Lu Ting-Pin's Gourd

Lu Ting-Pin's Gourd is a repeatedly repurposed object whose uses bring Lu Ting-Pin's punishment into the action and help determine the outcome of Mulan's journey. It offers tea when Lu Ting-Pin cannot yet make wine, keeps Mulan afloat in dangerous water, pins the Red Fox, and is finally cut into a bowl for the draught that revives the Jade Rabbit. At the end, Lu Ting-Pin leaves its remaining half with Mulan: the object that marked his restriction becomes a tool she needs to continue.

A Vessel Under Restriction

When Lu Ting-Pin offers Mulan a drink from the gourd, the Jade Rabbit objects, suspecting he is trying to ruin her by offering wine. Lu Ting-Pin laughs and clarifies that the drink is tea; his gourd is not yet allowed to make wine. The tea is warm and fragrant, and Lu Ting-Pin passes the same vessel from Mulan to the Jade Rabbit, who angles it to drink. That small exchange establishes the gourd as an ordinary, shared part of their travel while also hinting that Lu Ting-Pin's use of it is governed by a larger constraint.

When Mulan asks why the gourd cannot make wine, Lu Ting-Pin explains that the restriction is part of his punishment. The gourd thus gives that punishment a visible, practical form: it is present at his waist, available to carry a drink, but denied the function he wants for it. Lu Ting-Pin can joke about the restriction, yet its significance becomes clearer later, when the gourd is involved in both the journey's danger and its final remedy.

A Float and a Weapon

During the struggle with the sea creature, Mulan is thrown into the cold water while trying to keep the Jade Rabbit with her. Lu Ting-Pin, still on the creature's tentacle, calls to her and throws the gourd. It bobs beside Mulan, who puts it under the Rabbit's chin and clings to it herself. With the gourd supporting them, she can rise above the waves to gasp for air. Its plain usefulness as a buoy becomes decisive at a moment when the boat and Lu Ting-Pin's attack on the creature cannot keep Mulan safe from the sea.

Later, as the foxes attack, Lu Ting-Pin throws the gourd at the leaping Red Fox. It strikes her in midair and pins her to the ground, leaving her struggling beneath it. The same object that helped Mulan stay above water now restrains an enemy. This intervention occurs while Lu Ting-Pin is focused on the White Fox, so Mulan alone sees the gourd subdue the Red Fox. The scene makes its usefulness concrete without making it a weapon by design: Lu Ting-Pin turns a familiar travel vessel into an improvised means of protection.

Cut Open for the Cure

The gourd's most consequential change comes after Mulan has found the healing plants. The Jade Rabbit is cold, motionless, and so diminished that Mulan can feel the brittleness of his bones through his fur. Lu Ting-Pin does not answer her frightened question about the Rabbit's condition. Instead, he draws his sword and slices the gourd with an elegant stroke, separating its top so that the remaining bottom forms a bowl.

Mulan puts the flower and grass into the bowl. It has filled with hot water, which turns silvery violet as the plants dissolve; their fresh scent rises around them. Lu Ting-Pin tilts the bowl to the Jade Rabbit's mouth while Mulan holds him up, and the Rabbit swallows the liquid. The immediate silence leaves the rescue uncertain, but the gourd has furnished the vessel for the attempted cure at the moment when the Rabbit cannot drink unaided. Its earlier role as a sealed container gives way to an open bowl that makes the medicine usable.

What Remains After the Punishment

Once the Jade Rabbit has returned to his old form, Lu Ting-Pin and Mulan prepare to part. Mulan holds up the bowl-shaped remnant and calls attention to the gourd. Lu Ting-Pin says he is glad to be rid of it: his penance is over, and he intends to get a gourd that makes wine. He adds that Mulan needs this one. His words connect the change in his circumstances directly to the object's changed status; the restriction that defined its use no longer binds him, while its remaining form still has value to her.

The gourd's sequence of uses gives the object a small but complete arc. It moves from shared drink, to emergency float, to a thrown restraint, and finally to a cut-down vessel for medicine. These are not separate ornaments to Lu Ting-Pin's journey: each use answers an immediate need, and the last helps make the rescue possible. Its handover also marks a transfer of practical help from Lu Ting-Pin to Mulan. He can leave the punished gourd behind because his penance has ended, but Mulan carries away what remains of it as she continues toward home.