[Recap] Story of Minglan Episode 31-35

Title: Story of Minglan (知否 知否 应是绿肥红瘦)

# of episodes: 73

Release date: December 25, 2018

Where to watch: Viki (eng sub); Youtube (raw)

Episode 31

After punishing Molan for injuring Minglan’s face, the crime was quickly forgiven. Molan’s mom pushes the dad to find Molan a suitable husband. He tells her that he has eyes on a smart and well-versed scholar. Except, this scholar is not from a well-known family nor is he rich.

Knowing that her dad is biased toward Molan and the Lins, Minglan realizes that she has to step up her plan if she is to expose the Lins for their wrongdoings. Anxious that Minglan and the Liangs are getting along so well, Molan’s mom tells her that she needs to make a move if she doesn’t want to lose, even if that means bringing shame to the family.

Minglan purposely goes to the temple frequently knowing the Liang madam will bring her son there to meet her. Molan knows about this and disguised as a servant to meet with Liang Han. Molan and Liang Han finally meet with the help of Minglan’s plan.

The next step in Minglan’s plan is to innocently reveal to Rulan her ritual to pray for a good marriage. Hearing this, Rulan’s mom quickly makes arrangement to go to the temple to pray for Rulan’s marriage. At the temple, Sheng madam bumps into the servants of the Lin (who happens to be Molan in disguised). She secretly follows them and finds out that Molan and Liang Han has been secretly seeing each other.

Episode 32

After finding out about Molan’s affair, Sheng madam relays the news to her husband and asks him to see it for himself if he doesn’t believe her. The couple follows Molan the next time she went out and caught her cuddling with Liang Han. The dad yells in shock and drags her back home. (I laughed at this part! His reaction is so funny when he found his precious daughter cuddling up with the guy.)

The dad debates on what to do with Molan. Hualan runs back home with the news on that Molan and Liang Han’s affair is already spread throughout the capital. The whole family is in chaos with shame.

The dad confronts Lin concubine and she convinces him to go ask Liang for marriage. All masks are removed during their conversation. The dad knows now what kind of shameless person Lin is. Now that all pride is on the line, madam Sheng can’t help but goes to the Liang household to talking to madam Liang about marriage. However, she doesn’t want Molan. She wants Minglan. If they want Molan to marry Liang Han then her condition is that they will have to marry off Minglan too as the main wife and Molan as the concubine.

Madam Sheng goes back to relay the condition to the grandma and she threw a fit. How dare they marry off her precious Minglan for the trouble the Molan causes. But the situation cannot be delay further. To solve this, grandma decides to go to the Liang family herself to settle the situation. Of course with the grandma’s status, the Liang family agree to let Molan marry into the Liangs.

Episode 33

Molan and her mom reunite happily, thinking that their genius plan has worked. Molan marries off after cutting all ties with the family. After the wedding, the dad punishes Lin concubine harshly and imprisoned her with little care.

Minglan sneaks off to where Lin concubine is. She faces the pitiful woman with the painting that her mother left behind without saying much. Lin was happy at first that Molan’s marriage was part of her planned. Later she realizes that it was Minglan in the end. Minglan left without saying much.

Minglan returns to the grandmother, who knows that she snuck off to see Lin concubine. She tells her grandmother that she will tell her everything when the time comes. Once news got out that Lin concubine died, Minglan went to see her grandmother. She tells her grandmother that Lin killed her mother and she wanted revenge. All the planning was done by her. Her grandmother slaps her for putting her reputation at risk like that and then coddles her for not being there for her. If only Minglan has someone who would stand up for her, then she wouldn’t have to go thru all that.

Episode 34

Gu Tingye is in Yuzhou serving in the army with the Zhao family, a distant descendant of the royal family that does not have much power. Now that the king is ill, a shift in power is expected and the fight for the throne will be bloody. Gu Tingye notices unfamiliar faces in the manor and deduces that they might be assassins sent to kill the Zhao. He rushes to rescue him. Prince Yan is the person who sent the assassins. Gu Tingye and his son managed to convince him to go to the capital. That’s the safest place at the moment. But Zhao is a cowardly person. He agrees, reluctantly. They left for the capital.

Episode 35

Back at the capital, the Sheng dad and Chang Bai, along with other officials, are being held in the palace to do work. Minglan volunteers to bring some food for them. Unfortunately, she is caught during a rebellious that puts the whole palace in chaos. A servant tells her that there is a way to leave the palace through dog holes but only small figures like her can fit through. (Therefore the dad and brother were left behind).

On the side, Rong consort had partnered up with prince Yan to usurp the throne. She invited a bunch of wives of military generals to her place as hostages. Qi Hen’s mom is part of the group. She fakes being crazy to avoid being killed but that resulted in her being thrown out onto the street to be laughed at by the people. They force the king to write down his will to pass the throne over. He refuses. He decided to give the power to the Zhao family and asks a servant to deliver his will to the Zhaos.

On her way out, Minglan bumps into the maid that was tasked to deliver the King’s will. She helps the maid escape. Unfortunately, guards saw them and chase them down. The maid was killed by a rock and passes her task on to Minglan. Minglan takes the will and military seal and runs.

She tries to escape as the guards give chase. They eventually caught up to her. Just when one was about to disfigure her, Gu Tingye comes to her rescue. She cries as she tells him that she needs to go to Yuzhou. Coincidentally, the person she’s looking for happens to be right there. (I love this scene so much. First time seeing Minglan not calm and collected like always >.<).

Once they know that the king has passed on the throne to Zhao, they all try to convince him to accept it. But his cowardly way makes him afraid. Eventually, he agrees. They set off to the capital while Minglan stays safely away with Shitou watching her.

Chexmix: A little spoiler but I’m so excited for Minglan’s and GTY’s marriage scene!! All the events leading up to that is being revealed slowly and it is so funny and cunning how he plans all that to trap her into marrying him! =D