..Continued

Chapter nine.

Shang reached his home. He jumped off his horse and slowly led it to his stable. He couldn't believe what he had just done. It seemed as if he were in a dream. Now, instead of saving Mulan, it was he who hurt her. She was dead to him now. Maybe he shouldn't have visited her in the first place. He trudged inside the stable, brushed off his stallion, fed it, and then walked outside. It was twilight. He stepped inside the dimly lit house.

"Mother?" he looked around for Li Mei.

"Shang" His mother came in from the kitchen. She approached him and embraced him warmly. She could tell something was wrong. "What troubles you?" She asked him with her quiet, prodding voice. Shang walked to his room and sat on his bed. His mother followed, and sat down on his left. He proceeded to tell her of his journey.

"I asked Fa Zhou if I could steadily visit Mulan. He consented."

"When do I meet her?" Li Mei asked with a weak smile.

"There have been-- complications." Shang looked at his mother, so concerned and confused.. just as Mulan had been when he told her he had to leave her. He continued with his story, pausing only to prevent his voice from trembling.

"..and I turned from her house one last time."

"Shang, are you sure you were the cause of her injury?"

"Not entirely.. but what else could it have been? Her cut was right where the cloth had been torn. And I didn’t throw with a clear mind, as father taught me. I can't see Mulan get injured again because of me."

"You cannot always have a clear mind. Mulan would be dead if it weren't for you. Let me show you something. Something from long ago, which your father forbade me to speak of." Li Mei slowly got up from Shang's bed. "Wait here" She left his bedroom, and returned minutes later, wearing shorts and a shirt. They were old, from when Li Mei was younger. She stood before her son.

"Mother?" Shang looked at his mother, surprised at what she was wearing. He had never seen a woman in shorts before. It was very surprising. His mother took no notice of his questioning words. She began to speak as if she were hypnotized. Her eyes became glazed over with the vivid memory of the past, which she had not spoken of for so long.

"Twenty years ago, on the day of your birth, I too, had 'complications'. When I was in labor with you, we discovered that you were different. You would not come out, because you were in an irreguar position. Your father and I knew that if you were not removed soon, both you and I would die. Your father made the hardest decision of his life. Not at all like his military decisions. He decided between baby and mother. It was a decision that could only be made in minutes, and there was no medic nearby. We had called for one, but he had not yet arrived. So your father kissed me for what we both thought was the last time, drew his sword, and gave me this." She lifted her shirt slightly to reveal a linear scar across her stomach. Shang quietly gasped in awe.

"But--Wh--" Shang was cut off by his mother.

"We needed to get you out. And this was the only way." She said, motioning to her stomach. "He got you out. By now, I was unconscious because of pain and loss of blood. The medic arrived and closed me up. I remained in bed for weeks, and at one point I was very close to death. But the hope of seeing you grow up and the thought of being with your father made me strong, and I lived. It took your father a very long time to forgive himself for doing such a thing to me. He forgot the reason he did it in the first place. He didn’t do it because he valued something higher than me.. He did it to save you.. and me. It took him nearly eleven years to finally realize he saved me instead of hurting and nearly killing me." Shang was silent. "I will leave you now. I am tired, and there is much housework to be done tomorrow." And with that, his mother kissed him on the forehead and left the room.

Shang began to think. He thought as he changed into his bedclothes, he thought as he ate a snack, he thought as he got ready for bed, and he was still thinking when he returned to his room. Maybe it wasn’t his fault after all. He could have hit Mulan, but if he didn’t visit her at all, she would be dead. But he told her he couldn’t see her again. He basically told her that she was dead to him. By the end of the hour, Shang had done what it took his father eleven years to accomplish. He forgave himself, and slept well that night.

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