“Wow! I didn’t know you memorized it!” crowed Ling, donning a cheeky smile,
ever ignoring the butterflies.It was hard to say whether he was more stunned or embarrassed that Mulan remembered it all. There were a few additional lines he hadn’t shared with anyone, even Yao and Chien Po. He could only keep them in the back of his mind, never letting them surface until he was—no, not even when he was alone! Some of them involved a girl who was tough and smart and could take down a whole army of Huns and—no!He had to think of something else, anything else!
Gah, what had they been discussing before? Arm-wrestling? Nose-picking? Mustaches? Yes, those were perfectly good topics, now if he could just steer back to them…somehow…
As it were, Ling found himself gazing at Mulan again, both intrigued and concerned by her blushing. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how big of an idiot he was. Seriously, how could he have ever mistaken her for a guy? Speaking of eyes that shone like stars…
“Hmm? Oh, uhhh…as long as she’s not a snake demon, I could live with that!”
—花木蘭—“Really?”
Mulan didn’t notice she’d stopped walking until she was staring
after Ling, face contorted in disbelief. “Really?” she repeated,
voice rising. “So, you would be happy with any other kind of de-
mon, so long as she’s beautiful?”
It shouldn’t have been so surprising. A rich man expected little
more from his wife than the smooth management of his estate
and sons to carry on the family name. For the second project,
why would she need to be anything but beautiful? A farmer ex-
pected little more from his wife than a home where she could
weave and cook and raise sons to carry on the family name–
for some disapproved of a wife working alongside him in the
fields, as Mulan had been raised to do. What else could he ask
for from his wife except that she might be beautiful?
A good wife was calm and graceful; a good wife was a good
mother and a good woman; a good wife worked hard; a good
wife obeyed her husband as readily as she’d obey her father or
her emperor. Nowhere in the litany of virtues Mulan had been
chastised with from time to time had it said a good wife must be
beautiful.
“You couldn’t live with a demon.” Her voice was sharp as a
slap. “For one thing, you’d have to do everything for yourself,
and I’ve seen how you get when Shang sends you to the mess
tent.”