IMPORTANT WARNING: Please do not read this if you think crack fiction of any kind for this story would be offensive to you. I don't mean it to be offensive, and personally do not find it so, but if the parameters of your vision for the story and characters exclude historical inaccuracies and circumstances that would never occur in the story's true setting, please do not torture yourself with my story! Thank you for looking and sorry if this is not what you were looking for! :D

For those you wish to brave a Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon crack fic, please enjoy! ;D

Predictable

The damp morning air was speckled with tiny drops of mist, visible in remarkable relief due to the pale cusp of yellow struggling to climb the eastern sky.

A good morning for laundry.

Li Mu-Bai gazed serenely out into the vapor dusted mountains, readjusting his laundry basket as he halted before the taut and reaching clothes lines twining between two far-spaced scraggly trees on the edge of an outcrop of soil and rock. He inhaled peacefully before sharply tugging the elbows of his sleeves to liberate his hands and facilitate the efficiency of his task.

"Ah," he sighed as he bent over to lift a pale white sheet, heavy with moisture, and clipped the corners with clothespins.

A very good morning for laundry.

The warrior-made-handyman continued his precise and slow paced work as dewdrops echoed in the valleys and white winged avions rose with the sun into a pinkish dawn. At the very last possible second, he flicked his wrist and caught the kitchen knife that had been soaring through space towards his back, calm as ever, before dropping the blade and releasing the ends of the clothespin securing a washcloth. He turned towards the direction of the attack, depositing the anticipatory clothespins in his hands within a pocket of the "chore apron" (equipped with household items and ample storage space) to prepare for a second onslaught.

Yu Shu-Lien appeared in the doorway of their minute cottage home, several meters away from the outcrop he was standing on. A heavy leaden soup pot was in one trembling hand, another kitchen knife in the other. Her face was pale and her mouth was set in a tight-lipped frown. If these signs were not enough to indicate that Yu was livid, the deadly cold look in her eyes would clue anyone in.

Li waited patiently.

She shot across their front yard, swinging the soup pot up and the knife around her back, spinning as she reached him and sliding a foot between his in a motion that would knock his feet out of under him if completed. He allowed himself a millisecond to note how beautiful she looked with her hair down before bracing one hand on each of her wrists and forcing her arms in the opposite direction of their current swing while sliding his nearly captured leg back and around, reversing the move, forcing Yu to face away from him and fall forward.

She slid into the splits, gaining control of her arms again and swinging them backwards towards the outside of his knees. As he lowered his fists to block her wrists and curtail her attack, she pulled her back leg underneath her, turning in a kneeled position and sliding through his legs, pulling her arms away from him at the last possible moment and holding them behind her as she came out behind him. He crossed his left leg behind himself to step on the wrist with a kitchen knife, a move that allowed him to turn with little effort and slip the knife out of her grasp, throwing it into one of the nearby trees.

There were very few situations in which his wife would strike before speaking and it was anyone's guess which one this happened to be.

Yu took advantage of his attention shift to the knife to free her hand and grab the sleeve on his blind side and make another swing with the soup pot. Li glanced backwards and hit the ground, feeling the swish of the pot uncomfortably close to his head. To avoid following his movement further towards the earth, she released his sleeve and twisted her hips towards him, standing and grabbing both handles of the pot, swinging it back as he too began to rise.

He ducked the first swing and turned towards her, making an attempt to land a hit but realizing he'd lost too much time in turning as the round end of the pot was already rushing back towards his head. They moved simultaneously between two clotheslines, Yu taking a swing and Li dodging with every step they took. He risked a half second's time to realize one of the anchor trees was now directly behind him. He turned his entire body like a screw, ducking beneath a sheet just as the pot hit the dirt where he'd been with such a force that it buried itself half an inch in.

She dropped the pot to save time and swished a leg beneath the sheet, leaning to the side as she did so to slip beneath it. As she appeared, he cut back diagonally, moving away and into the adjacent row of laundry lines between the sheet and a shirt. She followed, twisting and crouching while thrusting a poised foot at his shins. Li cleared the kick with a slight jump and again cut back diagonally to the row he'd just left, crossing between the shirt and a pillowcase.

They continued to weave between the laundry until she skidded to a halt and seized a wet sheet from the half full laundry basket, using it like a whip by lashing it out and around his ankle. Before she could pull her arm back and topple him, he jerked his heel back, pulling her under the towel between them. She quickly planted her feet and tugged the sheet upward, her one mistake.

As soon as her arms were level with her shoulders, he pulled two clothespins from his apron and clipped their sleeves together, pulling back and effectively trapping her arms. She slipped the pins off and again hooked her leg back in an attempt to trip him but all was in vain.

He grabbed each one of her hands in one of his the instant they were free and slid the jeopardized leg out and around her own, bringing his foot down on her loose one. He slid one arm around her waist and the other up to her shoulders halting her struggles.

They breathed heavily for a moment before Li kissed her forehead and started the sentence he knew was coming, "You…" She nodded, still glaring, in fact, glaring (if possible) more intensely. She took a pause from her panting to swallow and nod exasperatedly, saying venomously,

"You…" A slight breeze brushed the pair in the now sunlit morning with a pale peach sun now struggling to burn through the clouds of mist left from the rosy dawn. He waited calmly for her to gain enough breath to finish her condemnation. She swallowed again and stomped her trapped slippered foot on the ground in vexation before scowling up at him and saying, "You left the seat up, again!"