Mulan Slays the White Fox and Ends Lu Ting-Pin’s Punishment

Mulan Slays the White Fox and Ends Lu Ting-Pin’s Punishment is the decisive garden confrontation in which Mulan defeats the White Fox after Lu Ting-Pin falters under Daji’s accusation. The scene joins a personal reckoning to a larger reversal: Mulan uses Lu’s peach-wood sword to kill the demon, and the act satisfies the terms of Lu’s long punishment even though he does not wield the weapon.

The Ambush in the Garden

As Mulan tries to fend off bees, her flailing leaves her off balance. Lu Ting-Pin comes to help, and when he places a hand on her arm, the bees settle on either side of them. A clap echoes through the air; the insects transform into the Red Fox and the White Fox. The sudden change turns a confusing encounter into a coordinated attack.

Both foxes pounce. Lu Ting-Pin moves between Mulan and the White Fox, drawing his sword, while he throws Lu Ting-Pin’s Gourd at the Red Fox. It strikes her in mid-leap and pins her to the ground. The split between the two opponents shapes what follows: the Red Fox is trapped and watching, while the White Fox remains free to confront Lu Ting-Pin and then attack Mulan.

Daji’s Accusation

After the White Fox has been brought down, Lu Ting-Pin approaches Daji with his sword raised. As she lifts her head, however, her face has changed. The beauty he recognizes is replaced by the gentle, innocent-looking face of a woman. The change interrupts the expected conclusion of a fight and exposes a history between the two characters.

Speaking through this face, the woman accuses Lu Ting-Pin of having called her his love while his love caused her family to disown her and drove her from her village. She further accuses him of abandoning her and their child. In her account, the resulting shame and resentment turned her against her own daughter; she says he made her into a bitter woman who no longer saw innocence or hope. The scene presents these claims as her accusation, not as a separate account of the events behind them.

Lu Ting-Pin does not answer. He pales, struggles to breathe, and drops to his knees; his peach-wood sword clatters to the ground. The woman’s appearance then shifts back to Daji’s beautiful, vicious face. Daji stands over the fallen Lu Ting-Pin and repeats her claim that no man can kill her. The personal accusation has thus become a tactical reversal: Lu is incapacitated, and the White Fox turns toward him with her claws raised.

Mulan Kills the White Fox

Mulan sees that the White Fox is about to kill Lu Ting-Pin. She shouts, takes the sword from the ground with both hands, and brandishes it at the White Fox. When the fox leaps at her, Mulan swings the weapon and drives it into her. The passage gives Mulan’s action urgency, but keeps its practical stakes clear: she acts to stop an attack on Lu Ting-Pin, and she does so with the weapon he has dropped.

Celestial blue flames burst from the sword and engulf the White Fox. Mulan holds on as the flames flare, then the shriek that accompanies the blaze falls silent and the fire goes out. The White Fox is gone; in her place, Mulan finds a fox-shaped puddle of black ooze beneath the blade. This transformation marks the defeat in a form distinct from an ordinary disappearance.

The ooze does not remain inert. It trembles, and scorpions, spiders, snakes, and caterpillars emerge from it in great numbers until the pool is gone. Mulan recognizes the sickly-sweet smell as that of Daji’s poisonous honey. The creatures scatter through the garden; some later cause a blight on one of the Queen Mother of the West’s prized azaleas. The White Fox’s defeat therefore leaves a consequence in the garden even after the immediate threat has ended. Mulan turns away only when the last pests have reached the garden’s far corners, then finds the Red Fox still pinned under the gourd, looking at her with suspicion and defiance.

The Punishment’s Fulfillment

The scene’s final reversal concerns Lu Ting-Pin’s punishment. As the Jade Rabbit regains his strength, Lu cleans the soot and grime from his sword. Its blade now gleams as metal rather than wood, and Lu appears more vivid than before: his pallor has left, his hair is blacker, and his eyes and robes seem brighter. These visible changes accompany the resolution of the punishment, rather than Mulan’s victory standing as an isolated act.

Lu explains that the punishment required the sword to kill ten thousand demons but did not specify that he had to be the one wielding it. Mulan’s blow against the White Fox has therefore met the stated condition. Lu grins and winks at Mulan as he explains the loophole; the Jade Rabbit responds dryly, and Mulan smiles. What looked like Lu’s helpless failure becomes the means of his release through Mulan’s intervention. The ending makes the event both a rescue and a transfer of agency: Lu’s weapon and his long-standing obligation remain central, but Mulan is the one who completes the deed.