Reflection

by Elizabeth Lim

  So when her fingertips touched that glorious grass lining the mountain’s summit, Mulan gathered her breath in her chest and swept her leg up over the edge. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, especially since she still needed to avoid all those knives with their blades sticking out of the mountain’s rock face.

  But there was one knife—no, it was too long to be a knife. One sword that’d been stabbed into the mountain, blade first. It looked special, and any other time, Mulan might have taken an extra long look at it. But now all she noticed was that its golden hilt stuck out from the thin metal knives around it. Perfect to use as a step to haul herself up to the summit.

  She rolled onto the grass. She didn’t care that it was brown and withering and crinkled under her back. “We made it!”

  Shang chuckled. “My climb wasn’t as hard as yours.” He hesitated. “We should take a break here. Consider our next step.”

  “Good plan.”

  Mulan sat up and observed where they were. A plain of sorts. One that looked like it hadn’t been visited or tended in a long time, given how dead the grass was both in the plains and on the hills. She’d take a dead hill over a mountain of knives any day.

  She unfastened the binds over her hands, then cut the braids on her feet. She clutched the remains of ShiShi’s mane, tied it to one of the daggers, and staked it into the ground. Not quite the regal memorial he deserved, but it would have to do. She sighed. There seemed to be little else on this mountain.

  Then, remembering that strange sword just to her side, she leaned over the mountain edge to inspect it. The hilt was dull with age, but still gold, with short wings at the base of the blade that pointed forward. It had to be hundreds of years old.

  Mulan was about to leave it, but there was something inscribed on the blade itself. She could see only the first word. It was the same as in her name: Fa. Flower.

  Curious now, she reached down and tried to wrench the sword free. It was stuck tight.

  “Let me help.” Shang knelt beside her and clasped the edge of the hilt. Together, they pulled. Out slid the sword. The weight of it nearly tipped Mulan over the mountain, but she caught herself in time and backed up away from the ledge.

  Catching her breath, she laid the sword on the grass, wiping it clean of dirt and grime. The characters on the blade glittered in the moonlight.

  “‘The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.’” Mulan’s brow furrowed. “This doesn’t seem like something that would belong in Diyu.”

  Still, Fa was in her name. Maybe it was a sign she should keep it. A sword could come in handy. After all, she’d left her own sword back in the real world. She hoped it’d still be there when she returned.

  She peeled off one of her gauntlets and yanked a sleeve off her tunic, then wrapped it around the sword. She got up. Little cuts and pricks smeared her hands with blood, but it didn’t hurt. Not yet. “Where to now, Captain?”

  Shang said nothing. He was looking at her bare arm and her hands. The blood had dried on her fingers and palms, but they still looked like a mess.

  “I’m fine,” Mulan said, quickly putting her hands behind her back. Her ankle still hurt where the demon had struck her with his spear, but the bleeding had stopped there, too.

  Shang, on the other hand, hadn’t even suffered a scratch. His shoes brushed against the ground like shadows, barely touching the earth. He wasn’t even tired. She knew it bothered him. It was a reminder that he was practically dead.

  Mulan’s shoulders fell. This was the first time they’d been alone—and not fleeing demons—since she’d found him in the tower.

  She sat on a flat rock overlooking the Mountain of Knives, letting her boots sink into the soft, dry dirt. “How do you feel?” Mulan asked Shang. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

  “I feel nothing,” he replied numbly. He touched his abdomen, where his physical body had been slashed. “Even this pain is gone. The wound’s healed. I guess ghosts don’t carry their wounds with them.”

  Mulan remembered the Imperial soldiers she’d seen standing in line to see King Yama, how they’d still had arrows protruding from their bodies. They’d looked the same as Shang—bodies glowing and nearly translucent—but even from Mulan’s short moments with them, she’d gotten the sense that they had already accepted their fate. Shang, on the other hand, seemed different. It was almost as if he still had a string tethering his spirit to Earth. Once it was cut, though…no, that was why she was here. To take him back.

  “You’re not a ghost,” she said.

  “I know.” Shang hesitated. “I never thanked you, Ping, for coming to Diyu to look for me.”

  A flush heated Mulan’s cheeks. She blamed it on the exertion required to keep climbing this mountain—even though she’d finished climbing minutes ago. She pretended to be preoccupied with rolling up her shortened sleeve. Its threads were frayed now, and tickled her arm. “Trust me, I’d rather be here than up there. It was cold, and I could hear Yao snoring even from my tent.”

  That got a laugh out of Shang.

  Mulan grinned. “Chien-Po made a soup for everyone. I tried to get you to drink some, but you wouldn’t.” Her smile faded, and a wash of cold suddenly made her shiver.

  “I…I couldn’t break your fever, and you were burning up. Everyone said you were going to die.” She inhaled a ragged breath. “I stayed with you, hoping you’d get better, but I must have drifted off to sleep. Then I saw your father’s ghost with you at camp. At first I thought I was dreaming, but it was really him. I promised him I would bring you home.”

  Shang was silent. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you earlier.”

  “I can’t blame you for that.” She hugged her knees to her chest and laughed through her nose. “There’s a lot to take in after coming to this place. Soldier demons, angry trees, lavish tea pavilions, and mountains of knives. I hardly believe it myself.” She started to get up, but Shang stopped her.

  “You need to bandage your feet, Ping. There’s more walking to do.”

  “We should get going.”

  “We can take a minute for you to dress your wounds,” Shang said, in a voice that wasn’t to be contested, so Mulan sat back on the flat rock and attended to her injury.

  “You know, Ping, I’m glad my father got to meet you. He always wanted another son, but…he and my mother never had any other children who lived.”

  Shang sucked in his breath. Mulan had rarely heard him talk about his family before. He’d always kept it private. “I know he must be grateful I’ve found a friend like you.”

  Someone he can trust, Mulan finished for him in her thoughts. She tightened her bandage. “What will you do after the war, Shang?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it,” Shang admitted. “I’ve been away for so many years. I suppose I’ll visit my mother first.” He paused ruefully. “She’ll be lonely now that my father is gone.”

  “She must be very proud of you,” said Mulan gently. “Will you stay at home?”

  “Not for long.” Shang’s spirit might be pale blue, but she detected a faint blush reddening his cheeks.

  “What is it?”

  Shang shook his head, pursing his lips tight. His back became stiff as bamboo.

  “Come on, tell me,” Mulan teased. “Or I’ll assume the worst. I’m guessing…she’s a terrible cook? No? Hmm…maybe she reads tea leaves. There’s a woman in my village who’s very superstitious. She won’t wash her hair on anyone’s birthday, and—”

  Shang arched an eyebrow, the only indication that he was curious what else she might come up with. And that she was completely wrong.

  “I won’t tell anyone. I promise. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  His shoulders dropped out of resignation. “My mother has it in her mind that I need to find a…a bride.” He sounded nervous. “It was never a priority of mine, not with the war. But now that my father has passed, I am the head of the family. It is my duty to carry on the family line.”
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  It was Mulan’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You don’t sound excited about this.”

  Shang shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Before I left for battle, my mother tried introducing me to a few girls. But they were only after my family’s name.” He paused, clearly at a loss of what else to say.

  Mulan hid a smile. She’d rarely seen him like this. How funny that Shang always knew what to do in a fight, and how to train a man to be the best soldier possible, yet faced with a personal conversation about his life he became almost…shy.

  “I’m listening,” she said. “What were they like?”

  “All they could do was flutter their fans and bat their eyes. The matchmaker Mother hired bragged that they were perfect porcelain dolls. What she didn’t say was they had no minds of their own.” Shang grimaced at the memory without looking at her. The sides of his neck pinked with embarrassment. “They’d say anything to make me like them.”

  How familiar that sounds. Mulan put her hands on her hips. “Not all girls are like that. You have to look at it from their perspective, too. Girls are raised to be pretty and graceful, and quiet.” She made a face. “They aren’t allowed to speak their minds, and they don’t have a choice in who they marry. My parents were lucky that they fell in love, but their marriage was arranged, too. And my mother, she doesn’t even belong to her family anymore after they got married. It wasn’t my mother’s decision, but her family’s. They told her that a woman’s only role in life is to bear sons.”

  Shang leaned forward. “You sound quite passionate about this.”

  His closeness made Mulan hunch back. Remembering who she was pretending to be, she felt her cheeks burn. “I just…I mean, I bet there are some girls who’d make better soldiers than boys. If they were given the chance.”

  “A female soldier? That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard.”

  “Girls can be strong, too.”

  “Not like us, Ping.”

  Mulan hid a smile. “You’d be surprised.”

  “Well,” Shang said. “As much as I’d love to meet a female soldier, it won’t happen in my lifetime. It’s against the law.”

  “Yes, it is.” Mulan swallowed hard. “But that doesn’t mean girls can’t be clever or strong.”

  “You’re right. My mother is quite sharp. My father always respected that about her.” He paused. “Even then, my father was a man of tradition. So is my mother. I never thought to question that a woman should not belong to her husband’s family.” Shang tilted his head, looking thoughtful. “It doesn’t seem fair, now that I think about it.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Perhaps when I marry, I’ll combine the ancestral temples so my bride won’t have to leave her family.”

  Mulan couldn’t help feeling touched. “Really?”

  “Then again, I’ve yet to meet a girl I can actually talk to.”

  “You need a girl with a brain,” Mulan found herself saying without realizing it. “One who speaks her mind.”

  “Do you know one like that?”

  She looked down at her bandages again, hoping Shang didn’t hear her pulse getting faster. “I might,” she said, trying her best to sound like she was still teasing him.

  Mulan, she scolded herself. What’s wrong with you?

  “I’d need to know what else you value in a girl,” she said to Shang, ignoring the strange stirring in her chest. “A lovely face with shining eyes? A sweet, melodious voice? Someone who’s delicate and graceful as a flower?”

  Shang reddened, and Mulan laughed. She was having fun teasing the captain, something she’d never gotten to do before. “Chien-Po wants a girl who can cook well. Yao is the one who wants someone who adores him. Hmmm…I’d guess you’d want someone capable.” She wrinkled her nose. “Someone who can take care of the household when you’re at war.”

  “Taking care of the household is like commanding an army. My mother could be a general in her own right.” He chuckled, then became serious again.

  Mulan lifted a shoulder. “What else?”

  “What else?” Shang repeated. He exhaled. “Someone who’s smart and brave, and kind. Someone I can trust. Someone who’s honest.”

  Mulan’s tongue grew heavy. Honest. Shang might think Ping was honest, but he wouldn’t think the same of Mulan.

  Why do you care what Shang thinks? Mulan berated herself. You’re Ping, his friend. You’re not one of these village girls chasing after him. Besides, if you ever make it home, you’ll have other things to worry about. Like whether Mama and Baba will even welcome you back.

  Still, she couldn’t forget Mushu’s sly comment. You like him, don’t you? he’d asked one night, after observing Mulan try to comfort Shang.

  She’d denied it then, and she denied it now. She’d only been concerned about Shang! After all, he was her commanding officer, and he’d just received a rebuke from Chi Fu about his capability to lead. That didn’t mean she liked him.

  But the swoop in her stomach when she looked up at the captain hinted otherwise. She ignored it, mentally stomping the feeling away, along with her earlier desire to tease him about what he looked for in a girl. Suddenly that subject was the last thing she wanted to talk about. Especially since he’d never look at her that way. He couldn’t.

  “So who’s this mystery girl you might know?” Shang asked wryly. “Is it your sister?”

  Mulan choked. “My sister? Who said I had a—”

  “Chi Fu did.”

  “He did?”

  “Well, he knew Fa Zhou had a daughter. None of us knew he also had a son.”

  Mulan stared at her hands, then leaned down to finish wrapping her ankle. She could not look at Shang right now. “Uh, my father doesn’t talk about me much.”

  “That’s what you told us.” Shang chuckled. “Remembering how you were back then, I can understand why. When you go home now, I know he’ll be very proud of you.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You’re a hero, Ping. I’m guessing when you go home, girls will line up for your attention.”

  “Ha!” Mulan laughed awkwardly. “I don’t know about that. It’s not really on my mind.”

  Shang cleared his throat. “So tell me…about your sister. Is she—”

  “I finished wrapping my ankle,” Mulan interrupted abruptly. “We should get going. We must be getting closer to the gates. Maybe you’ll wake up just in time for breakfast.”

  Her brusqueness took him aback. She could tell from the way Shang’s brows jumped up and his lips parted. If they’d been talking about anything else, Mulan might have apologized for interrupting him. But the more he pressed her about her family life, the more uneasy she became.

  Thankfully, he recovered quickly and nodded. “All right.”

  “Wait.” Mulan said it before she registered what she was doing. She grabbed a handful of grass and let the stalks fly in the wind. She didn’t know when they’d get another chance to talk like this. “I need to tell you something.”

  “Yes?”

  Mulan paused, and that flush crept back onto her cheeks again. She wanted to tell him who she really was. Not Ping, not Ping’s sister. Mulan. Just Mulan.

  But she could already picture how betrayed Shang would be.

  I never sought out to earn Shang’s trust. Why do I care so much what he thinks about me? Is it because I’m trying to prove that I’m someone worthy of that trust? Yes, that’s part of it.

  But also…

  Her stomach fluttered—an uncomfortable, unfamiliar sensation. Also, she scolded herself, I’m an idiot. Keep to the plan. I can’t afford to have anyone finding out who I really am. It could get Baba in trouble. And disgrace the family.

  That flutter in her stomach sank. Not to mention, Shang would hate me…if he found out the truth. He’d never trust me again.

  “Never mind,” she said bitterly, glancing at the moon. “We should get going.”

  “You keep looking up at the sky, Ping.” Shang craned his neck
to look up. “Do you think everyone up there is still asleep?”

  “Up there? As in, the soldiers in our camp?”

  Shang nodded. “I feel like I’ve been here for years. Yet, if my body is still alive, it can’t have been more than a few hours.”

  “Didn’t you meet Yama?”

  “No,” said Shang. “The last thing I remember was talking to you. When I woke, I was here—in that tower. I thought I was already dead.”

  “You aren’t. Time runs differently down here.”

  “If that’s the case, why are we in such a rush?”

  Her mouth went dry. All this time she’d wanted to confess she was really Mulan, she’d forgotten to tell him the importance of getting back before morning!

  “Because…I made a deal with King Yama.”

  “A deal?” His brow furrowed. “What kind of deal?”

  “If we don’t reach the gates by sunrise,” said Mulan, her voice shaking, “you’ll die.”

  Shang was quiet. “I see. What about you?”

  She faltered. He wouldn’t like this part, but she needed to tell him. “If we don’t make it out, I…I stay here. As his prisoner.”

  The captain’s expression leapt with shock. “What? Ping, you can’t be serious. You can’t be risking your life to—”

  “It was the only way,” she interrupted. “You did the same for me.”

  Shang pursed his lips tight. His shoulders tensed, heavy with the news she’d just told him, but he knew it was too late to argue. Now he, too, glanced at the moon. “Then we make our way to the gates. Let’s go, Ping—”

  A familiar roar cut him off.

  ShiShi pounced in front of them, making the earth shudder from the impact of his landing. “I told you the great guardian of the Li family would not be defeated by a pack of demons!” ShiShi proclaimed.

  Mulan was nearly speechless. “You’re back!”

  “Of course I’m back. Did you expect to make it out of Diyu without me?”

  Overcome with relief, Mulan embraced the lion. “We thought you were dead.”

  Her hug caught ShiShi off guard. “Careful with the mane.” He made a face and shook his hair until Mulan had to back away. “It’s still in shreds after what you did to it.”