Daji conjures the storm

Daji conjures the storm to delay Mulan and the Jade Rabbit after discovering that the honey is missing from their bags. The attack turns a small flask of water into a pursuing cloud, transforming Daji’s intention to hinder their journey into a sudden flight across open country. Mulan and the Jade Rabbit escape the worst of the weather by taking refuge in an abandoned hut, but the storm’s approach leaves them with little time to react.

Cause and Intention

Daji’s decision follows a practical discovery: the honey is not among the supplies, so she concludes that Mulan has it. Xianniang suggests that Mulan may already have tasted it. Daji does not abandon her plan on that possibility; she holds the flask Mulan and the Jade Rabbit had used for water and prepares another reason for the girl to taste the honey. The storm is therefore not an accidental change in the weather, but a deliberate effort to slow the travelers.

The exchange also gives the scene a personal undertone. Mulan’s earnest gaze has reminded Xianniang of Bouyue, her long-dead youngest brother. When Daji announces her intention, Xianniang replies dutifully, but her thoughts remain with him. Her response contrasts outward obedience with private sadness, while the storm that follows turns Daji’s malice into an immediate danger for the travelers.

Making the Storm

Daji changes into her fox form, her white neck arched against the sky. Her growl grows into a roar, followed by a scream of command so forceful that the heavens seem to moan and the sun dims. The sequence makes her transformation part of the attack: she does not simply summon a storm from a distance, but uses a display of power that alters the sky and sets the weather in motion.

She brings the travelers’ flask to her mouth and empties its water over her fur. Then she spits the water upward. Wherever the droplets touch, gloom spreads across the sky. Daji’s next shriek propels the dark cloud forward, sending it across the land toward its intended victims. Once it is on its way, she returns to her human form and regards the result with satisfaction. Her stated aim is to slow Mulan and the Jade Rabbit; the scene shows her achieving that immediate purpose by directing the cloud after them.

The Cloud Pursues Mulan

The storm reaches the travelers after they have been riding for half a day. Mulan hears it before she sees it, at first mistaking the rumble for the complaint of her hungry stomach. She has been wondering where their next meal will come from, but tries to endure the hunger by recalling Ba’s stories of riding for days during his battles against Emperor Zhou with little food and water. Those recollections give her a measure for the hardship she hopes to withstand; the approaching thunder makes clear that this particular danger is not hunger.

The Jade Rabbit identifies the threat behind them, and Mulan urges Black Wind into a gallop. The land has opened into rolling stretches of muted green and gold, leaving the travelers exposed to the cloud as it rises over the country and blocks the sun. Black Wind races across the open ground, but the storm’s scale makes the horse seem small beside it. Mulan recognizes that they cannot outrun the cloud. Rain is already striking them, and the wind’s shrieks and roars make it difficult for the Jade Rabbit to be heard even when he is close beside her.

Shelter and Contrast

The Jade Rabbit spots a house and directs Mulan toward it. In the driving rain, she can barely make out what he means: the building is a small, apparently abandoned hut, partly swallowed by earth and overgrown with vines across its rough wooden walls and thatched roof. It is not presented as a safe or welcoming refuge, but as shelter they can reach before the storm overtakes them. Mulan steers Black Wind toward it and leaves the horse under an overhang before trying to enter.

The door crumbles and falls when Mulan pushes it. Its collapse recalls the doors she used to break at home by accident, and the reactions of her family: Ma’s complaints, Xiu’s suppressed amusement, and Ba’s patient advice that she should be gentler. The memory places an ordinary family scene alongside the present danger. This time, no family answers the sound. Inside the small house, Mulan finds only silence and darkness; the storm continues outside, beating against the walls as though frustrated that the travelers have escaped it.

As Mulan’s eyes adjust, she makes out a stove, chairs, and containers in the room, which is so small that its main space also serves as a kitchen. The hut’s stillness, described as if it had been hushed by years of sleep, sharply contrasts with the cloud’s noisy violence outside. The storm has forced Mulan and the Jade Rabbit from an exposed road into a place that appears abandoned, ending this portion of the pursuit not with the danger resolved, but with the travelers temporarily sheltered from it.