Story of Minglan Rewatch - Episode 5

[laleia]

Episode 5

(Note re: any observations I make on English subtitles — I’m watching episode 5 on YouTube on the CN DRAMA channel.)

Scene - Court scene continued!

• I didn’t super understand why the drama served up this scene, my first watch through. I skip it on rewatches too. But it does set up the unrest in a few dozen episodes.
• Papa Sheng is funny, though, the way he panics when everyone else kneels, drops his stick thing, and then tries to quietly go get his stick thing. The humorous beats are helpful to an audience (aka me) to give them something to pay attention to when they don’t understand what else is going on.
• So even though the succession drama comes to a head ages from now, I guess this is when the Emperor’s son (and prior Crown Prince) just died, which is why the ministers are trying to get him to pick a new Crown Prince right now. And yet, many episodes from now, the matter is still not settled. The Emperor is doing a very good job at effectively conveying his grief, but it’s hard for me as an audience member to feel emotional about what essentially seems like a lot of off-screen drama (the son’s death, the Emperor’s pain, the political consequences).

Scene - timeskip!

• We get a lot of exposition in one go. Scholar Zhuang is coming to teach in the Sheng household; Yuanruo is coming to study with them; Gu Tingye is NOT coming to study with them (but is still BFFs with Changbai); and the girls are going to attend the mini “academy” as well.
• In the novel, these kids were attending these classes even when they were as young as six — that’s a lot of concentration they’re expecting from a six-year-old. (The way it was framed in the novel, I think, was that these classes were for Changbai and Changfeng (and Yuanruo) to prepare for the upcoming imperial exams, everyone else was there just to listen in so Papa Sheng could get his money’s worth so there wasn’t necessarily an expectation that the six-year-old attendees were going to get anything out of it, I guess. That said, in webnovels and in history I think, there were boys as young as 10 passing the lower levels of the imperial exams so maybe the six year olds are getting something out of it after all.)
• And we see the servants (including bb!Xiaotao) in the background listening in. In the novel, all of the other servants that served young Minglan arranged to be transferred to a different courtyard (a better one) after Concubine Wei died because they realized they had no prospects serving the unfavored daughter of a deceased concubine. Xiaotao stayed because she was too silly to know any better, and she stays serving Minglan throughout.
• I do like the scene transition from younger selves to older selves. It’s nifty, and you immediately see older!Rulan bothering Minglan for paper balls and then throwing them at Molan, giving you a sense of all three of their personalities. Changbai tries to glare at them to no effect, and Changfeng just looks confused. Yuanruo looks longingly at Minglan.
• I should note in advance that I strongly dislike Yuanruo so my analysis on rewatch will likely contain Yuanruo hate, be warned.
• And we see Gu Tingye and Shitou!

Scene - Yuanruo’s lost handkerchief!

• Papa Sheng and Yuanruo talk, blah blah blah.
• Yanran! Yanran’s grandmother says “My family’s matters, you know” — but first-time audience viewers will not know until episode 16 or so. Yanran is the character where I was absolutely convinced she only showed up for the polo scenes in episodes 16-18 but never before and never after (I hadn’t seen the reunion episode towards the end yet) and yet, surprise surprise when I learned on rewatch that she shows up at the very beginning here to establish her and Minglan’s friendship!
• Yuanruo longingly looks at Minglan and Yanran, who are very cute, until Buwei blocks his view. I think everyone is supposed to be about preteen-aged at this point in the novel, which is why everyone seems a little immature in their plots (I’m mainly thinking of Molan and Rulan, TBH).
• And we see Molan notice the handkerchief that Yuanruo left behind.
• I have to say, Changfeng is really cute, the way he’s asking about Gu Tingye. He’s very bumbling but kind of sweet the way Tingwei is. (I may be predisposed to be affectionate for this character because the actor is Mu Qing from Nirvana in Fire.) Meanwhile, Changbai plays this very stuffy, stilted nerd, and it’s cute as well. They have very sibling-y interactions.
• I like how Buwei thanks Yuanruo for giving up his desire to see Minglan for longer and go back home earlier per Madam’s request — it’s cute but also establishes how much power Yuanruo’s mom has in the household and how she uses his servants to control him.
• Yuanruo is genre-savvy and knows that if someone has his handkerchief they can pretend lots of things that aren’t true, so he immediately conducts an ostentatious search for it.
• I like trying to read into everyone’s reactions when he reveals that his handkerchief is missing. Rulan is still sleepy, no reaction. Molan is clearly startled and trying to think about how to get rid of the handkerchief she stole. Big Madam and Papa Sheng seem kind of clueless, and like they buy Yuanruo’s claim that it has sentimental value. I’m sure that Grandmother knows what Yuanruo is trying to do. When Minglan and Yanran leave the area, Yanran is clueless but Minglan knows what’s up.
• I notice that the men and the women were meeting separately earlier, separated by a screen at the beginning (other than when Molan delivered tea). After Yuanruo left, Changbai and Papa Sheng came to hang out with the women (presumably ok because that’s their family). But now Yuanruo comes and it’s fine that he sits with the women while he waits on the results of the handkerchief search? Is that because he knows all the women present already so it’s not a breach of etiquette? Is there some other Watsonian reason why men and women can be in the same room now though they weren’t earlier? Or is it because the show is over the separation for Doylist reasons and finds it more convenient for filming / plot if everyone is in the same room now?
• Again, Yuanruo stares longingly at Minglan and I guess he’s eating the thing she’s eating? Does Grandmother have Fang-mama take Minglan away because she notices? Or just for the reason Fang-mama gives, that there’s a lot of ruckus right now?
• Molan spills something, which I thought was because she’s flustered because of her stolen handkerchief but maybe it’s her pretext for summoning a maid to frame?
• Poor Suqin, serving as Molan’s scapegoat. There’s a lot of brutality here. Of course, Molan is cruel to frame a servant for the theft of the handkerchief, knowing the servant would be physically punished. But also, this entire system where servants are slaves / indentured servants that get bought and sold (I don’t think they’re all slaves; there seem to be different castes of them depending on what kind of contract they sold themselves into), where beating someone as a punishment (even beating them to death!) is not abnormal is just … really fucked up.
• Minglan is so smart. You can see that she’s not as smart as she will be in the future, that she has to talk the facts through with Yanran before she can come to the right deduction (where future!Minglan would immediately know). But that’s also exposition so that we the audience can know what’s going on.
• Yanran just referred to Suqin by name — how did she know Suqin’s name? They literally just walked by Suqin being punished and nobody mentioned who it was that had been caught.
• I like that this shows Minglan being smart and figuring out what happened to Suqin, and then immediately being concerned about Suqin and wanting to stand up for her, but then Yanran is the one with the EQ to remind her that she can’t just directly bring it up to Big Madam. Yanran also has to walk on eggshells at home, so she’s aware of the importance of saying the right thing at the right time. And then they come up with a plan together!
• And then the Yuanruo-pines-for-Minglan guzheng background music plays as he shows up. It’s very awkward the way he approaches and they back away.
• The expression on Yanran’s face this entire scene is hilarious. First, when she sees Yuanruo, her face is like “Eeek, we’re caught. What to do we, Minglan?” Then, when she sees the way Yuanruo looks at Minglan, you can see kind of a “WTF is going on?” side-eye. Then, Yuanruo steps forward, Minglan immediately steps backward and Yanran sees this and instinctively steps protectively in front of Minglan, with a kind of guarded look on her face. The more Yuanruo talks, the more Yanran gets a confused look on her face about the weird vibes in the air. That stays until she smiles at the end when Yuanruo says he’ll be able to protect Suqin. She’s so happy when she tells him that he has merit. Then when Yuanruo says that Minglan has merits and virtues as well, Yanran does the facial expression side-eye equivalent of “Ooooooooh, someone has a crush on you!” at Minglan.
• BTW, where did he come from? They left the hall way before him, how did he catch up and listen in on them? I guess they stopped walking as they were making deductions?

Scene - Yuanruo gives Minglan a gift!

• What is Minglan doing while Yuanruo is talking? Is she just playing around and not paying attention?
• LOL when the instructor tells Minglan to stay behind and everyone knows she’s in trouble.
  • Minglan’s bad handwriting is actually a holdover from the novel. In the novel, Minglan has transmigrated from the modern day, where we use pens and pencils (or type on computers/phones), and no longer write calligraphy with brushes (which is a totally different skill). That is why Minglan has terrible calligraphy handwriting. Even though they omitted the transmigration backstory, they kept her bad handwriting as a running joke throughout the drama.
  • The scholar says that 永 (yong) is the character that determines handwriting, in that if you can write it well, you have good handwriting. This is because the 永character contains all the “strokes” that are the building blocks for the other Chinese characters — the horizontal line (heng), the vertical line (shu), the diagonal going to the left (pie), the diagonal going to the right (na), the dot (dian), I think a hook (gou), and probably some other components I’m forgetting. He then says that if Minglan can write the 永 character in front of him right now, he will exempt her from punishment, otherwise, he’ll make her copy some book.
  • The subtitles say that Minglan says “Do I still need to copy the book?” Actually, Minglan says “Let me just copy the book instead” (except more formal than that). She basically says she’s been practicing her handwriting and it still sucks, she doesn’t dare show the instructor how awful her handwriting is, she willingly accepts any punishment the instructor imposes.
  • LOL, the instructor is like, “At least you’re self-aware about how much your handwriting sucks”.
  • Minglan is so cute when she’s like, “That’s such a long book! So many words! Three days is so short! Four days, please!” and then tries to bribe the instructor with food to give her an extra day.
  • I don’t know why the subtitles say she calls the instructor “Pedant” at the end when that same phrase has been translated as “Scholar” every other time during this conversation.
  • Minglan’s so cute when she runs off after she gets her extra day to copy that book.
• Meanwhile, Yuanruo is trying to delay leaving and makes up excuses about not finding his jade pendant only to be disgruntled when Buwei finds it.
• Minglan backs away every time he approaches. Did she just back into the pillar behind her? It kind of looks like the actress unintentionally backed into that.
• Yuanruo mentions that Madam Wu of the Yongchang Ducal Manor (again, I think this should be a count’s manor and not a ducal manor) opened a horse stable outside Xinzheng Gate. This is Madam Wu who desperately wants Minglan to be her daughter-in-law in the future! And this is where the polo matches are going to be in 10 episodes!
• Yuanruo moons over her like a puppy, and she tries so hard to not make any eye contact with him.
• Minglan says that none of her or her sisters knows how to play polo, though in the very next scene, Xiaotao mentions that Grandmother taught Minglan to ride. (Is this why Yuanruo calls her a liar when she plays 10 episodes from now?)
• Yuanruo totally faked not knowing what he’s doing with the water chestnuts so he could give her his gifts before she could object. But of course, Rulan sees and is grumpy …
• LOL at Xiaotao saying that regardless of how good the pen is, Minglan’s calligraphy will still suck. So savage!
• Minglan on her calligraphy (but also, a little bit about Yuanruo): “Some things just can’t be. I was born unable. So it’s better not to put hope in.”
• For someone definitely trying very hard not to have a romantic tryst with Yuanruo, Minglan has put an awful lot of thought into how to describe their non-relationship in poetic words, "mighty eagle" this and "swift under the roof eaves" that.
• And then Rulan and Molan get snippy with each other and poor Minglan is collateral damage. I found Rulan so annoying on my first watch but have so much residual fondness for her now that I just find her hilarious.
  • She comes across Molan reciting poetry, and calls Molan out on being pretentious and fake (“inspired” by the beauty of nature to recite poetry about willows when there are no willows around).
  • Her actual insults are always so basic compared to Molan’s — likening Molan reciting poetry to barking like a dog.
  • When Molan insults her for being uncultured, she proudly brags that as a daughter of the main/legitimate line, she doesn’t have to be cultured, unlike 妖精 (yaojing) (demonesses/succubi, basically?) like Molan and her mother. When she finishes this statement, she has this look on her face like “Yeah, I said it, what are you going to do about it?”
  • When Molan says she’s just jealous, Rulan sounds so offended that there’s anything she could be jealous of.
  • Then Molan brings up Yuanruo and Rulan sees Minglan and gets so excited about being able to rub something in Molan’s face.
  • Xiaotao tries to object to Rulan going into Minglan’s stuff, but Minglan nudges her to shut up. She can’t afford to offend her sisters.
  • Rulan shows off the brush, which makes Minglan uncomfortable. Then Rulan taps the brush against the rock and Xiaotao and Minglan get so nervous she’s going to break it. (She talks about how crisp the brush is, that it could only be rosewood. The sound/audio people did record a very crisp sound for the effect but is that what wood and against rock is supposed to sound like?)
  • Xiaotao looks so distressed that Rulan is messing with Minglan’s very precious thing, but Minglan just looks resigned. Rulan just looks so proud that she gets to show off Minglan’s brushes (because she can’t wait to rub Molan’s nose in the punchline — that it’s a gift from Yuanruo).
  • And now Minglan has to give away her precious pens/brushes.
  • And Rulan pulls Minglan away in glee now that she’s gotten to rub Molan’s face in something.
• So in one interaction, we can see that Molan is very good at composing poetry and literature, but is just a little fake. Rulan is very straightforward and is not as learned, and she also cares more about Molan losing than anything else. In a scene that parallels her and Molan’s and Minglan’s interactions at the polo match, she cares far more about the fact that Yuanruo DIDN’T give Molan a brush than the fact that he gave Minglan a brush. Minglan, meanwhile, is at the mercy of her sisters. She spends most of the scene trying just to survive without incurring either sister's wrath, has to do verbal cartwheels to downplay the gift without seeming like she got special treatment and ends up giving up her precious new brushes in order to play peacemaker. This is not the last time that Yuanruo’s attempt to do something nice for Minglan just creates problems for her.
• When Concubine Lin and Molan discuss whether Minglan has designs on Yuanruo (and vice versa), Molan says: “She’s just a concubine’s daughter. How can she covet the sole heir of Qi House?” Excuse me, miss, you are a concubine’s daughter as well, as your mother points out in the very next sentence. Molan say she’s different because she’s her mother’s daughter, she’s the fourth daughter of the Sheng household, living a life more noble than the legitimate daughter’s. I mean, Minglan is also the sixth daughter of the Sheng Household, I don't think Molan’s point makes any sense.

Scene - Gu Tingye arrives!

• Changbai and Changfeng both look so happy when Gu Tingye shows up.
• I have no words for Gu Tingye’s explanation of how he took in Manniang. “I saw she had no other options so I had to fuck her. There was no other way.” Eyeroll.
• Changbai is like, this entire story is too much drama and IDGAF, class is about to start and that’s only thing that’s important.
• Changfeng asks if the handkerchief was embroidered by 魏行首 (Wei-hangshou), such the subtitles translate here as “Boss Wei”. This also gets translated in other platforms as “Prostitute Wei”. Apparently, hangshou is a term for the particularly well-known star/lead prostitutes in a brothel.
• We see Minglan napping — Minglan’s sleepiness/laziness is also a holdover from the novel. At the very beginning of my reviews, I linked to a post about how the novel and the drama are at heart almost a meditation on who has the right to sleep and you’ve “made it” if you get to the point where you can sleep in.
• Minglan’s cute here though. Clearly, Yuanruo thinks so too because he’s about to engage in some inappropriate behavior.
• Gu Tingye shows up and must be thinking, WTF is going on? Anyways, he greets Yuanruo and they are very cute.
• Yuanruo introduces Gu Tingye to Minglan and all I can think is “They already know each other! They have history!!” Yet, despite all my shipper squeeing inside, neither Minglan nor Gu Tingye show any indication that they know each other and met once upon a time when they were wee and played by totally different actors. I mean, it’s totally fair that neither of them have any romantic interest in the other at this point so I wouldn’t expect any shippy vibes, but TBH I would have expected some acknowledgment of their past experiences if only because otherwise it is very confusing for a casual first-time viewer because without any in-plot cue, on my first watch I definitely did not connect Gu Tingye to that guy who helped her find a doctor until I turned on the VIki comments.
• When Changbai says “Xiaotao, take care of your mistress,” part of me wonders if he is subtextually indicating “and don’t let her be overly familiar with Yuanruo where others can see and gossip”, but I don’t think he’s that passive-aggressive, I think I’m just imagining it. Minglan does say that overall it was a kindness so that she didn’t get linked with Yuanruo in gossip.
• Xiaotao’s conversation with Minglan here, where Xiaotao points out that Rulan and Molan have plenty of conversations with Yuanruo and Minglan responds: “Can I do the same as them?” It’s a reprise of the conversation she has with her mother in Episode 1 — Minglan’s sisters have protections in a way that she doesn’t, so they can afford to act in a way that she can’t. They have more status, more funds/resources, and more parents. Minglan has Grandmother, but Grandmother’s status is in itself not as steady as it could be given that she isn’t Papa Sheng’s biological mother, and Minglan doesn’t want to cause trouble for her.
• And this is how they bring up Minglan’s “history” with Gu Tingye — his arrival reminds her of the passage of time since her mother’s death, which is simultaneously not romantic and also so subtle that the first-time viewer would miss the connection. I like it, though. This early in the drama, that is what he represents for her.

Wow. Singing along to the ending theme song, I paid attention to the visual imagery for the first time and I only just now realized on my like 50th rewatch that the entire end theme song plays over ink painting depictions of the major scenes from the drama! I had thought it was random generic ink painting imagery, but hadn’t made the connection! I really do pick up something new each rewatch.