The wounds heal.

Familiar meeting

A month passed and along with it, Liu Kang was able to rejoin training. It didn't take long for him to regain his lost condition since he is someone who has been practicing his entire life.

However, not everything returned completely to normal as he expected. Even though days after his separation from Kitana he felt better, that feeling of indifference vanished after a short time. Therefore, he was still in pain over the recent breakup, he thought about it often. Even training or trying to distract himself, it was inevitable to remember it.

Therefore, his attitude wasn't the same, it was usual for him to be a little more irritable than before, especially when something didn't go well for him. Even at the slightest inconvenience he was more easily frustrated. This came to affect him in training, causing him to lose some practice matches or fail in some techniques. 

Although he had managed to reintegrate, he felt terrible even making small mistakes that he hadn't reacted to that way before. So it didn't stop him from venting on his own, remembering the best days of his where he was able to beat multiple opponents without getting tired.

There were times when his mind refused to believe that he broke up with Kitana, he kept wandering, waiting for her to miraculously call him back to Outworld. However, none of that happened, making him feel even more sad and unmotivated. There wasn't a day that he didn't think about her, even when he tried to sleep, he regularly had dreams about her, making it even more difficult for him to get over it. There were nights when he couldn't rest as he wanted and, furthermore, he had more nightmares than usual.

Kung Lao knew that the first month was going to be emotionally difficult for Liu Kang to face, so he tried as much as possible to keep him busy, accompany him and make sure that he was healing from his breakup. He invited him to do activities, brought him his favorite foods and when he wanted to let off steam or talk about how he was feeling, he would be there to listen. There were even nights when he offered to sleep with his friend in his room because they stayed up too late talking. 

There were also times when the champion couldn't help but cry in front of his best friend because of so much frustration he felt. Kung Lao was heartbroken to see him saddened and sorry for his condition, however, he was there to motivate him and make him feel better. However, there were times when Liu Kang expressed that he wanted to be alone and take time for himself; to which his friend accepted without problems since he was aware that he couldn't always be take care of him and, for obvious reasons, he needs his own space.

He used these moments to process things and reflect a little in solitude. He was a little embarrassed that he couldn't hide his misery from others no matter how hard he tried. Although he tried to keep his best face in public, the other classmates and masters were aware of what happened to him and could tell that he was depressed. Despite this and out of respect for him, they preferred not to mention anything about his break-up. His best friend was one of the very few people to whom he could tell what he felt, what he thought and what he dreamed. All this made that little by little, they recovered their almost lost friendship.

Going to other topics, when the Timequake occurred, Kung Lao had the opportunity to talk to Cassie Cage, who told him that in the future he had a nephew named Kung Jin who was part of the Shaolin Monks. She told him how she fought alongside him during Shinnok's invasion. He was taken by surprise by this news, but at the same time, it caused him great happiness to know that someone else in his family was going to be part of the same clan. However, he also found out that, for many years, his nephew was a thief. The strange thing was that he didn't do it out of necessity, since the family enjoys a good economic stability and reputation in the town where they live. For the same reason, its members have a reputation for being strict, conservative and quite rigid, even with their own children.