Thank you Yira for encouraging me and being my cheering section!
Shang learned to make his way around their home using his crutches. He even learned how to get up on his horse and ride, by building a small set of stairs to use for climbing up onto his horse's back.
The Li's also had a stubborn streak. Years of living with Fa's who never back down had also taught him to keep going.
He figured out how to fire an arrow while leaning on his crutches, and worked with Qiang and Mingzhu on their archery skills. He also hunted for food frequently with Qiang.
But he had a difficult time with not being able to do martial arts any longer. He had always looked forward to teaching Qiang how to fight, but now had to leave that for Zhou to continue.
Zhou did continue instructing Mingzhu and Qiang both in their martial arts skills. Mingzhu began beating him as she grew older. By the time she was 15 and he 26, she was a strong opponent. Her mother's daughter, through and through.
She often went to the village market by herself to get needed items for the family. On one such day, after making several purchases, she stopped to admire several horses for sale. One, in particular, was black and tall and appeared to be very strong. His eyes were green, much like Khan, the horse her mother had grown up with and had told her many stories of.
Having been given permission from her father to buy a horse, she bargained with the owner for the price and paid a small amount down. He wanted her to bring the rest of the gold she owed to his house the next day and he would hand over the horse.
She relayed this plan to her family members, who wondered why she couldn't just complete the transaction at the market. Zhou and Mulan offered to go with her, but she refused, feeling capable of handling this alone.
The horse merchant's house was an hour walk from her own. She knocked on the door and he beckoned her in, saying he had several items for the horse in the house waiting for her. As soon as she crossed the threshold, he grabbed her and shoved her against the wall. He attempted to silence her screams with a forceful kiss, obviously unaware of her years of martial arts instruction. In moments, he was flat on the ground with her foot over his neck and several broken ribs.
Her assailant tried to pull her down on top of him, but instead found himself being flipped to his stomach with his nearby sword held to his neck. He flinched as it cut into his flesh just enough to make him hold still and cooperate.
Mingzhu threw the rest of the owed money on the floor next to him. "I believe you owe me a horse!" She shouted at him.
"How did a mere girl learn how to fight like that?"
"My older brother and my father. Would you like me to have Li Zhou come demonstrate his skills for you? I'm sure he would be happy to, after I tell him of your behavior."
"Your one-legged father could never beat me."
"He wouldn't need to. My 12 year old brother could do it for him. Never mess with a Li. Did you forget we're a military family?"
She let him stand up but kept the sword at his neck.
"Now! The horse!"
He pointed to where the horse's bridle lay. It was in his bedroom. This had all been his plan, to lure Mingzhu to his house and rape her, then offer to marry her to restore her honor.
Keeping the sword aimed at her would-be assailant, she retrieved the bridle.
"Wise of you to cooperate. I'll spare your life. I can't promise the same about the male members of my family."
"Go, get the horse and leave."
Mingzhu kept the sword aimed at him as she walked backwards out the door, then threw it on the ground.
She saddled up her new horse and galloped home. Now that the threat was over, she had started to shake with fear and anger. But she knew she had won. Her mother had told her Fa's never back down and Li's face every threat head on. She was a fighter by blood.
After introducing the new horse to the barn and caring for him, she ran into the house and told her close-knit family about the horse merchant attempting to rape her. The adults and Qiang were beyond furious.
"Come on, Zhou and Qiang. Let's show this fool what happens when you mess with one of us." Shang had jumped up onto his crutches and was almost out the door already.
Mulan, Liu and Fa Li comforted Mingzhu with tea and hugs while Zhou, Qiang and Shang saddled up and set off.
Although he was dependant on crutches and unable to fight, Shang refused to stay home. This was his daughter that this man had tried to violate.
On the ride over, he envisioned what would have happened had Fa Zhou known what he had done to Mulan. Shang would have been killed on the spot, no doubt. He could imagine a loving father's rage at discovering an only daughter was brutally and repeatedly violated.
Arriving at the horse merchant's estate, they dismounted and charged into the house. Knowing what was coming, the man tried to run through the side door, but Zhou caught him. Qiang blocked one doorway while Shang blocked the other and Zhou rendered the man unconscious after making sure he knew how foolish his actions had been.
The last words the coward heard before blacking out were a warning to never cross their family again or he would face certain death. They left him laying on the floor in his own blood, unsure if he actually would wake up.
He did wake up, and after many days resumed selling his horses. But he never attempted to do anything of that nature again. The extended time it took for his broken ribs, vertebrae and facial bones to heal served to remind him of his most unwise folly. He had raped and then married teenaged girls twice before, and brutally beaten them to death. Neither had grown up with families who loved and valued them like Mingzhu's family did her.
Mingzhu was fortunate to have the martial arts skills and the love of her family to enable her to escape a similar fate. Had the fool succeeded in raping her, he would have been certainly killed rather than be allowed to marry Shang and Mulan's beloved daughter.
Many families around them did not value women as anything more than property and playthings, but in the Fa and Li household they were treated with love and respect. Mingzhu and Meili were taught to expect and accept nothing less.
Four year old Meili's own lessons in martial arts began in earnest after Mingzhu's ordeal. Shang had always been adamant that every female family member be able to defend themselves, more so now. Liu had been learning since her arrival and Mulan had kept up her skills. Even Fa Li, at 60, was able to defend herself, having learned fighting skills over the years. She had learned from Fa Zhou and, after his death, kept up her skills with Mulan and Shang. Grandma Fa, having been a rape victim herself, had insisted her son teach his wife martial arts.
Word got around their village about Mingzhu beating her would-be attacker. Other teenage girls and even the younger girls in the village began to ask Mingzhu for self-defense lessons. With Shang and Mulan's permission, she taught them the moves she had used on the horse merchant, among others. Women from the village asked Mulan and Liu to teach them to defend themselves, too.
Mulan, Liu and Mingzhu couldn't change how some of the men in the village still regarded women, but they could empower the women around them.