laleia

Episode 10

(Note re: any observations I make on English subtitles — I’m watching episode 9 on YouTube on the CN DRAMA channel.) (Also, I didn't bother double-checking any statements I made about the novel, which I read ages ago, so those could all be straight-up wrong.)

Yay, episode 10! I’m so excited! Shit goes down this episode!!!!

A Prelude

In the novel, Kong-momo was invited in the first place to instruct Hualan before she married into the Count’s household, and her sisters tagged along as a collateral benefit. (In the novel, it’s unrelated to punishment, IIRC.) I recall the novel observing that the younger Lan sisters were a little too young to get full benefit from the lessons (I believe they range from ages ~6-10 when they were taking lessons with Kong-momo; the drama aged everyone up overall given they were casting grown adults), so that’s one of the reasons Molan kept interrupting lessons, because she was too young to fully digest and understand what she was being taught.

It’s also why Rulan feels Molan should stop hogging attention in class because the lessons aren’t meant for her in the first place. In the drama, this comes off as another argument about legitimate vs. concubine-born daughters. In the novel, however, this is a less unreasonable position on Rulan’s part because the lessons are for Hualan who is about to marry into a household where she needs the skills, and it is true Hualan is the only one of age who could truly understand and benefit from the lessons and Molan is derailing from her educational needs.

(This is also why it’s considered ingenious for Minglan to take notes in class; Rulan and Molan can’t fully take in everything they’re learning; Minglan can’t either but Minglan will have notes to refer back to later.)

If you take into consideration that the three Lan sisters are pre-teens at most during these lessons with Kong-momo in the novel, Molan’s and Rulan’s childish behavior makes a lot more sense. (Minglan is, of course, an adult transmigrated into a child’s body which is why she remains mature throughout even though she’s the youngest. This is the thing about transmigration plotlines that always strikes me as a bit unfair; I think the drama is much cleaner for taking that premise out but the aging up of the characters does make scenes like the Rulan/Molan fights seem unreasonably immature as opposed to realistically immature.)

Scene - Kong-momo baits her trap!

I like how when Kong-momo tells the Lan sisters to try themselves, we see Minglan looking at her flowers with thoughtful curiosity, Molan being kind of pretentious and stiff, and Rulan looking curious in a more childish way.
OK, but this flower-arranging seems so subjective. I’m not sure I understand how there’s One Right Answer, although I also recognize this is a Thing in modern day as well. (I went to a birthday party as a middle-schooler where the Group Birthday Activity was flower-arranging with artificial flowers.)
Molan really does manage to hog the entire class without doing anything egregious. I’m not surprised Rulan gets pissed because I get frustrated just watching it, and yet couldn’t pin down any one thing in particular that is irritating.
I don’t have any real comments on this fight between Rulan and Molan other than to say that no matter how unreasonable Rulan is being, I’m still on her side! Molan did get stuffed into this class! It was unfair since she didn’t get punished! Boooooo!
Minglan, meanwhile, is exchanging glances with Xiaotao wondering whether she can get out of this unscathed. She’s already been punished once for getting caught up in their conflict. She doesn’t want it to happen again (but it does!).
Molan’s claim that she’s being unfairly treated because she’s concubine-born really does not hold up because Minglan is also concubine-born!
Rulan says that Molan is just faking crying because she wants to get Rulan punished again. I think she’s right.
The subtitles translate Minglan’s words as “Do you want to learn on the more side or less side?” I mean, I think it’s clear from context what she actually said but what kind of translation is that????
Minglan has almost talked Molan down and Rulan gets her all emotional again. I know I accused Molan of faking her crying two bullet points ago but if we’re keeping in mind that these three are all supposed to be quite young in this scene (despite the age of the actresses playing them), it’s not unreasonable for Molan to be overwrought.
But seriously, Molan again claims that her sisters are bullying her for being concubine-born. Minglan is concubine-born too. That complaint doesn’t work.
Molan really did learn the wrong lessons from her mother, sigh. Rulan is right that Molan could not bear to actually commit suicide, it’s all to make a scene.

Scene - punishment! aka Kong-momo teaches a lesson (to the parents)!

Grandmother says that if they get punishment now, “Later on, they will walk fewer crooked paths too.” Too bad nothing keeps Molan from her crooked path …
It’s neat how Kong-momo is supposedly teaching a lesson to the girls here but it’s also a subtle lesson to the parents if they would only listen.
When Papa Sheng orders the girls to kneel for the sake of appearing like a strict father, Kong-momo intervenes not to prevent the punishment but to put down cushions so they can kneel for longer. (Minglan comments on this later, how Kong-momo is super prepared at every stage so that even when Papa Sheng scolds his daughters fiercely in order to appear strict so that he can reasonably suggest a more lenient punishment for them in the next breath, Kong-momo doesn’t give him space to do so.)
I just realized that they have to fluff their skirts before kneeling, I guess because otherwise kneeling on your skirts with no slack will ruin the dress? Or make you fall over more easily?
Meanwhile, Papa Sheng is side-eyeing Kong-momo, trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do next. (This almost reminds me of when he side-eyes Minglan post Grandmother’s poisoning to figure out what to do next.)
I think it’s interesting that the drama translates 孽障 (niezhang) as delinquents. I would not have thought to translate it that way but it actually fits perfectly.
She asks if they know their wrongs and they all say yes because that’s what they’ve learned to say (especially after Papa Sheng punished Rulan a million times over for not owning up to her “misdeeds”), but they all secretly feel resentful inside because they don’t think they did anything wrong, and Kong-momo knows that.
Molan is accused of stealing her sister’s thunder and hogging Kong-momo’s time. That’s such a vague thing to be accused of, that it doesn’t seem like a real “sin”. That makes it easy for Molan’s “acknowledgment” to be a subtle “I was just trying to do my best but alas, my sisters are jealous of me” reframing of her crime.
- Kong-momo says in response: “Don't let your smart regard everyone else as fools. You must be aware that the smart man can be ruined by his smarts.”
- She pinpoints one of Molan’s biggest weaknesses, that she thinks she’s smarter than everyone else (including Minglan). That’s what leads to Molan’s downfall in the end, I feel, underestimating Minglan, underestimating her husband, underestimating her servants …
- Kong-momo’s voice drops when she says “Is this the behavior of a grand house?” and I don’t know why but the change in pitch is just really funny to me.
- Molan is also accused of holding bad intentions, which is a vague thesis statement that Kong-momo follows with concrete examples. This is honestly great because one of the big problems Rulan has accusing Molan of anything in particular is that everything she (and her mother) does is implicit and designed to upset her because of their meaning when you read between the lines, rather than because of their explicit meaning, which means it pisses Rulan off but there is nothing she can point to exactly if she wants to tattle to her father. But Kong-momo’s specific examples of the things Molan has said and done draws a clear line to the subtext and why it’s wrong.
- Kong-momo reminds Papa Sheng and Big Madam that they have to treat the children fairly — a bowl of water held levelly. This is an idiom used multiple times in this drama because neither Big Madam nor Papa Sheng is fair; they’re both biased and neither of them care about Minglan!
Rulan is up next! Rulan looks not at all surprised by this.
- Her crimes are pretty straightforward. She pissed off Molan on purpose, and then made it worse on purpose.
- Kong-momo tells Rulan that she needs to change her temper. While this is true, I think Rulan ultimately never changes her temper and merely chooses a life for herself in which she can get away with that.
- I know Papa Sheng is probably supposed to be looking at Kong-momo and it’s just the camera angle but it really looks like Papa Sheng is side-eyeing Big Madam while Kong-momo criticizes Rulan (because Rulan’s faults are all Big Madam’s faults as well).
- Big Madam looks like she’s going to protest when Kong-momo says Rulan should be punished more heavily, and Rulan does too, but she acknowledges her error. She learns from past experience! And also Kong-momo is much fairer than Papa Sheng was.
And then, it’s poor Minglan.
- Kong-momo asks if she feels like she didn’t do anything wrong, and Minglan gets this look on her face like “I’m not quite sure what the right answer is here …” because she feels “yes” but knows that she can’t say it.
- Kong-momo makes the point that all of the siblings are tied together by their family connections. They achieve glory together or meet their demise together.
- This is a running theme in this drama, not because the drama is making a point about the importance of family but because the drama is underscoring the importance in historical China of a woman’s “maiden family” after she gets married. Big Madam relies on the prestige of her family; Minglan’s disadvantage (per everyone else) after she marries Gu Tingye is the lack of prestige of her own family.
- I have seen people complain about the end of this drama, why Molan gets to join in on the “happy ending” the rest of the Shengs get even though she actively tried to sabotage it. I think it ties back to this concept, that even if she is a terrible person who really did try to harm Minglan, societal perception of her status affects the societal perception of every other member of her family so they can’t afford for he to be too ostracized and to suffer too much because that would imply that the Sheng family is weak.
- Minglan looks like she is learning so much from this experience.
Even though Kong-momo said that Rulan should be punished more than her sisters, she gives everyone the same punishment of 10 “hand beatings”.
Concubine Lin tries to intervene (essentially trying to gain a virtuous reputation for herself and Molan), but is fully and gloriously Shut Down by Kong-momo. I don’t even have any commentary to add, really, I just love how she takes down the idea that Minglan shouldn’t be punished (she just explained to Papa Sheng why Minglan needed to be punished or the whole thing wouldn’t work). Then when Concubine Lin over-claims everything is her fault in a way that was designed to emphasize she was least at fault, Kong-momo shuts that down too, and then implicitly criticizes the Sheng household for giving a concubine so much power that she speaks when it’s not her place to do so. She even manages to achieve the very rare instance of Papa Sheng chiding Concubine Lin.
Side note — both Papa Sheng and Concubine Lin mention in this scene that Minglan is sickly and want to spare her for that reason. Canonically in the novel, Minglan was bedridden for a long period of time when they first came to the capital (ostensibly because she was depressed from the death of her mother; actually because the transmigrated Minglan was depressed she ended up in the body of a tiny child from an unfavored concubine in ancient China). In the drama, she was bedridden for a short while, but they didn’t show her being as sick for as long because there was a timeskip.
You see the different way each of the Lan sister reacts to their punishment.
Molan starts crying loudly from her very first strike, whining throughout. She’s never been punished before, and she’s also been taught by her mother to broadcast her grievances and pains as loudly as possible to get sympathy..
Rulan cries, but quietly, because she knows from experience that her father doesn’t care about her.
Minglan doesn’t cry, because there’s no point.

Scene - aftermath of the punishment!

This conversation between Minglan and Papa Sheng is kind of heartbreaking. He is her father, yet she looks so surprised and pleased that he is actually speaking to her because it’s such a rare occurrence. She doesn’t even make eye contact with him for most of the conversation.
Papa Sheng says that he was enlightened by Kong-momo’s comment that all the children should be treated as a level bowl of water. Too bad that enlightenment doesn’t last longer than the space of a single conversation.
When he says that he will be there to stand up for her if she is wronged, she has such shining eyes and looks like she’s about to cry, looks like she’s full of hope, but she tells him that everything is fine. The days are past when she was a child who believed her father could and would fix things for her.
And then Papa Sheng is called away by Changfeng, and once again forgets Minglan’s existence.
Xiaotao: “Master hasn’t even spoken more than two words to you and he’s summoned away again.” Minglan: “It’s no loss. The time I needed him is already passed.” This exchange is so completely and devastatingly heartbreaking. It speaks so much to the experiences that Minglan has had, how much she has been forced to grow and mature since she was a child. Compare Minglan’s and Papa Sheng’s interactions in this scene versus the scene in episode 1 where she approaches him to coax him to come by Concubine Wei’s rooms, back when she mistakenly thought he could bring about justice for her and her mother’s mistreatment. Just a decade later, and she no longer has any hope, faith or trust in her father.
I also see this scene as a parallel to the scene post-Grandmother’s poisoning where Minglan takes her mask off in front of her father, communicates her contempt, and he breaks down sobbing after a metaphorical struggle with a go piece. Maybe parallel is not the word that I’m looking for — to me, they’re like bookends. Episode 1, we get a Minglan full of hope. In this episode, while Minglan has known for a while that she cannot count on her father for anything, this scene is when she communicates that to the audience. And the scene later on after Grandmother is poisoned, is when she explicitly communicates her lack of faith to Papa Sheng himself and he realizes how much he failed as a father.

Scene - Big Madam makes bad decisions!

Meanwhile, Big Madam is off completely squandering every drop of goodwill she gained from Kong-momo’s intervention. Big Madam has such poor judgment. It’s very frustrating to watch sometimes. This scene is a perfect example.
Kong-momo left her with the high ground and a favorably-disposed Papa Sheng, and she immediately wants to have Concubine Lin beaten. Papa Sheng shows up, and sort of implies that Concubine Lin is at fault but she shouldn’t be punished before the children, which is a much better reaction than usual (when he would be flipping tables at her doing this at all). He’s not even telling her not to punish Concubine Lin, just not to do it here and now, and Big Madam takes umbrage at having to pick a place to discipline. She should take the “win” when she can get it, but instead, she insists on pushing it. (Later on this episode, Liu-mama points out like three different ways she could have de-escalated this situation if she were using her brain.)
And then Big Madam calls Changfeng an “oaf born to a concubine” and refers to Concubine Lin and her children as “you lot of concubine and illegitimate children”, which is exactly designed to piss off Papa Sheng (himself the son of a concubine). Hello! She knows that kind of language pisses him off, and as she tells Liu-mama later on, she when it’s all over she realizes that she should not have said that kind of thing when she’s always chiding Rulan for saying such things and pissing off Papa Sheng. And yet she can’t help herself in the moment!
It’s because ultimately when push comes to shove, Big Madam buys into it. She firmly believes that as a woman born to a legitimate wife, she is better than any concubine-born siblings (if she had any) and as the legitimate wife of Papa Sheng, she is better than his concubines and her children are better than his concubines’ children. And because she lives in a household where she doesn’t get the respect due to her station, respect that she feels she deserves, it upsets her even more and she is not rational about it. Compare her to Minglan, who later on also has to fight for the respect owed to her as the legitimate wife of the Marquis and who never lets anyone diminish her authority. The difference is Minglan never thinks this makes her a better person. (See how she treats Rong’er, for example.)
Big Madam says this is for Sheng household, but Papa Sheng calls her bluff. “You’re just venting out your own grudge.” And he’s right. Concubine Lin doesn’t care about the Sheng household, and she prioritizes her personal interests and grudges above those of the Sheng household every time. In contrast, Big Madam can never separate her own interests/grudges from the Sheng household’s needs. She thinks that anything she personally wants or hates is what is good for the Sheng household. (I think we can make the argument that Minglan’s weakness later on is that she has the opposite problem. She makes decisions in the best interests of her household but Gu Tingye’s biggest complaint is that she doesn’t appear to have any personal stake, that she’s like a robot with how rationally she approaches every situation and doesn’t let herself feel jealousy or desire or petty grudges or any personal or selfish interests as she gets concubines for her husband and thinks of him as husband [position] rather than husband [affectionate].)
In the scene later on this episode, Big Madam and Liu-mama characterize this as “A great chessboard and a total loss.” She fucked up her advantage!

Scene - Minglan and Grandmother are cute!

Grandmother lovingly takes care of Minglan’s wounds, while Minglan waxes poetic about how Kong-momo handled things.
Minglan: “This skill of patience in grinding water isn’t something everyone can do. Someone like Big Madam has never achieved it in her life.”
- I think it’s probably clear from context but what the subtitles translate as “this skill of patience in grinding water” is 水磨忍耐的功夫 (shuimorennaidegongfu) which I might translate more along the lines of “This skill of patience, like a watermill grinding grain.” 功夫 (gongfu) means skill. 水磨 (shuimo) means, according to Pleco, either “levigate; polish with waterstone” or “grind grain, etc., fine while adding water”, so basically the very slow process of using water to achieve results. Unsurprisingly, 水磨工夫 (shuimogongfu) means “patient and precise work; painstaking work”, while 忍耐 (rennai) means “exercise patience (or restraint); restrain one”. 忍 (ren) in particular means to endure / bear with something (in addition to patience). The particular skill that Minglan praises is (as I would translate it) the skill of patience and endurance as you very slowly and painstakingly tediously achieve your ends. And this is exactly Minglan’s MO in the future.
- This is great coming off the prior scene. Minglan very correctly pins Big Madam’s fault from just now even though Minglan wasn’t aware of what was going on. If only Big Madam had exercised patience and restraint, things would have gone a lot better for her.
- Minglan, on the other hand, has great patience which is why she kicks fucking ass over the next 40 episodes.

Scene - Molan whines!

Compare Molan’s whiny dramatics with Minglan’s calm excitement from the prior scene.
I’ve had some thoughts before about how entitlement is not necessarily a bad thing. Feeling entitled to certain things means you expect them and are willing to make demands and take action if you don’t receive them. When I started at a fairly prestigious [grad school], I thought it was interesting that some of my classmates who came from prestigious undergrads clearly felt entitled to a certain calibre of education where I (having come from a less prestigious undergrad) did not. I was actually impressed at how they expected high-quality classes with a certain breadth of coverage (and rightfully so, given the amounts we were paying in tuition) and would advocate for themselves if this was not provided. Whereas I was used to a “you get what you get, or you get over it” attitude towards my educational institution.
I bring this up because Molan clearly feels entitled to time and attention from her father. She is upset because she was punished, she is upset because Concubine Lin was scolded, and she is upset that her father has not come to visit. She feels entitled to him coming to visit and comfort her. But is that really so much to ask for? If Papa Sheng were a decent father, he would shower all of his children with attention and affection. It’s not wrong for her to expect that from him. It’s just wrong that he’s so biased about it.
And honestly, when Papa Sheng says that at Weiruixuan, he couldn’t show his bias for Molan in front of Kong-momo because it would look bad, it makes me think less of him. He shouldn’t be biased for any of his children but if he really did think that Molan did nothing wrong, he should speak up for her without a care for his “name”.

Scene - Minglan and Grandmother continue talking!

It’s interesting that Minglan and Grandmother discuss here that Papa Sheng isn’t truly fooled by Concubine Lin, but rather that he willingly chooses to believe this lie. They discuss how because of that, Kong-momo doesn’t try to “wake” him from his fake slumber, but merely shows him why he should be impartial anyways. To me, this exchange foreshadows the comment Big Madam makes when Concubine Lin dies, that Papa Sheng willingly believed in Concubine Lin’s lies, which was why he was so betrayed and vengeful when Concubine Lin herself exposed those lies so he could no longer pretend.
It’s an interesting observation because on the one hand I definitely buy into the idea that Papa Sheng is complicit and willingly falling for Concubine Lin’s wiles, and I think this bears out in the canonical events of the show. (In the novel, he isn’t as beguiled by Concubine Lin and is actually fairly rational and reasonable in how he handles affairs related to Concubine Lin; the novel doesn’t have as compelling a narrative arc as a result.) On the other hand, I’m not sure I buy that the betrayal by Concubine Lin (forcing him to wake from the dream) incited murderous intent in him, because I don’t think the show has given any sign that he has murder in him, no matter what his other faults may be. (When we get to the arc around Concubine Lin’s death, I will present my evidence, as observed by my sister who wasn’t even watching the show, that Minglan actually fully arranged for Concubine Lin’s death to the very end.)
I love that inviting Kong-momo was really all just so Grandmother could get Minglan some lessons on how to be a badass. Minglan is so cute.
Grandmother says now one of the recurring themes of the drama (a point I’ve already made re: Rulan), that Minglan learns these lessons well because she’s experienced the bitterness of life but Big Madam’s life as a child was too good, she was spoiled too much, so she never learned forbearance or patience, which is why now, she is repeatedly screwed over by Concubine Lin. “If a person’s life is too smooth, they will go blind and deaf.”

Then we get a scene where Big Madam and Liu-mama discuss how much Big Madam fucked up, which I will not provide any commentary on because I already pulled most of the interesting quotes / commentary from this scene into my comments on the previous scene while Big Madam was fucking up.

Scene - Minglan and Auntie Wei discuss!

Minglan is of course the only one of the sisters actually transcribing her books. But even she is cheating and having Xiaotao help her. At least, I think so? It’s a little hard for me to parse, but Xiaotao looks like she’s holding a calligraphy brush.
Auntie Wei is such a good person, she so genuinely wants to protect Minglan and cares about her so much. She’s so firm on protecting her sister’s flesh and blood, and she may not always know the best way to do it, but she cares, which is more than can be said about most of Minglan’s family. (Other than Grandmother, obviously, Grandmother loves Minglan most.)
Minglan is so cute as she plots with Auntie Wei.
OK, is she copying a whole book 50 times (or whatever) (which, frankly, sounds like an impossible task to accomplish in one night) or just a few pages from the book (because it kind of looks like Xiaotao is holding up a fairly small stack of papers if that’s supposed to be like 20 copies, giving Minglan 30 copies left)?

I don’t have any thoughts on the remainder of the episode. Auntie Wei leaves, kicking off Minglan’s trap. Kong-mom leaves, and you get the Lan sisters lined up very cutely to bid her goodbye. And of course we get a scene with Asshole Father (who is still a dick) and Gu Tingye (who is still a sarcastic shithead).

And that's 4k words on Episode 10! Episode 11 has one of my favorite scenes in the drama, looking forward to it!