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]
In order to save her mother, Nan Yan, a "round" girl who is obsessed with…
Du Xinyue, Gu Ning, Luo Dan, and Ai Moli are four best friends, each with…
Imperial Princess Yuxi tumbled off her horse, suffering a severe head injury that left her…
With his engagement at hand, the most terrifying and legendary person of the legal world,…
The master once said that Cui Xiaoxiao, who has the “Ten Injuries” destiny, was actually…
Shi Han was lost when she was a child and she returned to her biological…
View Comments
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 [spoiler] he saved her from the river and then she immediately recognized him under all that beard and called him "uncle" but she was quite delighted instead of doing it ostensibly as she used to. And of course she does that funny Minglan thing when she tells his cohort that she "hasn't heard of him ever before but has always admired him" and it totally went over the other's guy head lol. And you can tell how amused but also exasperated Male Lead is with her, coz she's so adorable and smart, but also always putting on a perfect front, always acts sweet when she wants something (like asking him to save her servants: "Oh, btw can you save my servants too, pretty please *doe eyes"? I wouldn't want them to freeze in that water!" ("Yeah, so you want me to freeze, woman?" I imagine him saying.[/spoiler]