Chapter 3: Dismissed

The next morning, Mushu woke her up as always and scowled at her.

"You went into the water after I went to sleep, didn't you?"

"What? I…"

"Don't even try to lie to me. Your skin. It's lighter again. I have to put more of this stuff on you to darken your skin. We have to keep your feminine features hidden. Besides, it's going to look strange that Ping's skin suddenly got lighter." Mushu began to rub the strange oil into her face and hands and other exposed parts of her skin until she was as dark as she had been.

"Now hurry. You're already late, as usual. You're gonna get it from Captain Li again," he ordered. "She is going to ruin everything if she keeps this up," Mulan heard him mutter to himself as she exited the tent.

She sighed and hurried to assemble with the other soldiers. Captain Li didn't say a word but she could feel his customary glare fix on her. The day wouldn't be complete without at least one of those, she thought slightly bitterly. It was too bad, too. He had a very handsome face.

Mulan didn't go back down to the lake that night. She had to try to get some sleep. She had never been a morning person, which was part of the reason she was late every morning; but the other part of the reason she was late was that she had so much trouble sleeping. She would finally fall asleep when it was almost time to get up and wake up exhausted.

The next day they had a daylong hike in the mountains with weights on their shoulders. Mulan was exhausted after so many nights of crying herself to sleep and her shoulders were still weak and sore from the intense training that she'd been trying to keep up with, which made it hard for her to support the weight on them. She struggled and fell under the burden of her weight. Mushu tried to help her to get up, but she was completely spent. Mushu suddenly hid in her sleeve and she looked up as Captain Li approached her and stood over her, glaring down. Then he leaned over, picked up her weight and carried it along with his own weight, running to catch up with the troops and leaving her there. Mulan cringed at his look and groaned, disappointed in herself for failing yet another task.

xxxxxxx

Shang sat in his tent, thinking about Ping. They had gone on a day-long hike and the men had been starting to keep up. Except Ping. Once again, he couldn't keep up, even carrying a lightweight, and had fallen under his burden. How was he ever going to make a soldier, or a man for that matter, out of that? Shang decided that he had to send him home. He knew he might have to answer to Chi Fu for it, but it didn't matter. The boy did not belong there; and if they ever got to battle with him, he would probably be a hindrance and would actually endanger their lives as well as his own.

That evening Shang confronted him. He picked up the reins of Khan, the boy's horse, and dropped them into his hands.

"I'm letting you go, Ping."

"Sir?"

"You're not suited for war or for the army. Go home."

He turned and went to his tent, relieved that in the morning Ping would be gone and he could get down to training the rest of the men and quickly join his father at the front.

xxxxxxx

Mulan was devastated that the captain was letting her go. How could she return home now?

She turned and began to lead Khan away, dejected. She glanced up at the arrow that Captain Li had shot into the top of the tall pole in the center of camp on the first day of training. No one had been able to get it yet. She began to head out of camp, then she stopped and looked up at the arrow again. Well, things couldn't get any worse. She might as well try one more time. She took the bronze discs and tied them around her wrists and tried to climb the pole, sinking right back to the ground under the weights. She tried several times as the night went on, resting in between tries, but to no avail. Finally, as the sun was beginning to rise she looked once more at the weights around her wrists and something suddenly clicked in her mind. Of course! All of them had been going about this completely wrong. She stood up and tossed the weights around the pole. Much to her satisfaction, the weights locked together around the pole. Using the locked weights as a support, she began to climb.

xxxxxxx

Early the next morning Shang woke to the sounds of cheering and mayhem in the camp. 'Now what?' he thought, groaning inwardly. He stepped out of his tent to see what all the commotion was about. A moment after he stepped out, the arrow came sailing down, sticking into the ground in front of his feet. He stared at it, then looked up to the top of the pole. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was Ping sitting at the top of the pole, the weights over his shoulder, an exhausted but triumphant grin spread across his dark face. Ping almost looked like he was smirking at him. Even from that distance Shang could see how tired he looked. But he had been the first to reach the arrow.

Shang walked over to the pole as Ping slid down. He looked thoroughly exhausted; he'd probably been working at it all night. The rest of the soldiers were still cheering excitedly for him.

Shang put his hand on Ping's shoulder. "Good job, Ping."

"Thank you, sir," Ping answered, breathlessly. "Does that mean I can stay?"

Shang felt his heart soften. He caught himself; he couldn't show any softness or favoritism toward any one recruit. It wouldn't be fair to the others. He spoke, proudly but sternly, using the same tone that his father used when he spoke to him. "Yes, Ping, you can stay, but I expect the same effort and dedication in every other aspect of the training. Otherwise you go home. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

xxxxxxx

After that morning that she reached the top of the pole and sent the arrow sailing down to Captain Li's feet things really turned around for Mulan. She started to succeed at everything. She realized that all she had to do was use her brilliant mind. She did become stronger. She discovered that she was naturally athletic and agile and she learned to use those qualities to their fullest advantage. Her aim in cannon practice got better and better. She was able to catch fish bare handed now. She became good with the staff. She even became capable of completing the hikes in the mountains, carrying the weight with ease and managing to become faster than anyone. And she excelled in Kung-Fu. In fact, in one sparring match with Captain Li she gave him a good swift kick in the jaw that knocked him to the ground, flat on his back. She looked down at him, pleased to see him on his back and to see that he was rubbing his jaw in pain as he sat up. She owed him that for the black eye he'd given her in a previous match.

Captain Li didn't glare at her anymore. He seemed to have gained respect for her; in fact, she actually noticed him watching her sometimes with an expression of pride. It reminded her of the way her father looked at her whenever he was proud of something she had done. She couldn't help but smile when the captain looked at her like that, with such warmth in his eyes. It warmed her inside when he looked like that. She had gotten to know many of his expressions. She had noted with particular glee the look of disbelief that had been on his face when he came out of his tent and saw her at the top of the pole; she had been waiting for him to step out just so she could hurl that arrow right at his feet. She felt smug and self-satisfied that she had proven him wrong about her.

He still had a stern and serious expression on his face most of the time, which made him seem very mature and much older than her. He almost never looked happy. But when he let his guard down and his face softened a little, she saw that he was actually younger than she thought, maybe only a couple of years older than her; and she sensed that underneath his stern façade there was actually a kind, gentle and understanding man. She looked at his handsome features closely whenever she was sure she wouldn't be seen looking. She was beginning to know even the subtlest expressions that flitted across his face.

She could not understand why such a young man, who seemed to have everything going for him, looked so somber all the time. One day she found out from the other soldiers that he was only eighteen and had graduated number one in his class, a year early in fact. He was already a captain, which was unusual for someone so young. The men scoffed that the only reason he was a captain was because his father was the general and gave him the rank. Mulan felt that maybe that was true, but she also believed that he deserved to be the captain even if it weren't for his father. To her he was an accomplished fighter and a good teacher and leader of the troops. He deserved his title. Of course, she never said anything. In fact, it was funny how as a 'man' in disguise in the army, she spoke her mind less than when she was a woman at home. It was just that she was afraid she would give herself away.

The other soldiers in the camp no longer bothered her. In fact they had started to respect her now, and the routine of the camp life was getting easier for her. She was still very sad, thinking about her family and home. But she was resigned to the life that she had now chosen for herself, and at least she was less lonely in the camp and finally doing something right.

xxxxxxx

Shang had noticed that after the morning Ping retrieved the arrow, he got much better as did the rest of the recruits. Ping's success at that seemed to have inspired the other recruits, and Ping seemed to have gained confidence in himself after accomplishing that first task. He really turned himself around. He got stronger and really bettered himself at everything. In fact, to Shang's great surprise, Ping was actually proving to be the best soldier in the camp. He felt proud of Ping, and he was pleased with himself for being able to turn someone like Ping, who seemed to be so unpromising at first, into a great soldier. Shang was beginning to think of him as a little friend, although he still thought he was a lunatic. One evening after they had finished training for the day Shang took a walk in the forest, once again coming across Ping talking to himself. When he took a second look he saw that Ping was actually talking to a tiny red stuffed lizard. Shang shook his head and sighed. Ping must have heard him because he whirled around listening for a minute, then scooped up the little lizard and put him in his pocket. Ping. Though he was now proving to be an excellent soldier and earning everyone's respect, including Shang's, he definitely had some problems. Maybe he was even younger than he had originally thought. Whatever it was, Shang knew he would have to keep an eye on him.

xxxxxxx

It was still dark out when Shang woke up on one particular night, about a month into the training. He had been sleeping fitfully all night, disturbed by dreams of his father. He couldn't remember the dreams. Only vague images remained with him now that he was awake and they left him feeling extremely unsettled. He lay awake for a long time, unable to fall back asleep. He finally decided to take a walk. He got up and threw on a robe then headed toward the forest at the edge of camp. There was a spot that he'd found when he had first arrived at Wu Zhong several months before and he had made it his spot. He went there when he needed to be alone and to think.

He reached the high, flat boulder on the side of the lake and climbed up. It was a perfect spot, peaceful, secluded and hidden, yet it was a good lookout point too. He could see the lake clearly, and the boulder was hidden behind a clump of several trees. He sat there now, leaning against one of the trees that grew against the boulder and stared out at the lake, letting his mind wander. He thought about the recruits that had finally started to become a competent regiment, after about a month of training. He thought about his father, about his brother Chen, about his mother that had died. He remembered how wise she was when she spoke. She'd had all kinds of expressions that she would use to teach him morals and the realities in life. Shang found that those expressions turned out to be true almost all of the time. He remembered how she had told him that very often first impressions were accurate, but then again, often they were not; and that it was important to get to know people before finally making decisions about them. That had certainly turned out to be true with his men. He'd thought they were all pathetic and hopeless, not thinking about the fact that he himself had trained all his life to be a military man; they had not so of course it wouldn't come that quickly to them. Then there was Ping. He had truly misjudged and underestimated Ping.

Shang started as he heard an eerie sound, and sat up, listening, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. There it was again. It sounded like crying. Shang shook his head, thinking that he must be hearing things. There was the sound of splashing and he saw a dark head in the middle of the lake. Some kind of animal. It must have been making the sound he had heard. Shang felt a shiver down his spine. It was such an odd, human sound.

He relaxed against the tree again, returning to his thoughts. He watched absent-mindedly as the animal swam toward the shore opposite camp and raised itself out of the water and onto the shore. Shang sat up and blinked in disbelief. The figure walked upright and it looked like a woman's figure. What would a woman be doing there, around the army camp? Was it a spirit? But he didn't have time to find out. The figure was only there for a second. It suddenly disappeared into the forest and he was left staring open-mouthed at the dark, empty shore, wondering if he had been hallucinating.