Mulan rides to fetch a healer

Mulan’s ride to fetch a healer is a race against the worsening condition of her sister, Xiu. Urged to reach the Lu Family Village as quickly as possible, Mulan rides Black Wind across a field and up the slope to find a visiting healer, then carries him back toward home. The journey tests the speed and skill for which Mulan is often chided, but its arrival offers no simple relief: the village is waiting, and Big Wan’s sorrow makes Mulan turn cold.

The Emergency at Home

The ride begins after a nine-legged spider bites Xiu. Mulan has seen her sister’s panic around spiders before, and has teased her about spiders in her hair or teacup. Now the danger that once served as a joke has become bodily and immediate. Xiu lies motionless, pale and fever-hot, her eyes no longer opening; the hands that had fluttered fall still. Mulan remembers the change from Xiu’s frightened, alert eyes to an unseeing stillness and fears that the bite may be fatal.

Old Auntie Ho, the village healer, recognizes that Xiu needs more help than she can provide. She directs Mulan to a visiting healer in the Lu Family Village and tells her to take her horse and go at once, estimating that Mulan can return before dark. Mulan’s parents understand the urgency and wave her off. Their permission is a marked reversal: just beforehand, Ma had scolded Mulan for riding Black Wind so often, saying that the habit tested an Immortal’s patience and had given Mulan wind-cold sickness. With Xiu’s life at stake, however, the riding that had drawn criticism becomes the means of seeking help.

The Ride to the Lu Family Village

Mulan presses Black Wind to run faster, his mane whipping her face as he carries her and the tall man who sits behind her. The horse quickens his stride without seeming burdened by the passenger, but Mulan remains anxious about losing time. Rather than follow the road throughout, she takes a field shortcut known only to her. Black Wind’s hooves throw dust behind them like smoke as they climb the slope, with sun-tipped stalks stretching alongside and terraced rice paddies and farmland visible below.

The route shows Mulan’s practical knowledge of the landscape as well as her readiness to depart from the expected path. She knows the shortcut will be faster, even though Ma and the villagers would shake their heads at her habit of veering off the road. This time, speed outweighs the disapproval she anticipates. When the pair finally reach the road, Mulan urges Black Wind onward again, passing the layered rice paddies in the early evening light and looking toward home.

Her fear keeps the journey focused on Xiu rather than on her own discomfort. Mulan wonders briefly whether the healer might also clear her congested nose, but recognizes that this thought is an attempt to distract herself. Her attention returns to the sight of Xiu’s eyes losing their life and her hands becoming still. She tries to tell herself that it was only a spider bite, while the unfinished fear behind that reassurance makes clear how little comfort the thought provides.

Finding and Bringing Back the Healer

The Lu villagers point Mulan directly to the healer’s home, making him easy to find. His appearance is not what she expects: instead of another bent, plainly dressed figure like Auntie Ho, she encounters a man with a silver beard wearing a lord’s robe of brilliant red trimmed with blue. A yellow bag is already looped across his chest, and he stands as if he has been expecting her.

Mulan is struck by his unusually light amber eyes, whose black pupils seem to burn like coals. Their strangeness unsettles her, yet also feels oddly familiar. She has come in such haste that she can only stammer that her sister has been bitten by a spider. The healer gives her a long, hard stare, nods, and agrees to go. The encounter supplies no explanation for his familiarity or his apparent anticipation; its immediate importance is practical. Mulan has found someone willing to return with her, and the two set out for her village.

Return to the Village

As they approach, Mulan sees the village tulou, the large, round community building, in the golden light of the dipping sun. The doors are already opening, and she understands that the villagers have been watching for her. Racing through them, she feels gratitude and warmth at being home. Neighbors watch from windows and doorways, their worried faces accompanying raised hands of greeting; their welcome carries the same concern that has sent Mulan out and drawn her back.

Big Wan, the village blacksmith, meets her at her door and offers to take Black Wind. Mulan can meet his gaze even while seated on the horse, for he is so large, but his face holds not only concern but sadness. At that sight, Mulan turns cold. The ride has achieved its immediate purpose of bringing the healer to the household, yet its ending withholds reassurance about Xiu: the people waiting at home appear to know that the emergency has not simply passed. The journey’s movement from panic, to determined flight, to grateful arrival is therefore checked by the sorrow on Big Wan’s face.