Mulan is seized at the City of Rushing Water

Mulan’s seizure at the City of Rushing Water turns her arrival into an ambush: after approaching a city already diminished by floods and depopulation, she is surrounded at the gate by a hostile crowd and taken from Black Wind. The Jade Rabbit hides in her pouch, and the people’s muttered certainty that she is the woman they expected leaves the reason for their pursuit unresolved.

A Ruined City and an Unexpected Welcome

The approach has already unsettled Mulan’s expectations. The Jade Rabbit has told her that floods ruined most of the homes, that those able to leave had gone, and that few prospects remained for those who stayed. Mulan had nevertheless imagined a grand city, with tiled roofs and carved wooden windows—a fitting setting, she thought, for a meeting with Lu Ting-Pin, one of the Mighty Eight Immortals. Instead, she sees a long grey stone wall stained by age and weather, worn pillars, and a road of broken bricks that recall the city’s past prosperity.

The gate makes the contrast sharper. Its layered, curved roofs still rise above the wall, and a smaller arch above the main entrance suggests a second-floor lookout, but the lookout is empty. The crowd is not: hundreds of people stand inside the entrance, watching Mulan approach. The city’s damaged masonry and the gathering at its threshold frame her arrival as both a journey into hardship and a confrontation she has not anticipated.

The Crowd Closes In

Mulan slows Black Wind and tells the Jade Rabbit that the people seem to be waiting for them. He agrees but cannot explain what is happening. He warns that she will not be helped if she is seen talking to him, then ducks back into her pouch. When Mulan calls after him, he does not answer again. His silence leaves her to ride toward the gate alone while hundreds of eyes remain fixed on her.

The people offer no wave, beckoning gesture, smile, or nod. Their grim stillness makes Mulan feel as if she is marching toward her death. Near the entrance, she tries to meet the crowd with a friendly greeting, but once she passes through the gate the people surround her, grumbling menacingly. Bamboo spearpoints turn the encirclement into a physical threat. A man in leather armor who appears to be an official soldier grips her arm and orders her to come with him.

Mulan protests that she is coming, while the spears wave around her and the soldier tightens his hold. She dismounts, but the crowd immediately sweeps her away. Black Wind’s reins are ripped from her hands. She cries out for her horse and reaches back toward him; the people ignore her and push her onward, muttering among themselves like a low growl. Mulan catches fragments indicating that the crowd recognizes her and believes she is the person someone had predicted would arrive.

Separation and Unanswered Motive

The capture separates Mulan from both forms of support present at the gate. The Jade Rabbit has concealed himself to avoid exposing their communication, while Black Wind is left behind as the crowd carries her away. Neither can intervene in the moment described. Mulan’s desperate questions about what the people want and where they are taking her go unanswered in this scene.

The crowd’s recognition gives the seizure a sense of prior expectation, but the words Mulan overhears do not identify who made the prediction or what the people intend to do with her. The scene therefore changes the terms of her arrival without resolving its cause: a hoped-for meeting in the City of Rushing Water becomes forced removal, and the city’s inhabitants appear not as a welcoming audience but as a united, threatening body. Her fate after being taken remains open at the end of the episode.