laleia

Episode 6

(Note re: any observations I make on English subtitles — I’m watching episode 6 on YouTube on the CN DRAMA channel.)

For the record, I watched the opening credits this time and the opening credits just have generic ink brush painting imagery (probably images of Minglan, but still pretty generic), so it’s not my fault I didn’t notice the end credits!

Scene - Yuanruo’s feelings get hurt because of the brushes!

Gu Tingye: “Your sixth sister has grown so big. If she came towards me, I definitely can’t recognize her.” Me: That’s because she’s played by a different actress now!
Changbai responds that even if you planted a tree in the interim, it would be over twenty feet tall. Is that how fast trees grow? Changbai said two 丈 (zhang), which the subtitles translated to “twenty feet measures”, but between reading and listening I misheard twenty 丈. Pleco tells me one 丈 is equivalent to 3.333 meters or 3.65 yards. So while two 丈 would be about 7 meters or about twenty feet (per the subtitles), I spent a good 10 minutes thinking he said twenty 丈 which would be about 200 feet tall and I was like, that’s not right, there’s no way a tree grows that tall?!?!?! But back to my original point, I don’t think trees grow to be 20 feet tall that fast either?
I like how everyone just accepts that the Lan sisters are going to call Gu Tingye 二叔 (er shu) (second uncle) and he’s going to call them 妹妹 (meimei) (younger sister) and nobody minds that this makes no logical sense. (I mean, Gu Tingye does start minding in the end but that’s way in the future.)
I love that when Molan brags about Changfeng and Rulan wants to say something mean, Changbai glares at her and … threatens her? By pointing to a book? I guess either ordering her to be nice per the principles of the book and/or maybe threatening her that he’s going to make her copy the book if she’s mean. Either way, she holds back on what she was going to say. Changbai’s a good brother.
OK, so here’s the thing. When Yuanruo asks about the brush/pen (the word they keep on using is the word for pen, but of course back in ancient days it referred to the brushes they are using) and Rulan and then Molan very boldly state (even brag?) to Yuanruo that Minglan gave them the pens he gifted her, they don’t seem to be doing it maliciously or with the intention of offending Yuanruo or hurting his feelings that his gifts were passed on. But even if you didn’t have feelings for someone, isn’t it kind of rude and offensive for them to pass on your gift??? I would understand if they were deliberately sabotaging his affections for Minglan, but they don’t seem to be doing that either.
Minglan tries super hard this entire scene not to make eye contact because she’s feeling guilty.

Scene - Molan and her mother plot!

Molan talks about how Gu Tingye is a frequenter of brothels and how if he happened to be fond of her, she would be distressed. Girl, your future husband is SO much worse.
Does Molan really think that Yuanruo likes her? She’s so delusional!
Although I guess Yuanruo does tend to say nice things to the people around him. This follows the Asian drama formula of “Male Lead is mean to everyone but nice to the Female Lead, he gets the girl; Secondary Male Lead is nice to everyone but as a result, the Female Lead can’t tell that he likes her better than everyone else; he doesn’t get the girl.” (This was very explicitly expressed in the contemporary student drama Professional Single, where the female lead told the secondary male lead as like an 8-year-old that she didn’t like that about him.)
According to Molan, Gu Tingye has said previously that he will only marry the legitimate daughter of an aristocrat. Did he say that? Or is that just another rumor spread about him? It is true that even when he was infatuated with and tricked by Manniang, he never ever considered marrying her and only ever sought to marry a legitimate daughter and take her as a concubine. Still, the idea that he would express he didn’t want a concubine-born daughter seems out of character.
It’s very clear in this scene that Molan is a little delusional and arrogant but Concubine Lin is much more practical. Even as proud as Concubine Lin is of Molan, she always asks the right questions — is Yuanruo maybe more fond of Minglan? Is Yuanruo even willing to marry a concubine’s daughter?

Scene - Xiaotao passes on a message from Minglan!

The more I think about it, the more Grandmother and Gu Tingye were right. Minglan says to both Grandmother and to Gu Tingye in different scenes that she has always behaved with the utmost propriety with Yuanruo and rejected him. But even when she doesn’t want to accept his gifts (the water chestnuts) and he has to sneakily shove gifts at her (the brushes) and she has to give away the gifts, she then … sends Xiaotao to subtly tell him that the brushes aren’t for her (which should be a coded message that he’s not for her), includes snacks as an apology, and then passes on a message of rejection that is honestly couched in so many softening words it practically screams “I like you but I can’t have you.” Which is indeed how she feels about him. It just reminds me of how there is one piece of advice floating around that if you give negative feedback to someone (in the workforce), you should sandwich it between two positive statements, but the problem is that there are a lot of poor performers who will just hear the positive statements and then ignore the negative feedback.
Yuanruo says: I’m a man, who cares about my chastity? My answer: Well, if there are rumors about your chastity being impugned by a particular woman then by the transitive property of un-chastity, that woman’s chastity is also impugned and that is also important.
I mean, I pooh-poohed Minglan’s message of rejection two bullet points ago but Yuanruo looks so dejected I guess it actually worked.
Yuanruo is being so egalitarian here — even though Minglan is concubine-born, he stands up for her right to look down on him!
Wow, Yuanruo is so dejected from her giving away his two brushes and that rejection spiel that he’s going to get drunk? That’s a bit much. I know he says that this is more broadly because he’s depressed at the idea that all of the nice things he thought he was doing for her were actually things she found annoying, but still, that’s a bit of an overreaction.
OK, Yuanruo and Buwei fighting about whether to turn the carriage around is pretty funny.
Xiaotao reporting back to Minglan is kind of cute. Minglan looks so sad even when her desired result was achieved.

Scene - Gu Tingye’s family sucks!

Ugh, I don’t care about Gu Tingye’s backstory. His family can all just go die. They take up so much screentime when I just want more Minglan!
Apparently Gu Tingye comes back in the first place because Madam Qin asked him to come for some food to bring to the Sheng household. This is clearly because she knows that a ruckus is going to happen and is arranging for his presence to make it worse, because she’s the worst. Very chessmaster of her though.
I hate this scene, as I hate all his scenes with this family. Asshole Father is terrible, assuming the worst about Gu Tingye without any second thought. He accuses Madam Qin of spoiling Gu Tingye’s excesses (not realizing that yes, that is what she is doing! On purpose!) He notes that if he hadn’t so coincidentally come back, she would have just paid them off. (Such a coincidence! A coincidence she engineered, I’m sure!) Madam Qin suggests the truth (that it’s not Gu Tingye who did it) but says it in such a way that it doesn’t even occur to anyone in the room that it could be the truth. Then Gu Tingye shows up, just like Madam Qin planned all along.
Gu Tingye very clearly uses real evidence to prove that it’s not his debt — his own fingerprint! And yet it’s not enough! Gu Tingwei makes very real points that there’s no reason for Gu Tingye to put anything on account when he has so much money, that it can’t be his debt. And Asshole Father won’t listen to any of it!
Then Asshole Father claims that Gu Tingye is wasting his maternal family’s money, and that he can only think about money. The money is very important to Gu Tingye, it’s the only reason he’s not completely fucked over in the Gu household, it gives him some measure of freedom and Asshole Father hates that it means he can’t completely control Gu Tingye. Also, I have to assume that Asshole Father is feeling guilty about how he married Gu Tingye’s mother for money, and how she died, and he takes it out on Gu Tingye. Also, he along with everyone in his family is a snob about the money that they depend on but that he hates the origin of.
And Madam Qin leaves the room because she knows that Gu Tingye and Asshole Father are like fire and water and things will only get worse, even without her there to fan the flames (and she gets more plausible deniability if she’s out of the room).
Gu Tingye says: “In any case, whatever I say, you won’t believe me.” That’s right, Asshole Father is the worst and it’s not even that he won’t give Gu Tingye the benefit of the doubt, it’s that even when the facts are stacked in Gu Tingye’s favor, he still gives Gu Tingye whatever the opposite of the benefit of the doubt is.
And honestly, I don’t understand why it is normal and acceptable for Asshole Father to arrange to have his grown son beaten. (I mean, I guess it’s a little TBD if Gu Tingye is a grown man or an older teen at this point in the drama but it’s not OK either way.) It’s already fucked up that they beat servants at the drop of a hat, but that he uses corporal punishment on his own son, and that it’s very severe beatings (cf. Gu Tingye’s scars later), for almost no reason, it’s just — I was going to say it’s extra fucked up but the servants don’t deserve to be beaten either, so really, it’s just fucked up across the board.
Asshole Father is the worst!!! I just want to punch him!

Scene - Polo Mother-in-Law arrives and shenanigans ensue!

I didn’t realize on first watch that the people who were interrupted by Molan, Minglan and Rulan early on were the same people caught up in the Minglan/Molan “love triangle” later on.
I know her title is Marchioness Wu or Countess Wu or whatever, but I’m going to call her Polo!MIL.
Big Madam summons Rulan after class and orders her to dress up because she wants her to make a good impression. Rulan is so cute, she doesn’t even want to go (just like later on, she doesn’t even want to consider marrying Polo!Son). She has great pouty expressions.
Concubine Lin also wants Molan to be able to make a good impression.
Molan, when talking about some other heir in some other noble household: They already have 20 concubines, ugh, I wouldn’t want to marry them. Me: Girl, you marry someone worse!
LOL, Molan just sits there posing very pretentiously. Concubine Lin scolds her for posing with a fan because it’s not warm enough to use a fan, then immediately takes it away and uses it to fan herself.
Given all the effort they devoted to “dressing up”, I’m sure there’s a difference between how Rulan and Molan are dressed now vs how they’re dressed normally but I’m not good at noticing that kind of stuff, it all looks the same to me.
Concubine Lin and Molan way overreact to not being summoned to see Polo!MIL. It’s because they’re operating on less information and don’t realize that Rulan hasn’t been summoned either. But Molan really is her mother’s daughter, smashing things left and right.
Then Concubine Lin, Molan and Xueniang plot to get Molan to sneak a peek at Polo!MIL (which, they frame it as sneaking a peek at Polo!MIL but isn’t it just sneaking a peek at Polo!Son?).
Meanwhile, all Rulan cares about is pestering Minglan. Rulan is bossy and unreasonable, which again, I found really annoying on my first watch but on rewatch it’s more just exasperating and kind of cute in the way spoiled children can sometimes be when they’re pouting. I think it’s that her unreasonableness is so toothless for Minglan. She bullies Minglan into doing all sorts of things for her (copying books; embroidering kneepads; making food) which Minglan gives way on but she doesn’t do it from a real place of leverage. She basically says “or else” and then when Minglan says “or else what?” she just gets a confused look on her face. She comes off a very young and very spoiled girl making demands, which is cuter than if she came off as an older person making unreasonable demands.
As I mentioned before, I think Minglan, Molan and Rulan are all supposed to be about preteens which is why Molan and Rulan are both a bit immature. (Minglan, of course, had to grow up fast.) You can really see that immaturity in this scene and in the scenes with the momo from the palace. There’s just something really juvenile about the way they act and react.
Of course, when Rulan spies Molan, Rulan wants to follow Molan; Minglan knows this will only end poorly for her and tries to leave but Rulan pulls her along.
When they do get to the reception hall and see what Molan is doing, Minglan wants to leave because she knows this is going to end in trouble for her, but there’s no way Molan will let her go, Molan wants to make sure that all three are equally culpable and will get in the same amount of trouble.
Um, they just said their classes begin at 5:30??? That’s so early! They have really good lighting for 5:30 in the morning.
Why is Yuanruo about to tell a story about Minglan? That’s so inappropriate. It’s good he stops. (But clearly he was about to say MInglan sleeps through class.)
Molan, it’s Polo!Son, your future hubby! Call him a wastrel all you want, you pick him in the end.
I do like that when Molan asks Rulan what she thinks, Rulan says something along the lines of “What do you think you are, a princess, that you get to pick and choose?” She then goes on to turn it into an insult about Molan being a concubine’s daughter but it reminds me of Yuanruo later getting “picked and chosen” by just such a princess.
Minglan senses things are about to go south, and tries to mediate and get them out of there.
Molan’s undeniably clever. As soon as she senses they’re going to get caught, she knows just what to say and what to do to get herself out of trouble. If they reacted by running out of there, they wouldn’t have gotten caught by the external guests but you can bet that Papa Sheng and Big Madam would have investigated afterward and the girls would all have gotten in trouble. This way, even though they shame the Sheng household by getting caught by outsiders, Molan can position herself as the reasonable one (thus not getting in trouble) plus she gets some facetime with Polo!MIL and Polo!Son. This ties into the recurring theme of Concubine Lin and Molan not caring about the Sheng family’s name/honor as long as they personally benefit.
Yuanruo steps forward to help (which would have been bad) until Papa Sheng steps forward.
Polo!MIL just laughs. I’d like her better if she didn’t spend so much time trying to weigh Minglan down with her useless son.
In the carriage ride home later, Polo!Son first develops an interest in Molan, while Polo!MIL makes clear her position that a concubine-born daughter is fine (which is why she loves Minglan!).
Polo!MIL: “Once a woman marries out, it’s a new world. As long as they are not married yet, no one knows what the future holds.” Is this foreshadowing? A recurring motif? Just a maxim that held true for the time, and thus for all sorts of dramas / novels about the time? Significant either way, as Polo!MIL predicts Minglan’s future.
As Yuanruo waxes poetic about Minglan, I feel really bad for Buwei. How many moony monologues do you think he’s had to sit through at this point? He also calls Yuanruo out for almost going to help Minglan up, like I did a few bullet points ago! Buwei and I are on the same wavelength. Buwei’s basically like, if Minglan weren’t so good at dodging your affections and hiding your interest in her, your mother would murder me. (Which, of course… she later does.)
And when Buwei lays everything out, the terrible visit his mother would pay the Shengs if his conduct got out, Yuanruo’s defense is not that his mother wouldn’t do that. His defense is that his mother looks down on the Shengs so much she wouldn’t deign to visit.

Scene - Minglan and Rulan are punished!

Looking at Minglan and Rulan’s teary faces, I’m so annoyed with Molan for getting away with it.
My first watch, I was frustrated with Rulan for her low EQ. On rewatch I’m sympathetic to her because even though she’s clumsy to express it, she’s right! Molan should be punished too! The difference between Rulan and Minglan is that Rulan is used to privileges so when she experiences injustice, she is indignant and wants to rectify it. But neither she nor Big Madam have ever been so powerless they had to learn how to plot. So, like mother, like daughter, every word either of them say just digs their grave and makes Molan seem right in comparison. That’s why Rulan’s every word leads to more punishment, which pisses her off so much she physically attacks Molan because she thinks it’s the only way she can get some of her own back. But that’s just another nail in the coffin. To the very end, Rulan won’t admit her wrong (which to be fair! She wasn’t wrong! Or at least, Molan was equally wrong!).
In contrast, Minglan is used to injustice, has lived with injustice and unfairness all her life. She’s not even fazed and would just accept her punishment except Rulan keeps dragging her down. Even when Rulan appeals to Minglan to tell the truth … Minglan is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I see a parallel between the scene I hated with Gu Tingye’s family, and Minglan’s family here. In both instances, the father is biased and that colors how he chooses to punish his child. The difference is that I don’t like Papa Sheng but I hate Asshole Father because Asshole Father is just so much worse across the board in every respect.

End Credits! I went through and tried to ID the scenes from the end credits.

Grandmother and bb!Minglan on the boat to Bianjing
The three Lan sisters peeping in on Polo!MIL and Polo!Son and getting caught
??? Unclear, maybe a scene where Minglan meets Cuiwei? Minglan is sitting down, there are two servants behind her (one of which is Xiaotao), and one in front of her.
Gu Tingye and Minglan, after he rescued her (it looks like during the coup)
Minglan playing polo
Gu Tingye and Minglan getting married
Minglan with a ton of other women, is this when that new wife of the new Empress's brother almost got in a fight at Minglan’s party?
Minglan and Gu Tingye with their baby, presumably after the attempted assassination
Minglan beating on the drums for justice
Minglan defending her home during the siege on the Gu household
The very last scene of the drama, when they are repainting the Gu ancestral shine placard

And that’s it!