The Story of Minglan (知否? 知否? 应是绿肥红瘦, Zhī Fǒu? Zhī Fǒu? Yìng Shì Lǜ Féi Hóng Shòu) is a 2018 Historical Slice of Life Chinese Series starring Zhao Li Ying and Feng Shao Feng, loosely based on the novel of the same name by Guan Xin Ze Luan.
Sheng Minglan is The Un-Favourite of her family, mistreated by her step-mothers and bullied by her half-sisters. She plans to avenge her biological mother's murder, and to succeed has to pretend to be less intelligent than she really is. She eventually marries and falls in love with Gu Tingye, who has his own family troubles.
The series can be legally watched on YouTube
with English subtitles.
This series contains examples of:
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Zhao Zongquan becomes the new emperor, despite being only a distant Imperial relative, after the Prince of Yan's failed rebellion is put down by his militia, with the help of Gu Tingye.
- Batman Gambit: Minglan's favourite strategy for dealing with Lin Qinshuang and Molan. In order to destroy them, she convinces them she stands a chance of marrying well; from there, they gleefully violate all bounds of decency to steal her potential husband for Molan, and all Minglan has to do is expose them.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Ruichu, a palace maid, volunteers to carry the emperor's decree conferring Zhao Zongquan as the Crown Prince and his personal military seal out of the palace, in the middle of a revolt by the Prince of Yan's soldiers, all because the Emperor did not punish her for forgetting to bring him his tea. She's *thirteen*, and she dies in the attempt, leaving Minglan to give the decree to Zongquan.
- Beta Couple: Gu Tingye's manservant Shitou and Minglan's maidservant Xiaotao.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lin Qinshuang pretends to be gentle and weak. She's really cruel and vicious, and is partly responsible for Wei Shuyi's death.
- Similarly Madam Qin, hiding a vindictive personality behind a patient soft spoken facade. She even had Gu Tingye fooled for years.
- In a sense, Minglan. Her whole family and most of society believes she's a quiet, unassuming concubine's daughter. Only Gu Tingye and her enemies understand she's a top-tier schemer, as patient as she is ruthless.
- Blackmail Backfire: Gu Tingye's aunts try to force Minglan to help them by using their knowledge of her prior almost-engagement to He Hongwen. Their attempt falls flat because Minglan just gets annoyed and leaves, and when they try to reveal the information to Gu Tingye he reveals he was fully aware and didn't care, and is instead much angrier they tried to blackmail his wife.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Minglan gives a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to her father after the matter of her grandmother’s poisoning, when he remarks that her personality is actually very different from what he’d thought, informing him that she's had to fake a docile personality her entire life because he is a singularly useless father who never protected her or her late mother.
- The Chessmaster: Gu Tingye, who orchestrated both the collapse of Minglan's engagement to He Hongwen and the reveal of Rulan's dalliance with Wen Yanjing (the former while he was out of the country at war, no less!) in order to trick the Sheng family into letting him marry Minglan. Minglan is forced to admit she's flattered he went to such extreme lengths for her.
- Coattail-Riding Relative: The Kangs come from illustrious stock, but the Kang men are so mediocre in accomplishment that they have to depend on Madam Kang's maiden family the Wangs and her sister's marital Sheng family for any actual power. Trying to latch onto niece Minglan's marital Gu family blows up in Madam Kang's face.
- The Gu family becomes this to Gu Tingye after he ascends in the new Emperor's favour. They are even forced to admit that they stole his mother's inheritance and have been funding their lifestyles with it for years, in direct defiance of his father's will.
- Cool Old Lady: Old Madam Sheng is the only adult in the Sheng household with any real spine or wisdom, and a relentless Deadpan Snarker on top of that.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: The dying emperor, being held captive by a claimant to the throne, writes his succession decree in blood.
- Deadpan Snarker: Gu Tingye. Constantly.Changbai: Can't that mouth of yours say something good?Tingye: *mimes being unable to speak*
- Death by Childbirth: Minglan's mother. Unusually, it's not an accident but a cold-blooded murder by Lin Qinshuang, who concealed medical advice from the pregnant Wei Shuyi and then sent away or impaired anyone who might help the poor woman give birth safely.
- Death of a Child: Gu Tingye's son by Manniang died during the years he and Manniang were on the run because she was too paranoid to fetch a doctor until it was too late.
- Driven to Suicide: Madam Qin, faced with Gun Tingye and Minglan's decisive triumph over her years of scheming, locks herself in the ancestral hall and sets it on fire, screaming about how much she hates the Gu family.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Good-natured slacker Rulan is the Foolish to Minglan's Responsible.
- Among the Sheng brothers, greedy Changfeng is the Foolish to diligent Changbai's Responsible, until he grows up and chooses domestic contentment over jockeying for power.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Gu Tingye offers to sabotage Qi Heng's engagement on his behalf (and make an enemy of his very powerful prospective father-in-law) so that Qi Heng can marry Minglan and spare her the humiliation of being jilted. Qi Heng declines.
- Karma Houdini: Sheng Hong. The lives of his mother, wife, concubines, and children would all have been immeasurably better if he ever bothered thinking of someone other than himself, but other than a couple of nasty speeches thrown his way, he suffers no actual comeuppance.
- Missing Mom: Minglan's mother, Wei Shuyi, died when Minglan was young. So did Gu Tingye’s.
- Never My Fault: Manniang, who stridently blames Gu Tingye for their breakup and the death of their son, despite the fact that he kicked her out because he found out she was planning to sell all his assets and abandon him, and their son died because she kidnapped him for leverage and then made no effort to seek treatment when he got sick.
- Nice to the Waiter: Minglan and Rulan are both highly protective of their maidservants. This stands in contrast to Molan, who doesn't care when her first maids are beaten to death for their part in her plot to marry Liang Han and pushes her replacement maid to betray her because she pays her poorly and won't let her leave her service to get married.
- Social Climber: Molan, who is desperate to marry into a noble family despite repeated warnings that she will be outmatched there.
- Inverted with Rulan, who would rather marry beneath her so the Sheng family can boss her in-laws around.
- The Un-Favourite: Minglan is this for the Sheng family, while Gu Tingye is this for his father.
- Vicariously Ambitious: Madam Qin's plotting all stems from her desire to make her son marquis. As he and his wife repeatedly point out, he has no interest in the title and all she's ever done is force him to war with the brother he loves.
- Wham Line: Throughout her final confrontation with Lin Qinshuang, Minglan remains silent as Qinshuang crows about how, despite her loss of favor, she and Molan succeeded in stealing Minglan's very eligible prospective fiancé. All it takes is a single line from Minglan to make Qinshuang realise Minglan orchestrated the entire thing and Molan's marriage will make her miserable. The exchange ends with Lin Qinshuang screaming in despair.Minglan: I never thought of marrying into the House of Liang.
- Wicked Stepmother:
- Minglan has two: her father’s wife, Wang Ruofu, and his favorite concubine, Lin Qinshuang, though the former is a subversion. Wang Ruofu has a temper and favors her own children, but she is never malicious towards Minglan and the two have an overall cordial relationship by the end.
- Gu Tingye has Madam Qin, his father’s third (successive) wife, who constantly plots against him.
- Averted with Minglan, who treats her stepdaughter Rong much better than the girl's biological mother ever did. Her concern for Rong's future is actually one of the main factors in Gu Tingye falling for Minglan.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Lin Qinshuang, Sheng Molan, and Zhu Manniang all use crying, guilt-tripping, and fainting to get their ways.
