Mulan Revives the Jade Rabbit and Xiu with the Healing Herbs

Mulan’s use of the healing herbs revives the Jade Rabbit and helps bring Xiu back from the brink of death, completing the two urgent acts of care at the center of her journey. The Rabbit’s restoration happens in the fading light of the Queen Mother of the West’s garden: Mulan and Lu Ting-Pin make a decoction from the flower and grass she has carried, and the Rabbit recovers by drinking it. At home, a Healer gives Xiu a medicinal liquid, and the family watches as she begins to breathe normally and opens her eyes. The two recoveries connect the fantastic trials of Mulan’s journey to its intimate purpose: saving the people she loves.

Causes and Stakes

The remedies matter because both the Jade Rabbit and Xiu have been brought close to death. Mulan finds the Rabbit cold, motionless, and diminished; she can feel the brittleness of his bones through his fur. His condition makes the danger immediate, while the fading day gives the scene a visible limit. Mulan has the flower and grass, but their presence alone does not assure her that they can save him.

The Rabbit’s vulnerability also carries a history. Earlier, in a story he tells Mulan, he recalls a sacred full-moon night established by the Jade Emperor, when people and animals were expected to feed anyone in need. Unable to offer the beggar an ordinary meal, the Rabbit offered himself and leapt into a fire. He describes death as the consequence, not a figure of speech. His endangered state in the garden therefore returns the narrative to the question raised by that tale: whether a life apparently lost can be restored. His recovery answers it for him, while Xiu’s separate illness keeps the story’s concern with saving others grounded in Mulan’s family life.

The plants link the two crises. In the garden, Mulan still has the flower and grass gathered on her journey, and she acts on Lu Ting-Pin’s urgent reminder to use them. The remedies are not presented as a general cure detached from circumstance: they have been carried through Mulan’s travels for the purpose of saving those in danger. Their use first addresses the Rabbit, her companion on the journey, and the homecoming then brings the quest’s healing purpose back to Xiu.

The Jade Rabbit’s Recovery

The scene begins with Mulan holding the Essence of Heavenly Majesty and lifting the Rabbit from his carrier. His fur is dull and matted, his eyes and mouth reduced to pale lines, and his body no longer warm. The contrast with his later restoration is built from those specific changes in his condition. Mulan starts to ask whether he is dead, but Lu Ting-Pin responds not with an answer but with action: he cuts the top from his gourd, turning its remaining bottom into a bowl.

Lu Ting-Pin calls for the grass and flower. Mulan takes them from the bag at her hip and drops them into the bowl, which has filled with hot water. The plants dissolve, changing the liquid to silvery violet. Mulan lifts the Rabbit while Lu Ting-Pin tips the bowl toward him. The medicine spills over his chin and whiskers as he swallows, but at first nothing happens. The pause leaves Mulan without reassurance: the Rabbit remains still, and the twilight continues to deepen.

The first sign of recovery is modest and unexpectedly practical. The Rabbit opens his mouth and asks for more, his voice faint and his eyes looking up at them. Another sip brightens his eyes and lets him sit up; after two more, he can hold the bowl himself. Six sips in all restore him to his full length, with lustrous fur glowing like a silver pearl. The measured progression—from a motionless body, to speech, to sitting, to standing—makes the reversal unmistakable. His request for more also shifts the scene away from Mulan and Lu Ting-Pin’s fear: the Rabbit can speak for himself again and take part in his own recovery.

When the Rabbit hands Mulan the bowl, he does not speak about the search for the flower or the White Fox. Mulan nevertheless reads his meeting eyes as recognition and feels pride, as if his approval were a prize. The moment makes the recovery more than a physical change: it renews the bond between the travelers without requiring him to explain what the journey has meant to him. Dusk is falling, however, and the Rabbit turns their attention back to the unfinished purpose of the quest: Xiu is waiting.

Xiu’s Return to Life

At home, the Healer checks the decoction and confirms that it is ready. Mulan is unsettled by his smile, which feels familiar to her, like the Rabbit’s. The resemblance is presented as a perception rather than an explanation; the scene does not state that the Healer is the Rabbit. The medicinal bowl is then taken to Xiu’s bedside, where Auntie Ho helps her sit up so the Healer can give her the liquid.

The family waits in silence. Outside the room, everyday sounds continue: a dog barks, children play and argue, the kitchen fire crackles, and birds begin to sing at twilight. Their ordinariness sharpens the uncertainty inside the room. Mulan doubts that her extraordinary adventure could have been real, and as Xiu remains still, her hope begins to fail. Then the blanket rises and falls with Xiu’s regular breathing. Her face regains its healthy color, she sighs, and her eyes slowly open.

Ma and Ba embrace Xiu and weep, while Auntie Ho embraces Mulan and celebrates the recovery. Xiu’s first concern is whether the spider is gone. Mulan takes her hand, rests her head on her shoulder, and assures her that she need not fear it again because Mulan killed it. That answer gives Xiu a clear account of what has changed, while the gesture of holding her hand brings the perilous journey back to the sisters’ relationship.

Consequences and Narrative Significance

Xiu’s recovery transforms the household. Ma hastens to prepare Xiu’s favorite strengthening foods, Auntie Ho carries the news through the village, and visitors arrive with gifts. The return to communal celebration contrasts with the preceding silence around the bed. Mulan’s success is not only the survival of one sister: it restores the ordinary family and village life that the danger had interrupted. As the crowd gathers, the Healer slips away unnoticed, leaving the familiar smile as a suggestive echo rather than a resolved identity.

The paired recoveries complete a pattern of care established by the Rabbit’s earlier sacrifice. In his account of the sacred feast, he treats the hungry stranger’s need as a responsibility that outweighs his own safety. In the garden, Mulan’s journey and the herbs she has preserved allow care to take another form: she and Lu Ting-Pin give the Rabbit the medicine he needs to live. At home, the Healer administers a decoction to Xiu, and Mulan’s return makes it possible for her to be present when Xiu wakes. Across these moments, rescue is neither effortless nor assured; the first draught appears to do nothing, and the family must wait before Xiu shows signs of life.

The event closes the distance between mythic adventure and domestic consequence without making them identical. The Rabbit’s silver-bright return takes place in the garden, among Immortals and a medicinal gourd; Xiu’s return is witnessed in a crowded family room amid familiar sounds and embraces. Mulan’s quest connects those settings. Her healing work restores her companion, brings her back to her sister, and allows her to tell Xiu that the threat she feared has ended.