Mulan Takes a Husband

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Chirp, chirp, again and again, Mulan weaves by the door. No sound comes from the loom, only the girl's sighs. They ask what she is thinking of, what she is remembering. She says she is thinking of nothing, remembering nothing. Last night she saw the army notice: the Khan is calling up the troops, and her father's name is on every one of the twelve scrolls. Her father has no grown son, and Mulan has no elder brother. She wants to buy a saddle and horse and take her father's place in the army.

At the eastern market she buys a fine horse, at the western market a saddle and blanket, at the southern market reins, and at the northern market a long whip. At dawn she leaves her parents; by dusk she camps beside the Yellow River. She hears no more her parents calling their daughter, only the river rushing and splashing. At dawn she leaves the Yellow River; by dusk she reaches Black Mountain. She hears no more her parents calling their daughter, only the cries of the northern tribes' horses in the Yan Mountains.

She travels thousands of miles to the battlefield, crossing mountains as if flying. The northern wind carries the clatter of the watchman's gong, and the cold light glints on her armor. Generals die in a hundred battles; the brave return after ten years.

After Hua Mulan refuses the emperor's offer of an official post, she looks at how far past her youth she is and at how the General Li she loves has married someone else. She thinks it would be fine to grow old and die in the family shrine she built, living out her days in the countryside. Who could have known that when she opened her eyes, she would have brought the shrine with her into this world where yin and yang are reversed? And why does the little husband everyone despises and no one wants have General Li's face?

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