Don't have much to say, except that I enjoy reading the posted reviews. Thank you everyone!
At dawn on the third day since Mulan arrived in the Imperial City, Mulan and Chi Fu met in the empty council chambers for Mulan's first tutoring session. Both wished they could be somewhere else, and neither felt it necessary to pretend to get along.
Chi Fu brought with him only five scrolls, and he laid each of these carefully on the table. "The government exam will test your understanding of the five Confucian Classics," Chi Fu said. "There is The Book of Changes, which is about divination. The second is The Book of History, which is a collection of documents and laws over the centuries. Then there is The Book of Odes, which is a collection of three hundred poems. The fourth is The Book of Rites, which is actually several books about philosophy and proper manners (you probably should study this one the most). The fifth book is The Spring and Autumn Annals, which is the history of Confucius' province. All of these books were compiled by Confucius himself, and therefore require great respect in reading each passage."
Mulan stared at the scrolls that he had just explained. Luckily for her, her father read from the book of poetry at her bedside when she was younger, and her mother made her read one of the books from The Book of Rites in order to be prepared for the matchmaker. What struck Mulan as most intriguing was that Chi Fu did not have the usual tone of bitterness in his voice. Other than his side comment, he was very civil.
"I want you to read both of the second and the fifth books in ten days," Chi Fu said while handing her the two scrolls. "I want you to memorize each major event, and take note of the different dynasties and what changes came about."
Chi Fu gathered his other three scrolls and was ready to walk out the door until Mulan called out to him. "Wait! Is that it?" Mulan asked.
Chi Fu self-importantly turned around. "What did you expect? I'm an important person with important things to attend to, and I cannot help you if you haven't even read the material yet." Chi Fu walked at an even faster pace to the door, relieved that he wouldn't have to face her for another ten days.
Mulan looked at the two large scrolls in her hands, and she began to wonder what she had gotten herself into. But before she could unravel the treasured Confucian works, her stomach grumbled very loudly, and she decided that she should eat first.
In the dining room, the royal family was already well into eating breakfast. The sounds made from their eating utensils brush against their plates seemed to intensify the silence, and although silence at the dining table was not uncommon, the Emperor was anxious for conversation that morning. Since not his wife, nor his children, seemed to make an effort, he began talking.
The Emperor looked at his two daughters affectionately and asked, "So what are you two going to do today?"
"Nothing much, father," Wenli replied, looking up at him briefly before turning her eyes back to her food. "After our lessons, we'll probably take a walk in the gardens."
"Darling, what am I to do today?" the Empress asked her husband.
Her husband tenderly looked back at her and replied, "The weather looks very nice today. Maybe you should take a walk." He looked back at his two daughters, hoping they would invite their mother along.
"Oh," Wenli interjected. "Yin-Ling and I were planning on walking a great deal, and I don't know if mother can keep up."
At that moment, Mulan entered the room. She mumbled apologies in embarrassment, saying she did not know they were still eating. Jian-Sheng bemusedly chuckled and Wenli rolled her eyes in offense, while the Emperor invited her to sit with them. She sat in the empty chair next to Jian-Sheng, facing opposite Wenli rushed out the dining room. Wenli, completely exasperated with what she saw as an unwelcome presence at her table, got up from the table and motioned for her sister to get up also. Addressing her father, she said, "We are going to learn our lessons now."
"I think I'm about to head out too," Jian-Sheng said in rising. He met Mulan's eyes for a brief moment as he crossed her, and he good-naturedly smiled and said, "good morning, Mulan." She, in turn, blushed from his informality.
"Please don't do something foolish," the Emperor requested from his son. The Crown Prince laughed in response and walked out of the room.
"Don't we have such lovely children?" the Empress commented to Mulan. The Empress, basking in her matriarchal position, was unable to catch her husband disappointedly shaking his head. "I have a good idea," she told her husband. "Why doesn't Fa Mulan accompany me in my walk?"
The Emperor looked at Mulan, already looking for her response, as he asked her, "Do you have anything else planned for today?"
Mulan wondered what would make the Empress comfortable enough with her to want to walk with her. Mulan herself had hardly had a comfortable moment since she left her village; but despite her anticipated uneasiness in their walk, she didn't have the temerity to refuse the Empress. "No, nothing at all," she replied. "I would be honored to accompany the Empress on her walk."
Everyone soon left the table: the Empress went to her room to take a nap, the Emperor went to talk with his religious advisers, and after Mulan finished eating, she decided to do a little walk of her own around the palace grounds, since it was unlikely that the Empress would call on her immediately. Mulan took along with her the scroll of China's history. She found herself a place outside to study, not minding that her dress got dirty when she sat down on the ground. She opened the scroll and began to read. She had managed to cover only a few passages until she was interrupted.
"What did you ask me out here to say, Wenli?" the first voice asked. Mulan instinctively hid behind a nearby tree and a better view of the two people who interrupted her thoughts. She saw Shang and Wenli together.
Wenli took his hands in hers, and she looked into his eyes. "Li Shang, I love you," she boldly stated. "I've always loved you, for as long as I can remember, and I've saved myself for only you. I've turned down every suitor, because I love you."
Shang could not even force a smile to try to humor her. "Wenli, I am engaged to Mingwei, and you are Mingwei's friend. Please consider what you're saying."
Wenli undauntedly continued. "I can't deny what I feel—what I've always felt for you."
"What did you want me to do?"
Wenli looked up at him, her eyes confident, but the voice that came out was almost a whisper, and Mulan had to listen to the context of Shang's response in order to presume what Wenli told him. "I want you to leave her, and marry me."
"I am not going to leave Mingwei," Shang cautiously answered. "I love her."
Wenli began to cry, and she could hardly breathe. "No! It's not true!" She screamed at him. She felt humiliated, and she would not listen to Shang as he pleaded with her to calm down. She repeatedly screamed out "no," and she ran back to the palace before Shang could find any response, and he was left standing there.
Shang knew from the moment that he and Wenli arrived at that spot that there had been someone hiding behind the tree. As he and Wenli were first walking to the area, he caught sight of a small foot covered by the hem of a dress, and then he saw a scroll lying on the grass. His instincts told him it was Mulan, and he wished that she hadn't been there to listen. Finally, when Wenli's figure disappeared from sight, he picked up the scroll and unraveled it. "Mulan," he said, without turning to the tree that concealed her. "I know you're here."
Mulan came out of her hiding place, suppressing the ache in her heart. Neither one could look the other in the face. "I'm sorry, Shang," Mulan said. "I was here, and then I heard voices behind me—"
"It doesn't matter," he said. He finally looked at her, and saw the tears coming out of her eyes. She immediately turned around to conceal her face from his view while at the same time trying to compose herself. "I should catch up with Wenli and apologize," he told Mulan. He started heading back in the direction of the palace.
"Do you believe that she loved you?" Mulan asked, almost yelling. He stopped and turned around. Mulan was facing him, this time without any tears, and Shang began to wonder if he had imagined the tears streaming down her cheeks. Mulan continued defiantly, "I can't see her loving anything beyond what she sees in the mirror."
"Mulan," he said in a chiding tone, "don't say that."
"If she does love you, it's for all the wrong reasons," Mulan retaliated. "Can't you see that?"
"I know," Shang admitted. "But she's crying right now because of me."
"She's crying because she didn't get what she wanted," Mulan said.
"Please change the subject," Shang asked, which was more of an order than a request.
"Okay then," Mulan said, unsuccessfully hiding the irritability in her voice. "You are engaged?"
"Yes," Shang replied. He did not know why he felt so guilty telling her this, and he did not know why he felt compelled to explain himself. "I proposed to her when we got back from the war, but I've been courting her for a long before."
Mulan felt her chest get heavy, and she would have started crying again had it not been for Shang's presence. As he continued telling Mulan about Mingwei, the more he wished that he could stop himself from talking. Mulan feigned a smile. "That's nice," she managed to say.
The day before, Shang had believed that Mulan meant nothing more to him than a former comrade-in-arms, but today—he couldn't explain what he felt. He only knew that he shouldn't be feeling what he did for her. "You should meet her. I think you two would get along nicely."
"I look forward to it," Mulan lied. She was emotionally spent, between her outrage at Wenli throwing herself at Shang, and then her dismay over Shang's being engaged to someone else. She needed to get away. "I have to go back to the palace now. I'm supposed to take a walk with the Empress. I shouldn't keep her waiting."
She walked back to the palace, scolding herself for her thoughts from the day before. Shang was getting married—probably to some trophy wife made of porcelain, she thought to herself. She was so wrapped up in what she thought Sui Mingwei looked like that she bumped into Jian-Sheng.
Jian-Sheng looked at her curiously. "What's wrong?"
Mulan did not know whether it was wise or not to confide to the Emperor's next-in-line, but she did not care. "Shang's engaged."
"You are not the first person to tell me that today," Jian-Sheng lightly commented. "I saw Wenli run in here earlier, asking me to have him castrated because he broke her heart. I told Wenli, 'there are other men out there for you, and perhaps the best revenge is to forget about the guy and move on.' And, lo and behold, a suitor appears at the front gates, asking for Wenli's hand." For the first time he noticed the disheartened look on Mulan's face, and he realized that Wenli was not the only one who was heartbroken. "I'm sorry," Jian-Sheng said.
"It's not like I was in love with him," Mulan said, more reasoning to herself aloud than convincing Jian-Sheng.
"I didn't say you were," Jian-Sheng replied. "Anyway, Li Shang and Sui Mingwei have always been together. I think it's best for you to set your sights on other eligible bachelors," he commented suggestively.
Mulan became embarrassed, but she was never one to let others get the better of her. "Confucius."
Jian-Sheng was glad to see her mood change, and continued in a playful tone, "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Confucius died a few centuries ago."
Mulan smiled, then showed him the scroll in her hands. "I'll be spending every waking moment with this scroll," she said half-disgustedly.
Jian-Sheng let out a hearty laugh. "I guess I am no competition to that then." He then looked up at the sky to see how high the sun was. "I have to go soon. I'm supposed to go to some village for a festival, but before I let you go back to studying—my mother said that when you're ready to take a walk, go to her in the sitting room."
Before Mulan could ask for directions to the sitting room, Jian-Sheng already left her, and she resorted to walking around the palace until she could find the room, all the while wondering why they would devote an entire room to sitting. After turning many hallway corners and peeking through ajar doors, she found the sitting room. She entered and found Yin-Ling and the Empress with her dog Shen by her side. The Empress was comfortably seated and looking complacently happy, as usual, while Yin-Ling looked as if she were ready to burst out in happiness. "Ah, Mulan, you do not look too happy," the Empress noted. "But I have such wonderful news for you, and I know that when you hear it, you will be so happy." The Empress's eyes reflected no more than the usual satisfaction she always had. "My daughter Wenli is getting married. She received the suitor just a few moments ago."
"His name is Chu Weihong. He has a lot of money," the Yin-Ling happily remarked. "It will be such a great match."
Mulan was surprised to hear of such a quick acceptance of a suitor, only moments after being denied by another, and she could not help but think that her consent to Chu Weihong was a direct result of her rejection by Li Shang. And, in Wenli's case, it would not be imprudent to believe her capable of spitefulness. "I am very happy for her," Mulan said.
"My father is not here to give permission," Yin-Ling said, continuing on the situation. "He left earlier for some kind of festival in an eastern town. He won't be back until the end of the month. So, Chu Weihong is going to stay here in one of the guest rooms until my father returns." She jumped up and took Mulan by the hand. "I will take you to see him!"
Mulan did not have a say in the matter, and she was pulled by Yin-Ling through the maze of hallways until they reached their destination. She first saw Wenli, who could have been described aloof at best. She looked at the person with her. What struck Mulan as most surprising was Chu Weihong's physical presence in comparison to Wenli's. She was slender and beautiful and everything elegant, while he was short and round and not attractive at all.
"Weihong, this is Fa Mulan," Yin-Ling said. "She is the one who fought in the war and killed Shan Yu, and now she is going to be our father's adviser."
"What an honor it is to meet you!" Weihong happily exclaimed. "I cannot believe the luck I have had today. First I become engaged to a princess, and then I meet a living legend! It must be because I'm wearing my lucky shoes." Weihong lifted his foot to show off his embroidered satin shoe, and Yin-Ling openly marveled over how nice it was.
"Weihong, put your foot down," Wenli said. "It's not nice to show off something so lavish at someone as poor as Mulan."
Weihong followed his fiancée's orders, and he quickly apologized to Mulan. "Sometimes I forget that not many are as rich as I am," Weihong said.
Mulan laughed out of nervousness. "I'm okay. Princess Wenli sometimes forgets that I'm in the room when she makes these comments. Anyway, I am going to get back to my studies."
Yin-Ling made an excuse to leave with Mulan, and they walked down the hallway together. "Fa Mulan, do you mind if I confide in you?" Yin-Ling asked.
"Of course not; please do."
"It's about my sister and Chu Weihong. Don't they make an odd pair?"
Mulan stopped walking and looked back at Yin-Ling, curious as to what the young princess would say next. Yin-Ling stepped closer to Mulan, and she continued in a whisper, "he is so fat and ugly, and he is not smart at all either."
Mulan did not know which to be more concerned about—Wenli's engagement, or Yin-Ling taking pleasure in Weihong's flaws. "At least he is rich," Mulan commented.
"Of course," Yin-Ling said in agreement. Yin-Ling looked around to make sure no one else was around. "Do you have an older sister?" Mulan shook her head, so Yin-Ling continued. "I hate it. I've always had to compete with her for attention," Yin-Ling admitted. "But even though I play instruments better than she can, or I can recite the Final Admonition in ten seconds flat while she takes longer, everyone still admires her and adores her. Men come from all over to court her, and when she rejects them, they go to me, but I don't want her leftovers. Not one man has come seeking my hand first," she proclaimed with blatant jealousy. "But now that she's getting married, and to Chu Weihong, it's like a fresh start for me. I can definitely get a husband with more common sense and good looks than him."
Mulan laughed in disbelief, and Yin-Ling laughed along with her. The reason behind Yin-Ling's happiness had not been for her sister's future, but for her own projected future without Wenli. Although Mulan liked Yin-Ling infinitely more than she did Wenli, she lost respect for Yin-Ling and her superficial ambitions.
Ten days devoted to Confucian study passed by slowly for Mulan, but she would have spent ten more days studying if she didn't have to see Chi Fu again. She managed to read through the two seemingly never-ending scroll, but she was not too sure she had retained the information as well as she would have liked. Despite her best attempts to expel her former captain from her mind, the name Li would be written in the scroll she was studying, as would the surname Sui, which Shang mentioned was the family name of his betrothed, and she was even more dismayed to see not a single Fa. She then came to the conclusion that a Sui marrying into the Li family would be a promising event, although they couldn't possibly bring each other happiness, as matches like that always turn out. This brought Mulan some satisfaction as she continued reading.
When she and Chi Fu met again in the empty meeting room, he threw a barrage of questions at her regarding what she had studied. She managed to answer many of the questions correctly, but Chi Fu remained unconvinced that she was not at all prepared to take the test, and he held no reservations in telling her to her face how miserably he anticipated her to fail. Mulan only held her seething remarks to herself.
He continued tutoring her on the highlights of the two scrolls, and she intently listened. It turned out that Chi Fu, despite his arrogance and ingratiating disposition, was quite the expert for the Confucian Classics. While he was in the middle of telling her about the Chin Dynasty, Wenli and Yin-Ling walked in. Chi Fu stopped talking and bowed before the two women.
"Oh, good. The both of you are here," Wenli said.
"Is there anything I could do for you, Princess?" Chi fu inquired.
"As you both know, I'm getting married," Wenli began. "So, my family and Chu Weihong's family are coming, and they will be occupying the guestrooms here. Fa Mulan, I'm sure you wouldn't mind if we turned you out so that we could use your room?"
Mulan was entirely shocked and angered at Wenli, and she knew that she wouldn't have been taken advantage of this way if the Emperor had been there. "I have nowhere else to go," Mulan replied.
"I figured, that since you're studying anyway for the exam, all this wedding preparation would get away, and of course we wouldn't turn you out with nowhere to stay, and that's when I came up with a marvelous plan. You could stay with Chi Fu, so that you could study with him everyday. Besides, I'm sure you wouldn't mind since Chi Fu is your protector and all."
Both Mulan and Chi Fu were outraged at the recommendation, but neither could refuse Wenli. Wenli immediately called on the servants to move Mulan's things to Chi Fu's estate, even though her relatives wouldn't come for another week, and Chu Weihong's weren't due for two more weeks.