, they got to the stone first. This time Destiny reached it. 

"YAAAAAY! I HAVE FOUND THE TREASURE!" she shrieked excitedly. 

Leopard laughed as she brought the rock back to shore. "Maybe I should try my paw too," she wondered, somewhat jokingly but also very seriously.

"Go ahead. I don't mind throwing," Jai-Rong told her. "I can't swim." 

Kay got an offer to join in the game as well as Leopard ventured into the water, but Kay declined and said she would pick some local flowers to put into a vase when they got back to the Jade Palace. She particularly wanted to pick some azaleas she had noticed on the way over to the lake. The rest of the group resumed the game of Fetch with Jai-Rong throwing the rock at lightning speed and great distance across the water and the group making a mad dash for the stone. Song, who was admittedly the best swimmer of everyone, always managed to get to the area first (which irritated Ordai a bit since she was used to being the fastest in the water), but it would always take a minute to get the rock back since it was hard to clearly see the X with the water distorting the shape. They wound up playing the game for a good part of the afternoon with Po managing to grab the rock a few times, Song snatching it and then swimming back without anyone even noticing she had taken it, Ordai triumphantly getting it a few times, and Leopard grabbing it every so often and throwing it back to Jai-Rong who had to go and fetch it as well. Eventually, the water got a little chilly to play in and the group, exhausted from the game, decided to hop out and dry off for a bit. Song and Ordai decided to walk around the woods to dry off and check out the scenery while Leopard just reached for one of the towels she had brought along with the lunch. 

"I figured somebody would get wet," she explained. "Every time I take my kids to the shore, I tell them to stay out of the water until we're finished exploring the local town and eating lunch. That always winds up turning into Bolin and Fenghua just dipping their feet in, and then Pei going into the water to "prevent" them from getting wet, and the next thing I know I have eight sopping wet kids covered in sand. So I just started bringing extra clothes and towels every time we went to the beach." She laughed. "Kids are so funny," she added as a small note. 

"My dad calls it bone-brain logic," Jai-Rong laughed. "Because your brain isn't fully developed until your at least 25. So he always says that kids do stupid things because their brain literally isn't all there." 

"What about adults who do stupid things?" Destiny asked curiously. 

"Stupid adults are stupid kids whose brain never grew all the way or who damaged it by doing an overly stupid thing."

"And how many stupid kids or adults are there in your neck of the woods?" Leopard asked jokingly. 

Jai-Rong rolled her eyes. "My dad would probably give you a list," she admitted. "I couldn't tell you personally, except for maybe Hana. But she's not really stupid more than I'd say ignorant." 

"Ah. I see." 

Po drank some of the water they had brought with them before eating some more of the picnic food to replenish his energy. The group chatted for a little bit before Tai Lin suddenly showed up again. "Hi," she greeted. Eyeing the somewhat wet blankets, she asked, "What did I miss?"

"Oh, we just played Fetch!" Lu-Shi told her. "It was fun! You shoulda' been here!" 

"Where's Madame Zhou?" Po asked. 

"She needed to rest her legs," Tai Lin explained, sitting down by the picnic blanket. "Old age, she told me. She's not far away though. Just over by that rock formation past the line of trees over there. Or at least she was when I left her." 

"And when was that?" Leopard asked.

"No more than a half-hour ago. She told me she'd be fine by herself. Plus, I mean, there's guards around the whole perimeter in case we have a mob or something. To quote Master Shifu," Tai Lin laughed. "I'm sure she's fine." 

She looked around the group and asked where some of the others had gone, to which it was explained that Kay, Song, and Ordai had gone out for a walk, the latter doing it to dry off. Tai Lin accepted this explanation and laid down on the other picnic blanket that was on the grass. Po got into a three-way conversation with Lu-Shi and Destiny while Jai-Rong and Leopard decided to do their own small contest of seeing how far each of them could skip rocks across the lake. Lam, who had been napping the whole time, only woke up when Ordai came back and called out, "Hey, Po?!" loudly to get his attention. 

"Who drank the soup?!" Lam exclaimed, sitting up with a start. 

Destiny winced. "You work in your sleep?" she told Lam as Po waved at Ordai. "That sucks." 

"Should we start heading back?" Ordai asked Po. "The sun's getting a bit low, and I wasn't sure if you wanted to get back before dinner or around dinner?"

"Viper offered to make dinner," Po assured her, standing up. "But I figured we can pack up a little early so we can clean up before then. I have grass stains all over my pants." 

"Oh, in that case I'll put the food away," Lu-Shi said, putting some of the food back in the baskets and taking a final nibble of one of the rice balls that were leftover. 

"Should I look for Kay and Zhou?" Destiny asked. "They're not back yet."

"Song's not back either I noticed," Ordai observed, looking around.

"I'm sure she'll be back soon," Leopard assured her. "It's still early." 

Destiny stood up to go searching for the other members of the group, only for Kay to return with a large bouquet of flowers. "Hi," she said quietly. She looked over at the group and noticed they were getting ready to leave.

"We're just waiting on Song and Madame-" Destiny started to say, only for a loud yell to ring out from the trees. Everyone ran over to check it out and found Madame Zhou staring down a wasp who was giving her an equal vicious look. 

"I am allergic to your venom, you bastard!" Madame Zhou screamed. 

"Well maybe next time don't steal from my cart!" the wasp countered. 

"I wasn't stealing anything! I was walking back to the lake!" 

"Someone stole from my cart and you have a little box that looks exactly like one of my items! Explain that!" 

Madame Zhou opened her mouth to explain it, but suddenly started gasping for air and turning blue. The wasp panicked and flew out of the vicinity as the group immediately tended to Zhou. 

"We need to get to a doctor now!" Po cried. He picked Zhou up and started to head away from the lake when suddenly the wasp called out, "Wait!" 

Everyone looked back and saw him return with a small box which he placed on the ground and opened. 

"I'll explain to Doctor Crab when I get back that it was an emergency," he said, taking out a small pill bottle labelled Epinephrine. "My mother carries these in case local restaurants refuse to take out mushrooms from their soups." 

He quickly handed one to Zhou while Tai Lin grabbed one of the waters they packed and gave it to the gazelle so she could take some of the pills. While Zhou waited for the effects to kick in, the wasp left again with the package to put it back in his cart, then came back again with a box that indeed looked similar to the one he had just opened. "Sorry I thought you were a thief," he apologized. "I guess I gotta' work on my temper there, huh?"

"Did you...." Madame Zhou wheezed angrily, stopping to catch her breath. Po was just relieved to see color coming back to her face. 

"I just peeked to see if it was mine. I told you, it looks like mine. Sorry again. Take care ma'am." 

And he flew off. 

The group waited a moment for Zhou to catch her breath and feel better before they headed back to the Jade Palace. Leopard and Destiny quickly packed up the rest of the picnic and followed after Po and the group while Po carried Madame Zhou back to the Jade Palace. 

"Thank you, dear," Madame Zhou said, patting Po's shoulder. She held onto the pill bottle and her water and took a long shaky breath. "I am so glad we had these when I was a kid. Who knows where I'd be today." 

"How on earth did you find out you were allergic to bee venom?" Po asked. "That's a weird thing to find out."

"I had a friend who was a wasp," Zhou explained. "We got in a fight once and he stung me, I stopped breathing and got rushed to the doctor, and he felt so bad he never stung me again. Pretty simple story." 

"You know, in some places, there are bees who can only sting once," Lam mentioned. "We served a guy visiting China on business and he told me that his dad had a vicious temper and stung someone bigger than him in an argument and died." 

"He died because he stung a guy once?" Jai-Rong asked in confusion. 

"Yeah. Turns out their stingers are barbed, so once they sting, they get stuck and...well, the only way to get unstuck is for the stinger to come out. Very rarely does the stinger come out just by itself. I won't describe it in detail. It's pretty bad." 

Po winced. "That sounds like a horrible way to die," he noted. 

"Yeah. And it's a pretty good lesson on why you should keep your temper in check." 

They continued walking through the forest making small talk until they finally reached the village and made their way up to the Jade Palace. About halfway up the stairs, an idea suddenly struck Po. "Wait! I have a fun idea we can try!" he exclaimed. "We can race down the stairs on wok pans!" 

"That sounds dangerous," Kay said quietly. 

"That sounds like fun!" Destiny countered excitedly. "Though I don't think I would fit on a wok pan." 

"Sure you could!" Po assured her. "Song and I did that when she first visited the Valley of Peace! Remember Song?"

When he didn't get an answer, Po glanced over at the group, calling his friend's name again, but it only took a second for him to realize that Song wasn't with them. 

"Song?!" he called again towards the bottom of the stairs, but Song wasn't slowly trailing up behind them like he had been thinking. 

"Oh! We never made sure she knew we were leaving!" Destiny exclaimed. "We got so caught up with Zhou's bee sting-!"

"Well, how about everyone heads up and let Shifu know we'll be running late while I go look for her," Leopard suggested, seeing the worry starting to cross everyone's face. "Maybe Po can come help me look?" 

"I'll come too," Destiny offered, handing the picnic basket to Tai Lin who took it and gave it to Ordai, saying she'd help. 

"I'll come too," Jai-Rong offered. 

As they headed down the stairs, Ordai called after them that she and Song had separated by a fork in the road before heading up the stairs with the other girls. The two groups separated with Po and Zhou taking their group back to the picnic spot to look for Song. They first started off their search by checking out the fork in the road Ordai had mentioned, but they were exasperated upon realizing (and for Po and Leopard, remembering) that there were at least three different forks around that area and they weren't sure which one Ordai and Song had used. They looked by the closest one, but didn't see any trace of Song along either path. They then checked some of the surrounding trees in case she had decided to take a nap there or just hang out. They checked down the river, some of the nearby bushes and called her name for a solid hour, hoping she'd hear them or maybe wake up and come back to explain what happened. But no one showed up. And there was no trace of the clouded leopard anywhere. The group checked far beyond the picnic area and after a while even came back just in case maybe she had woken up and come back on her own. However, when they crossed the valley, the village, the stairs, and then made their way to the barracks, those ideas were soon dashed. 

Song was gone.