Chapter Eight

Shang swept the floor of the barn as he finished with lifting the large bales of hay and organizing some of the boxes to create enough room for the animals. During this time both his and Mulan's horses were watching him but it felt like better company than most. He wasn't able to communicate effectively with them most of the time but at least they weren't judging either of them.

"So, Khan," he said as he pushed some of the dirt and dead sticks of wheat into a pile. "You think that I'm ready for even harder work."

Khan grunted and settled down to go to sleep. Shang walked over to him and knelt in front of him, placing his hand gently on Khan's long nose. "Look, you know her much better than me and I don't think she's going to be impressed with one of those lazy guys who doesn't know how to work hard. I know how to fight but things like this weren't really my duty. I should still do my best, right?"

"Always," the owner said as he stood behind Shang and looked around at the work he had done. "I didn't think that someone like you could accomplish this so fast. You weren't giving me any push back on what I had asked."

Shang stared at the man and laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Why would I want to argue with you. It's obvious that you know what hard work is and what to expect and this is your business. You're really doing the two of us a favor by allowing us to stay here."

"You think I'll make more of a profit if I tell everyone that I have the bed where Fa Mulan slept for a night?" the owner asked and Shang stared at him. He didn't know how to respond to that. Mulan was famous for what she had done for China and she was getting more famous all the time but as much as Shang loved and admired her, he didn't want to see her become just some profit center, a gimmick. "Kidding," the man said before laughing at Shang's expression. "I wouldn't use her like that. Everyone should be grateful to her. You should be grateful to her."

"I-I am," Shang smiled as he watched the man get a bucket of water and put it down in front of him with a clean rag. Shang took the rag and wiped his face and hands. "Thank you. Yes, I am proud to be with her. I'm extremely happy to be with her."

"Even as a military general?" the man asked and Shang nodded. He didn't like the fact that he had taken his father's place but that was the risk in this career. You either killed or you were killed, that was sometimes the only two choice you had. If it wasn't for Mulan he would have died a while ago.

"I was trained to occupy a certain role in life from a pretty young age," Shang said as he started to wash the horse's faces. "I was raised to get married to a certain type of woman and have certain type of children in a certain type of life. Mulan challenged that for me just as she challenged the role for every woman of this country. I don't like that she deceived me but she had good morals for doing so."

"You know that you don't often see the two faces of the moon at the same time," the owner said and Shang turned back to him. "That's the duality of life. Everyone, even you has the duality of a feminine part of yourself and a masculine part."

Shang stared at him. He opened his mouth to argue but just saying that he wasn't a woman wasn't going to be a good thing. He knew what was being explained to him but he had been raised to think like a man, to act like a man, to fall within male privilege. He didn't know what about him was considered to be feminine. However, he could see what was special about Mulan and how she worked with that duality. If she could dress up like a man to join the army and learn to blend in, then would he be able to dress as a woman. He thought about when they had gone to save and protect the emperor, if the army recruits could do it then why did he have such a hard time thinking that way.

"If you're unwilling to consider the fact that you have the power of a woman then maybe you should be honest with yourself, not that it's my business to say so but everyone is going to be chasing after that girl either to defeat her or to win her favor."

"Mulan isn't just a woman," Shang argued, "A regular woman doesn't have power over me but Mulan has power and greatness over everyone. I don't look at her as if she is a woman."

"Maybe you should try to," the owner said before looking around. "Get some sleep. Thank you for all of your hard work." The owner left and Shang took a final look back at it before nodding. He stood still thinking of those words.

Mulan wasn't a man but she didn't seem to fill what he considered ss a woman.

Mulan was just…Mulan.

8.2

After they had finished breakfast and Mulan had finished recounting what happened on the mountain and the avalanche which had entertained the whole inn, she and Shang had taken a walk outside to figure out their next moves. If they left promptly then they would be able to get closer to the capital and therefore the emperor. Yet, the words Shang had heard the previous night were making his mind foggy.

"Is something wrong?" Mulan asked as she tilted her head to the side and stared at him. "You look like you're thinking a lot about something, anything that I can help with?" she offered.

Shang hesitated and looked away, "I'm figuring out that I might be part of the problem," he told her and she frowned. She didn't know what he was referring to. Was this about his family again? Yes, it had been hard dealing with that but they had left and Shang had told her that he loved her as she was and she didn't need to change for him. She was willing to but happy he was content to let her be herself. The way he was looking at her was puzzling.

"The owner, he said something to me last night, something that I don't know how to deal with," Shang said honestly. Mulan hummed.

"Well what did he say?" she asked. She didn't want to hear from Shang that other people had problems with their relationship. She didn't care that their life was different from so many other peoples. Theirs might even be better.

"Do I seem like a woman to you?" Shang asked and Mulan looked his body over and blushed in a deep red.

"No," she coughed a little embarrassed, "No, your body is particularly masculine," she smiled. She had once said that she would never want to see a naked man again but that didn't include the man right in front of her, the one she wanted to touch and kiss and the one who wanted to touch and kiss her. "You're a man. I can guarantee that."

"It was something about the duality of the moon and it having both female and male parts," he said and then turned to Mulan, he looked to the sky as if the moon was still there instead of the sun. "When it comes to you, it's easy. You were born a woman and you have the body of a woman and act and behave like a woman but you also have good logic, can think up plans, have become strong and good at battle so you could easily pass as a man, but for me."

Mulan hummed and looked at him again. She wanted to be offended by that but she knew it was because he had been born into a situation where that was taught to him from a young age. He had to think differently but the only was he could do that was coming to the answers himself.

"So, what are the traits of a woman?" she asked him and Shang looked down.

"Well, you know, women are…they want to take care of their family, they want to have children and cook and take pride in their homes and they're hard working and know how to cook and -"

Mulan raised an eyebrow, "So if we have children which I hope is a possibility, you wouldn't want to take care of the children and play with them or cook for them? I'm sure that you know a few techniques in the kitchen."

"None that I've ever used," Shang hesitated. "And as for taking care of the children. Yes, I wouldn't mind doing that because they'd be our children. It would be our duty to take care of them and I'd take care of you. Full time though that's usually a woman's job."

Mulan hummed before she walked onto a foot bridge and stared down at the fish in the stream underneath. "Shang, you've read literature and poems, right?" she asked and he laughed but saw that she was serious. "You've stared at a passage from a story before and asked yourself what it means and thought through it and thought about the emotions that a person has to write something like that."

"Yes," Shang hesitated.

"So, that thinking and that exploring emotion is most traditionally feminine, correct?" she asked. "The saying that men think with their fists." She saw him start to challenge his idea about what a woman was as she said that to him. "Do you think that all men dress up in drag and that's the only way to be a woman and by the way I don't think we're discussing men and women but masculine and feminine traits, correct?"

"Correct," Shang replied slowly.

"You might not be ready to accept the fact that everyone has both of those traits but I'm happy that I've met someone who does even if he's confused about admitting to such a fact," Mulan beamed at him and Shang nodded. Mulan laughed again after watching him for a little more.

"What is it?" Shang asked as he studied her and Mulan reached for his hand.

"You were just thinking how beautiful I was, how pretty I was, weren't you?" she asked as she let her fingers slip in between his. Shang chuckled again and looked down at the water.

"So, what if I was?" he asked. He liked being with her and he felt such a strong bond with her, of course he couldn't help those thoughts from filling his mind.

"Admiring beauty," Mulan winked before standing up and he followed her whilst holding her hand. "I don't know," she teased, "feels like a feminine thing to do to me."

End of Chapter Eight

Thank you for reading

Thank you to the reviewers of Chapter Seven

DarthLeia19, Estela234, HistoryISculture, KathyMesser, Lisa Cooper, Savannah246810,