lol how do we see Wang shi's anger on the first wife? Also do we know why the first daughter's MIL took her kids away? (was it just because she didnt like her?) How are Rolan's in laws like?
Hmm she couldn't really anger her, the first wife (Changbai's wife) was too skilled at verbal kung-fu that Wang shi attacks were all ineffective. Of all the daughters, Hua Lan had the worst mother-in-law. She was notorious in the capital for being a mean shrew that steals from her daughter in laws dowry. How the Shen family didnt know about it I'm not sure, maybe they werent in the capital at the time and didn't have accurate info? Anyway the mother in law loves to bully both the daughter in laws including Hua Lan doing various things like demanding money from their dowry to the point where Hua Lan has to wear old clothes etc. Hua Lan had 3 kids, girl, boy and boy. Before Hua Lan was pregnant with her 3rd child the mother-in-law demands got out of control so her father-in-law and Hua Lan's husband reprimanded the mother-in-law and the husband even protected her to a degree. When Hua Lan was pregnant the mother-in-law decided it was time to bully Hua Lan again, saying that Hua Lan is pregnant and has a daughter to take care of she demands to take care of her son and implied she would raise the son instead of Hua Lan. Hua Lan became super depressed when pregnant and lost a lot of weight. When she delivered another boy she was skinny and so was the child. Hua Lan managed to get the son back because the mother in law left the baby alone in a room with a stove. Her daughter was wandering around and found the brother. The stove was unattended and was unstable. The stove was about to fall on the son when her daughter saved her. This part is super sad in the novel, the daughter is such a good girl that Hua Lan feels so bad for not paying as much attention to her and Minglan even cries at how cute and honest her niece is. She has all these burn marks on her hand from saving her brother and her brother has burn marks even a swollen eyelid. Later on both children are fine but this part is the low point for Hua Lan. Rulan's in laws are like not talked about at all they're super side characters that are barely mentioned in passing and dont have dialogue. The in laws are all farmers. The mother in law tries to give her son a concubine when she is pregnant with her 1st daughter but Rulan manages to counter it by crying and offering her own dowry maid thus appearing virtuous etc. Her grandmother-in-law like all grandmother's in this novel are like political analysts that can see for 10 000 miles and evaluate any situation clearly reprimanded the parents in law because the Shen family is so much more powerful. The way up for farmers are to study and they dont have any connections so if the Shen family which has like super powerful in laws decide to blockade their family form receiving help with tutors or tips on exams, they'll be fucked for vertical progression. It's never mentioned that the in laws bully Rulan, but Rulan did mention in passing that she would never let anyone bully her.
It's already been mentioned in the previous spoilers so this is the last time I'm going to talk about things present in previous spoilers because people worked hard to bring that info. Gotta appreciate them Alright one thing to say about this novel is that it's probably the most accurate ancient chinese novel i've read. It follows Tang/Qin customs pretty strictly. That involves things like gender separation where men and women don't talk to each other, juniors never talk back to elders etc. So Hua Lan standing up to her mother-in-law would be very wrong in accordance to customs and she can be penalized for it, maybe even divorced. So things have to go in a round about way. After giving birth to the 3rd child, Minglan gives Hua Lan the idea to put a concubine in her father in law's bedroom and its achieved through a friend of the FIL doing it. The mother in law then becomes super concerned with the concubine. She bullies her and other stuff. When she is bullying her DIL no one but the husbands would intefere as its not their stuff, but now the FIL is like you're not virtuous to the MIL. The mother in law decides to take a break and go back to bullying the DIL, but now the FIL is wised up and asks her what she needs the money for. MIL says its for something for the fu but they dont have enough money and he's like ok wtv. But the DILs are the one who put the concubine in the FIL's room. So the concubine was all like why does the fu not have enough money? isnt your fu a prosperous one. FIL is like well shit, so he checks the accounts out and MIL has been doing business with her sister and has wasted more than half of the fu's savings from previous generations. FIL is super pissed and bans her from handling the money and gives it to the 2 DILs. I can't remember if he divorced her or just threatened to do so but she became obedient after that. Hua Lan's life after this improves immensely. She confesses what she does to her husband and says she has no other way. She's there with 2 children with burn marks and her other child who is still skinny while wearing old clothes and the husband feels super bad. Should note the MIL also bullied them by stuffing the side rooms with tonnes of concubines (but despite that Hua Lan still got pregnant 3 times?! holy shit fertile! you go girl!). Anyway after that the husband is super sweet to Hua Lan and there's loads of them dating? 10 years into their marriage it's all very cute.
Spoiler: Molan's pregnancy So I found a site with epilogues, This is a few years down maybe 2/3? Hualan talks about her sisters, so far Minglan only has 2 boys and Molan has given birth to 3 girls no sons. Not much else there. *Update: the last epilogue ended with Minglan having 4 sons and Molan having 5 daughters Also for all you haters don't be mean to Molan it's not her fault she only has daughters if anyone has learnt high school biology they know that the man's sperm decides gender! Shoo! Shoo! meanies! get beaten back by SCIENCE! Since this is super short I'll share a cute moment from Minglan and Male Lead. The Male Lead was awarded 2 beauties by a Prince (not the emperor's son but like a Royal family member or even a commoner Prince). Anyway, the Male Lead gave the beauties away as ghost brides, wives given to sick people in the hope that they'll get better or to be killed and buried when their husband dies. The Prince then scolds him and the ML is like ok ok I know my wrong. The Prince then gives the ML 4 Dancers and the ML is like excellent. Minglan then hosts a banquet and has those 4 dancers perform. The Prince got pissed again saying he was not using his gifts properly. The ML is like what's your problem dude. I get it you didnt want me to give away presents that you gave me, sorry for those 2 beauties that s a done deal ill keep your next present. Then you gave me 4 dancers and i kept them, i even used them and made them dance and you're still angry?! what's your deal man!
I've never seen the epilogues where the prince gives the ML dancers, can you link me? thanks!!! the author's said once that she's given every character the ending they deserve, so molan's only having daughters is like the heaven's punishment to her for being terrible, because without a son her place in the family will never be comfortable. but also since molan hasn't actually wanted to intentionally kill anyone or do anything murderous or too evil, she kept her place as the legal wife and nothing too bad happened to her, she just has an inconvenient and not so happy life. everyone's endings corresponded pretty neatly into how good of a person they were. (aunty kang, horrible person, horrible ending. hualan, great person, great ending. rulan, okay person, okay ending. molan, meh person, meh ending.)
https://www.lewenxiaoshuo.com/books/zhifou_zhifou_yingshilvfeihongshou/13925496.html I actually really like Rulan, she becomes so much of a better person after the time skip and she's super cute too. Also she wizens up a lot.
Gah! this is such a long answer, because it will inevitably lead to more questions and i am quite tired after work right now. I'll be succinct then. Spoiler: Rebellion of 6th Prince Son So we already covered the first 2 rebellions: 1. the 4th prince rebelled when xiandi chose 3rd prince as crown prince and made him adopt 6th prince's son as his heir but lost 2. after the 8th prince became emperor the 5th prince rebelled and was stopped by the ML and stuff The third and last rebellion happened near the end. Xiandi's previous order was never rescinded so the 6th prince's son has some claim to the throne as previous heir apparent. There are 2 Empress Dowagers in the palace one is the 8th prince's mother and the other I think is the former empress (not sure but thats usually how it goes). The former empress dowager formed a faction with the 6th prince's child claim to the throne and launched a rebellion when the emperor ordered his armies out to defeat someone. During this rebellion there was unrest in the capital but was eventually settled by the commander of the city guard, I think it was Lu Da ren. sorry not done yet i'll keep typing Spoiler: Attack on Gu Fu So during this rebellion a group of people appeared outside Gu fu (Gu is the ML's family name and minglan's married surname, fu means house). There were more than 100 thieves and were super determined to rile up passerby to steal from Gu fu. In the end Minglan managed to hold them off. Remember Minglan's new house is next door to the Marquis fu. When they succeded the title and drove out 4th 5th branch as well as the step mother and 3rd son later on (3rd branch), they knocked down the wall in between the houses. During the attack that house was set on fire and some servants died but it was separated from Minglan's fu so nothing in the new house was destroyed. During this fire one of the maidservants of the 1st brother's wife (who is now a widow but lives with Minglan) led some thieves in to kill Minglan's son. When thieves were being led in The 1st brother's widow hid away carrying her daughter, but the 1st brother's widow's daughter snuck out and saved the ML's eldest daughter (Man Niang's child), who in turn saved Minglan's oldest son (Minglan is still pregnant with 2nd child now). The eldest daughter even got cut by the assassin's on her shoulder and left palm and the doctor said she might not be able to use it normally. Minglan was super sad and super grateful for this daughter. Of course, this was caused by the Step-mother and 3rd brother of the ML, but they werent personally involved in the attack, but a lot of accomplices captured could attest to the fact. This is the final bit! I swear Spoiler: Fate of 3rd Branch Firstly, The 3rd brother somehow died pierced by random arrows. I'm actually not too sure on where he died but it wasnt the ML purposely killing him he died in the rebellion somehow. His house wasnt attacked. I'm too tired to go through it again if someone else could help, but it wasnt very thrilling. The 3rd brother had 2 children and they both died of illness. I'm not sure if you remember but the ML had a 1st wife before Minglan. The 1st wife cheated on him with a cousin but the step mother couldnt allow the child to be born before her son's wife has a child for succession reasons. So the step mother and Man Niang colluded to kill that child but they killed the wife also. Earlier when Minglan found out about the ML 1st wife cheating with the cousin and getting pregnant she had a witness the 1st wife maidservant. She needed this to avoid getting trapped by the 1st Wife family (Yu) when they wanted to adopt Man Niang son under the 1st wife name making him the legal inheritor. Once that settled they sent the witness to the Yu family and the Yu family had the maid servant confess to the family and the 1st wife's mother. Although they were scandalized cheating and getting pregnant with your husband cousin, the 1st wife mother was super angry and vindictive. She collected clothes from the severely sick and scrapped their pustules into dust and spread them on the clothes. She then sewed the clothes into gifts for the children. Earlier the stepmother had been colluding with the Yu family to get the son adopted so she continued to contact them and continued colluding with the Yu family especially the 1st wife mother believing she wasnts revenge on the ML not knowing she wanted to kill the step-mothers grandchildren. Next after the rebellion settled and the male lead came back he was obviously angry with what happened. The step mother actions could only be considered as attempted robbery, attempted murder and arson. A heavy crime but not heavy enough and she had an influential maternal family and her daughter-in-law's family was influential too. ML was good friends with Lu Da ren the guy who was incharge of the city guards and when he delivered him the witnesses enough to convict the stepmother, he asked Lu Daren to change the charge to rebellion. Although there is no concrete proof there are too many conjectures. They attacked the same time as the rebellion, they obviously accumulated the forces before the gates were sealed to quell the rebellion etc. They didn't have to do that much because the Emperor was pissed. The loss of life of the Gu fu was almost as high as that as the palace. Despite knowing theres shaky proof he wanted the perpetrators punished heavily after all rebellion aside this was an affront to his prestiege that something like this could happen because of someone scheming in the capital at the seat of his power. It was pretty terrifying. The 3rd Gu branch was sentenced and their 3 generations can't become officials. Though the son and grandkids are already dead.. so shrug. Due to the rebellion charge no one was willing to help them. The ML then goes over to the 3rd branch house. He overhears the 3rd brother's wife shouting at the stepmother, she says how after they were seperated she didnt want the title anymore. She had begged the stepmother that she only wanted to live with her husband and children and now due to her actions her husband and children are dead. The 3rd branch's wife then returns to the maiden home. The ML confronts the Step-mother, they have a shout off. He exposes how the grandchildren died and how the 3rd brother died and that he had nothing to do with it, it was all her fault. The step-mother goes crazy then catatonic then dies a few days later. done!
Male Lead left his Jianghu friends that he recruited as guards behind. Around 20 of them. Minglan sensing some sort of unease before the rebellion had them recruit 40 more guards. It wasn't some supernatural fifth sense, there were just a lot of small clues that made her decide to prepare.
I heard the first wife of the prince friend of ML was super jealous ...was she the one who died on the rebellion?
Don't know who you were talking bout, there are like 2 ppl that are kinda jealous. 1 is the Shen family which is the Empress's maiden family. His inner residence is a mess because of reasons but his main wife is pretty cool and is Minglan's drinking buddy. His concubine is super jealous but there's a lot of backstory to her background that I can't explain. The only person married to a prince that I can think of is the Step-mother's daughter the 7th miss of the Gu family. She's also super jealous but her ending is in the epilogue.
One of ML's love interests is the son of a princess that studded with them ....his first wife was super jealous but I don't know what happened to her
Sorry I edited the reply. Hmm the ML has like 0 love interests other than Man Niang. It's Minglan who has admirers though they don't act on it. As with many things this novel depicts things accurately. In ancient chinese customs doing something like pining after the husband or wife of another person is disgraceful, you'll probably be shunned from society. Heck the separation of genders makes it so it's hard to even talk to a member of the opposite sex.
Oups sorry I meant MingLan not the ml T.T ... I'm talking about the guy she thought named his daughters after her
Ahhh. Qi Heng yeah, he's the son of a junzhu which is sorta like a princess. Ermm his 2nd wife is jealous of Minglan (1st wife died in the 1st rebellion), but Minglan talks with her and she's like "I personally don't talk about my family life but I have a step-mother who is trying to kill me. My husband goes to war for a living where I have to worry for his life and death and I have his former lover who has his son that's roaming out there. We're all women why do you have to make things difficult for me?" then the wife backs off. The 2nd wife has a boy and girl fraternal twins. She follows Qi Heng when he leaves the capital for an assignment despite everyone warning her not to coz the kids are young. There's an epidemic outbreak where they are and she and the two kids die. Qi Heng then as a 3rd wife that dies after delivering their 2nd son. After that he's like enough I will never marry again and just raised his 2 sons.
You know forgot to mention the reason Qi Heng's first wife died. She was a super jealous woman too (but didn't know about Minglan) and Qi Heng was kinda pissed with the way she was behaving. He slept separately from her for a while until Qi Heng's mom was sick and he agreed to give his wife another chance. Unbeknownst to everyone the 1st wife was kinda crazy and was doing horrible things to people. One of the princess's (not Emperor's child but Royal blood) was quite blatant with her admiration for Qi Heng and the 1st wife arranged for her carriage to be ambushed, everyone except her killed and have her raped. That princess's father was the 4th prince's faction hence why he raped and killed Qi Heng's first wife and first wife's mother during the rebellion. Qi Heng was super sad now and was complaining to his mother that she knows his heart but refuses to give him the match he wants. His mother replies that since the 8th prince is becoming Emperor now and they are sort of related to the 6th prince they are under pressure from his father's rivals and his marriage is even more important to secure alliances. He understands but is still sad and cries into his mother's arms.
Ohhh is see!!! Btw what couldn't the ml just take the mother of his children as concumbine from the start ? ...why did he need his wife's permission? ...couldnt he have some other concumbine adopt his son?
You talking about Man Niang? the mother of ML's eldest daughter and eldest son? Firstly, when he first wanted to be with Man Niang a lot of people he trusted were opposed to it. Be it his father or one of the last Bai clan members or his Jianghu friends all told him it was bad news but he was in 'love' so he ignored everyone. Later when he began questioning Man Niang due to some evidence and Man Niang exposed her desire for him to return and become a concubine he became suspicious. So technically he never needed his wife's permission because he never wanted to take her home and become a concubine. His original plan was to take the shu son in, but not Man Niang coz he didnt trust her. Man Niang was like I'll die if I'm separated from my son etc. so the male lead set up a fund outside set up the son's education and had his future planned out but he couldn't inherit the Gu family title and only could start a new unaffiliated branch on his own. But Man Niang still wanted to get the full riches so she ignored ML's plans and started chasing him all over the country and instilling in the son hatred towards the main wife (Minglan at this time) so he would fight for power etc. So no one could take him in at this point since his values were so skewed. I think you're confusing things. I'm sure you're thinking of the Yu family (1st wife family) wanting to adopt Man Niang's son under the name of the 1st wife. It was basically a plot to sieze power over the Gu household but Minglan found out about the cheating scandal and stopped it.