A pessimistic and negative daughter of a concubine living in the ancient times thought – since life is so difficult, why should one invest serious effort in struggling to live.
The life of an ancient noble woman is often determined and controlled by her family. In addition, one’s actions often implicates one’s entire family – thus, it is fairly common to see an unexpected calamity result in suffering borne by one’s whole family. Managing to live a good and successful life while retaining one’s dignity is simply too difficult to achieve.
Ah, living in the ancient times is simply too dangerous – we should all just sleep till we die.
[Ebook] [Audiobook] [Hồng phai xanh thắm][Eng Translation (Chapters 1-20) (Chapters 1-26) (Chapters 27-on) ][Drama with Eng Subs]
Standing at 220 Chapters, 知否?知否？应是绿肥红瘦 is a serious contender in the Clan Intrigue and slice-of-life category. In the novel, we explore how a modern soul gets transported into the body of a small baby born to a concubine who died in childbirth. Despite being extremely pessimistic initially, Ming Lan, the female lead, slowly gathers her courage and will to live a good and happy life in the ancient times whilst overcoming the inherent limitations of being born to a concubine who wasn’t greatly favoured when she was alive.
With her wits and her wisdom, she painstakingly carves out a peaceful life through innumerable family machinations and manages to land herself a husband whose initial feelings of respect and good inclinations gradually morph into understanding and love. In this novel, the male lead and female lead are both too logical to fall head over heels in love, and thus we slowly see their feelings for each other gradually develop as they both undergo through numerous obstacles and confront each other with their insecurities and unhappiness.
That said, there are three male characters in the book, and the author spends a fair amount of time developing the three male characters, so do not jump on the wrong ship! Ultimately, although many C readers have commented that the identity of the male lead was rather surprising, I think if one takes a step back from the shipping wars and reflect on the book, it is not difficult to understand why and how the male lead, was, in actuality, the best and most perfect fit that Ming Lan could find.
This book also touches quite a fair bit on family ties, and I absolutely love that the one and only incident whereby Ming Lan loses it and goes crazily angry is when her grandmother was involved. Her love for her grandmother who raised her and showered her with all sorts of care and attention is very touching, especially when contrasted against the strained and tenuous familial relations between the grandmother and her stepson.
I love this novel. There’s a lot of drama but it’s offset by how idyllically it’s told. Like, they would sit around having tea parties, and though the girls throw snide remarks around, they’re still doing it over tea and calling one another jie mei lol. Minglan is also quite adorbs and hilarious. She’s full of tricks up her sleeves but she plays the fool so well. I agree wholeheartedly with the author on her male lead. He’s really the only one who knows Minglan for who she is. The others only ever knew her perfect facade. He may be an unconventional and thus unpopular choice, because he has a “history” but he’s real, and their relationship is real, and I quite ship them.
Alliance chart: Grandma is awesome, Dad’s pretty useless, so is Big Mom and 3rd bro, Aunt Lin is a fox, 4th sis is a fox, Big sis and 2nd bro are awesome, 5th sis is frustratingly endearing, and 7th bro is adorbs. You’ll have to wade through the extended family yourself.
Hi hamster428 (fellow clan intrigue reader)!! I still haven’t gotten around to reading Generational Marriage, the 400+ chapters are so daunting :3 but I will get around to it someday when I’m finally feeling courageous enough. I do agree about the tone of the book though, the only few times I tensed up during the novel happened largely after Ming Lan got married. Before that, most of the tricks and drama were way too easy for her to handle. I agree, she’s very smart at managing to “hide” her shine, so it’s really nice to see her husband identify and recognising her for she really is (albeit it all started by accident). I do think one of her other suitors did understand (to a certain extent) how precious she was though, which was why he liked her so very much. He just wasn’t persistent enough for her, nor was his family suitable for her. But yes, I really ship the husband and her together!!
Ah, Grandma – I love Grandma!! I’m glad she found Minglan (just like how Minglan found her). In their family where the Dad and Mum are so useless, I’m glad that she had such a filial granddaughter willing to go to such great lengths for her during her twilight years. I love 7th bro! 2nd bro is… too deadpan and serious for my liking, although I do like his wife. Now that I think about it, I don’t really like her family all that much……
Hi dramasbooksandtea! Generational Marriage isn’t going to be a breeze like this one. I feel like 知否 is much more “breathable” whereas you need to get ready for the gloomy atmosphere in GM -_- Have you read 盛世茶香? Its author is known for her long clan intrigues. I found the story there kinda cliche and long-winded, but it has a strong OTP which makes all the difference for me when it comes to romance novels.
OMG I actually really really like the 2nd lead in 知否. He has a good heart and is so in love with her. In any other novels, their 青梅竹马 rapport would’ve been the end game. Too bad life happens. And I feel sh1tty for him, but at the same time if he has that much trouble to just marry her, then how is he going to protect her for the rest of their lives?
I love how Grandma cares so much for Minglan even though they’re not even blood related. She cares for a son who isn’t hers and then grandchildren who aren’t hers. And what does she gets in return?! Ugh I just get stabbity whenever I think of the stupidity in that household.
2nd bro? I love him. haha he says the darnest things with that deadpan face. And yeah, his wife is great. More alliance for Minglan! Basically anyone who doesn’t backstab Minglan is on my good list.
Definitely more breathing room in this one. this novel doesnt have a large up and down and is quite smooth sailing for the female lead.
my fave is definitely the youngest bro!! Hes so cute and innocent and smart at the same time.
I just finished the part where the male lead and the female lead get married. I kind of want to see the 4th sister have a terrible marriage, just cause shes so dang annoying.
Im shipping female and male lead. Esp when the male lead gets upset that the female lead doesnt get jealous about his child from another woman.
I’m on 60 out of 405 of the audiobook, when my question is, when is the male lead going to appear???
Basing on the previous comments, I’m already striking off the two other guys that appeared.
@hamster428 Ah, I have not been able to bring myself to read such long books, I’m currently managing 200 chapters with some difficulty (short attention span, you see), and clan intrigue books are always so long!! Strong OTP? Now you’re talking!! haha I can overlook many flaws of the book for the sake of a strong and awesome OTP.
I agree with the second male lead, especially when I read the epilogue – it’s really sad but sometimes duty and societal restrictions comes before love, and in his case, I simply feel that he’s someone who really is unable to truly disregard his family and follow his own heart. His ending is really quite bittersweet.
The Grandma Minglan duo is super duper awesome! I could overlook Minglan’s father the first half of the book because he was a rather inoffensive character (mildly annoying, like Minglan’s 嫡母), but he really made me want to stab him during that incident when Minglan had to step up to protect her grandma all by herself because he just wanted to cover the incident for his “reputation”.
@ serendipity I agree, Minglan’s life is really smoothsailing (she’s way too smart), and even after she got married and the stakes were upped, she still experienced a rather smooth-sailing life… which makes for an easy read. Haha I love how the male lead connivingly managed to trap Minglan into marrying him, had to give him points for effort!
@ 11thagent Wow, there are 405 chapters in total? I’m not very sure since I read the novel (as opposed to listening to the audiobook), but I do recall that the author took a fair amount of time to set up the story and developed their romance rather slowly – being a clan intrigue book, there is a rather evenly spread focus on her family, her growing up process, and the numerous relationships between the characters. (: Sorry this isn’t much help!
@dramasbooksandtea
The male lead has finally appeared, and yeah, he is rather unconventional. I had my guesses when there were rumors about him earlier, but I had REALLY hoped it wasn’t him. Eh, who knows, maybe my impressions of him will be better later on.
Your comment about her family really makes me worried, because right now, I don’t really hate her father. At this point, he isn’t that bad, compared to many other ancient fathers I read about before. He seems reasonable, and after his first mistake of over spoiling his mistress, it appeared that he learned from his mistake. But you guys keep mentioning how Minglan’s father is frustrating, so now I’m worried.
My biggest concern right now, is that I will hopefully come to like the male lead, because right now, he’s not doing so great. I’ve had great books ruined for me because I didn’t like the male lead, and I really don’t want the hours I spent listening to this be wasted.
@dramasbooksandtea: no worries, I have the attention span of a goldfish and I skim to make it through some of these books. “Oooh OTP spazziness… blah blah blah… OTP! why u so petfect?! … blah blah blah… oooh butterfly…”
@11thagent: unlike dramasbooksandtea, my fury was directed at other more infuriating ppl so her father was safe from my wrath. How I wanted to stab a certain aunt!
I like the male lead and his interactions with Minglan. They just have sparks! My fav has to be when
@11thagent I agree, the male lead is rather unconventional because of his messy past, but I must say that I feel that perhaps he was the best fit for her – because he saw Minglan’s true personality emerge in the oddest circumstances, he knows who she really is beneath her perfect facade and has the patience to continually try to pierce that perfect veil. I also like that he has the least complicated family (in that he doesn’t really care for them), so Minglan has a lot lesser to deal with in terms of him getting potentially caught between his loved ones and her. I hope the male lead grows on you, so that the story isn’t ruined for you, but to each her own, haha!
Mmmm… I must say I only found the father’s way of doing various things very chilling, it’s as though he doesn’t really understand familial love, everything is motivated by his personal gain – even his subsequent treatment of his mistress speaks volumes about his viewpoint.
@dramasbooksandtea
Yes, the father’s treatment of some of his family members were calculated, but there was one thing that he had, and that was his love for his children. Yes, he want personal gain from those marriages, but he wasn’t about to marry off his kids to people who had a messy family or terrible personality. His upmost concern was whether or not they would suffer from the marriage. I’m not saying some of them didn’t, the oldest daughter suffered a bit, but in the end she was happy. The only time the personal gain outweighed his love was when the male lead came knocking on his door. However, even then, he checked the male lead out first to see if he was still that rebellious playboy. I truly believed that if the male lead showed signs of being unsuitable, no matter how much personal gain the father would have reaped from the marriage, he would have refuse.
In general, compared to many other fathers I read, he is (sadly) one of the better ones. Both as an ambitious government official as well as a father.
@11thagent
Have you finished reading the book? Hopefully the male lead did grow on you, at least to the point where you didn’t feel like you wasted your time reading the book! Ah, whilst he does seem somewhat nice to his children, I do feel that his love for Ming Lan was sadly extremely limited. When Ming Lan had a hard time, he didn’t make any effort to help make her life easier, and he was often blinded by his love for the children born by his favourite concubine. He did love Mo Lan and his second son though. That said, he was an inoffensive dad, like you said – he wasn’t particularly good to them, but he wasn’t nasty either.
@dramasbooksandtea
Yep I finished it XD, and he did grew on me.
Yeah, his love is limited, but that’s largely due to her being raised by Grandma’s side the entire time and that her mother was no longer there to help build that relationship. I still think that if the male lead had continued his questionable ways, the father would definitely reject the proposal.
I found his treatment of Grandma too much, but at the same time it’s realistic. It’s not like he didn’t feel bad or wasn’t moved when Mi Lan said that Grandma raised and paved his road for him. Not everyone feels real love for those who raised them, even if they are their actual parents. I suppose he is on one side of the ongoing theme in this novel: “is blood relation the most important thing in a family?”.
Eldest brother was with Mi Lan in believing otherwise (even if he convinced his father through different reasoning). The main lead’s eldest daughter chooses to side with Mi Lan over her actual mother and shows love for her half-brother. Other family members love and pretty much worship Grandma.
At least the father wasn’t like the father in Chu Wang Fei. Now that one has similarities to this father, with how he loves his concubine and the main character’s mom was killed by the concubine. In Chu Wang Fei, that father knew all the bad things his concubine did, and pretty much turned a blind eye to it all. In this novel, the father was really pissed, and was seriously preparing to punish the concubine forever. If it wasn’t for her convincing him that she had no intention to kill Mi Lan’s mother and that the legal wife had a hand in it, she would have never been favored again.
Can someone post a detail or brief character guide ? It sounds interesting and I hope someone would translate it as I can’t read or understand it.
I rather like Princess weiYang and chu wang fei. Listen to the audiobook until chapter 113 then skip through the rest.
I know this might be a bit late to ask, but can anyone explain to me what is the ‘messy past’ of the male lead? My Chinese is horrible, and I have been reading with gg trans. TT_TT. It just keeps giving hints here and there, I’m so confusedddddddddddddd.
Managed to finish listening to the audiobook. I agreed with 11thagent that the ML grew on me.
Saiamaru,
@JL thanks a lot for the answer! My understanding is not so far off. lol. Despite the fact that I really don’t like his past, I kinda like the ML. Hope that he will continue to grow on me too.
I really really enjoyed this book and the characters so much that I was reluctant for it to end. LOL. Does anyone have any similar recommendations?
Other than the first wife (and her side of the family especially nasty Kang Yima), Lin Yiniang and Mo Lan … the rest of the family are not that bad and some of them are pretty awesome and lovable. LOL … Love love the grandmother and her relationship with Ming Lan. So heartwarming. The grandmother is really such an awesome lady.
Personally I felt that no matter who Ming Lan ended up with … she would still have made the best of things and overcome whatever obstacles that come her way and end up having her spouse/in laws cherish her in the end although she probably would have to do a lot of pretending and continue to tip toe around in her life. Fortunately she ended up with a guy who because of his background and experience in life is able to give her the status/freedom to deal with a lot of nuisance in their life after marriage and be herself.
I enjoy reading this novel till the last chapter, the geges in the novel are very loveable, I jumped onto the wrong ship at first lol, who can resist such a cute and sincere boy, but when the ML revealed I’m not that disappointed, since I can see how much effort the ML poured to get her haha, and their relationship after marriage only get stronger and stronger
Of course I love the most the cute relationship between Minglan and Grandma
@exupery10 no you’re not the only one, I don’t want it to end lol
I’ve been browsing this site and can’t help commenting on this book. This was one of my first c-novels ever and I can’t say I’ve ever found one that captivated me as much. The audio book is just over 400 episodes and it had me engaged the whole time.
Thanks for posting it (and making me go back and re-listen to the whole thing again 😛 )
Can someone tell me the ML’s name in a spoiler, pretty please? >.<
one question about the male lead….he has 2 kids right? ….are both of them alive?…who was raising them when he was gone? ….also do his kids like the mc ?
@ bluew
The male lead has two kids, and both of them are alive. His mistress left the female child with the male lead’s family whilst the child was still young, so the MC had opportunities to interact with the child and influence her positively without much interference from the mistress. So yes, the female child did like the MC.
Unfortunately, however, the mistress kept the male child by her side and poisoned his thoughts by continuously speaking ill of the MC. As a result, the male child grew up hating the MC, which was the main reason why the male lead didn’t allow the male child to return to the home of the male lead, as he feared that his male child would harm the MC and her children.
@ DOH
@DOH
@dramasbooksandtea
Wow, what will happen to the son in the end? Will they just let him stay with the mistress till the end of the story? And the mistress? She seems evil, what will happen to her?
What is the relationship between the MC and the hubbies family?….like step mom,
aunts, ucles ,cousins etc?
What kind of status does the male lead have?
Is he from a merchant family?
I’m listening to the drama now, it seems all the Shu born daughters wont marry as well as the Di daughters…
Hi. Been reading recommended books from this site which has been really helpful. Wanted to make recommendations of my own but not sure how to do it since it seems like a private blog. Anyhow, if anyone wants more of slice of life clan plotting like this one, can consider 何为贤妻。 it is almost like ming lan from 知否。。。but without the childhood segment. What’s nice is it’s rather short 100+ chapters and has an unbelievably happy ending
.
Well, just in… fresh from Princess Agent C-Drama, Zanilia Zhou will star as Minglan in C-Drama for 2018 release.
https://www.avirtualvoyage.net/2017/05/zhao-li-ying-confirms-new-drama-the-legend-of-the-concubines-daughter-ming-lan.html
I’m re-reading this again but – is this the only novel the author has written? Or are there others under another pen name?
https://www.shushengbar.net/xing-han-can-lan-xing-ji-zhi-zai-love-like-the-galaxy-%e6%98%9f%e6%b1%89%e7%81%bf%e7%83%82-%e5%b9%b8%e7%94%9a%e8%87%b3%e5%93%89-by-%e5%85%b3%e5%bf%83%e5%88%99%e4%b9%b1-guan-xin-ze-luan/