Absorbed in the music he was making as he looked at the cloud-filled valley spread below, the man did not hear his son approach. —Look, look at your son, urged the mother, and on turning the man saw the boy’s small hand reach for the instrument. —What do you want, my little man? Mulan’s father laughed, but he handed the clarino to the boy. The small child had difficulty at first in finding a firm grasp, but he steadied the instrument on stone, placed his mouth to the reed and began to blow. A sweet, captivating note emerged. At that very moment it was as if the world had stopped and only the note was alive. Mulan’s mother and father fell silent and the note danced out of the door and flew across the valley till it reached the village on the other side. It wrapped itself around the women at the well and they put down their vessels and began to sing. On the mountainside the goats stopped grazing and the shepherds sat down beside their animals and closed their eyes to the sun that had suddenly pierced through the clouds.
