Mulan and Lu Ting-Pin Defeat the Sea Monster

Mulan and Lu Ting-Pin defeat the sea monster in a battle that turns the travelers’ own vessel into their weapon. The encounter begins as an ambush arranged by Daji, but the crisis becomes a test of Mulan’s strength and judgment: when Lu Ting-Pin is driven from the boat, she takes the helm, aims the vessel at the creature, and creates the opening that makes its defeat possible.

Cause and Background

The attack follows Daji’s attempt to delay the boat with fog. Annoyed that the fog had not held it back for long, she decides that someone from Lu Ting-Pin’s past might do what the weather could not. She signals Xianniang to accompany her into the ocean depths, where the two have transformed into fish, and proposes alerting an old acquaintance that Lu Ting-Pin will be nearby. The sea monster’s arrival fulfills that plan: when the Jade Rabbit recognizes the danger, he identifies the creature as Lu Ting-Pin’s old friend, while Lu corrects him by calling it an old foe.

Lu Ting-Pin says he should have killed the beast four centuries earlier. The remark establishes that the attack is not an accidental encounter but the return of a longstanding conflict. Yet the history gives him little practical advantage in the moment. The boat is Lu Ting-Pin’s sword, leaving him without it as a separate weapon, even as the monster threatens to strike the vessel and everyone aboard.

The Attack and the Turning Point

The sea rises around the boat and tosses its passengers, forcing Mulan to hold on while the Jade Rabbit and Lu Ting-Pin struggle to remain aboard. Lu Ting-Pin initially meets the attack directly, leaping from the boat to hold a tentacle away from it. The effort cannot last: the water continues to buffet them, and the Jade Rabbit warns that neither Lu Ting-Pin nor the others can endure the assault indefinitely.

Mulan notices that Lu Ting-Pin’s Yuloh can steer the boat. He had enchanted it to make the vessel travel quickly, and she uses that property to guide them toward the creature. As she brings the boat in front of it, Lu Ting-Pin falls from the sky after a blow from the monster. Mulan is left to act without him at the boat’s controls. Remembering her father’s insistence that she rise and continue, she forces the Yuloh down and drives the boat forward. Its bow strikes the sea monster, but the impact throws Mulan into the water.

Defeat of the Sea Monster

Lu Ting-Pin throws Mulan his Gourd, which she uses to stay afloat while holding the Jade Rabbit. Meanwhile, Lu Ting-Pin returns to the boat and repeatedly heaves it farther into the wounded creature. Mulan’s initial charge has opened the attack; Lu’s subsequent efforts deepen it. On his fourth push, the boat penetrates far enough that the monster’s tentacles stop moving. The creature then sinks beneath the water, and the immediate threat ends.

The boat, which had served as Lu Ting-Pin’s sword, is badly damaged in the struggle: its bow is stained, its mast is broken, and its sail hangs from a single rope. Lu Ting-Pin frees it from the sinking creature and calls to Mulan. Still holding the Gourd and growing exhausted, she is pulled back aboard. The rescue completes the battle’s immediate outcome: Mulan, the Jade Rabbit, and Lu Ting-Pin survive, though their boat has been damaged.

Consequences and Significance

The battle makes Mulan an active contributor to the group’s survival rather than a passenger dependent on Lu Ting-Pin’s strength. She recognizes how to use the enchanted Yuloh, steers the boat into position, and commits to the charge that enables Lu Ting-Pin to finish the attack. Her father’s counsel returns to her at the point when she is close to exhaustion, giving the action a personal dimension: she understands endurance not as a claim of effortless power, but as continuing to act when she is struggling.

The victory also resolves the immediate consequence of Daji’s attempt to redirect the journey through Lu Ting-Pin’s past. The old feud that she hoped would obstruct the travelers instead becomes a confrontation the group survives through cooperation. Lu Ting-Pin supplies the force needed to drive the boat into the creature, but Mulan’s decision to steer it makes that force effective. The damaged vessel and Mulan’s rescue mark the cost of the encounter, while the monster’s death clears the immediate danger from their route.