azdak

I’ve just finished episode 64 of The Story of Minglan and it was a corker. The series hits a narrative kink of mine I was only vaguely aware I had – probably because it’s a trope more common in the breach than the observance – in which a man falls in love with a particular woman, decides he’s going to marry her, bends all his resources and willpower to this end - and then discovers, on succeeding, that you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. It isn’t a forced marriage. Minglan does, after initial reluctance, consent, but it’s not what you’d call enthusiastic consent. To her, marriage is an unavoidable social obligation, not a matter of love. She’s got to marry someone, bear his children and run his harem, and since he’s gone to all this effort, it might as well be Gu Tingye. She’s an affectionate, considerate, clever wife, who grows increasingly fond of her husband, but there’s a part of her she’s had to keep locked away for most of her life, and she doesn’t trust her husband enough to reveal it to him. Gu Tingye, though, once caught a glimpse of the real Minglan, (at a polo match, since you ask) and his inability to coax his wife into being that person, passionate, loyal and utterly fearless, causes increasing friction in their marriage. Minglan, meanwhile, believes that her husband’s devotion to her is temporary infatuation and that eventually he’ll start installing concubines, so she guards her heart very carefully indeed. The concubine thing is a not unreasonable expectation, as Gu Tingye’s scheming relatives are constantly attempt to stuff concubines – some willing, others less so - into his household. Eventually, his aunt gifts them with one MInglan feels it would be dangerously impolite to refuse, so much to her husband’s horror, she accepts her (Gu Tingye is the only man in Ancient China who actually wants to be monogamous). In a scene that is both funny and rather awful, Minglan shuts him up with the new concubine, saying “Consider this your wedding night!” leaving him to sit sullenly in the dark, fully clothed, waiting for his wife to send a message to rescue him, until the poor concubine eventually falls asleep. Minglan never does send the message. Gu Tingye never sleeps with the concubine. He keeps going to sleep in his study instead, but it doesn’t help. Minglan won’t take off her docile mask, won’t be jealous of him (expressions, of jealousy are, as she knows only too well, a concubine’s trick for manipulating men), she won’t call him pet names (ditto), and she doesn’t understand what he means when he asks her despairingly if she loves him as Gu Tingye or only as the Marquis. All he can do is try to derive scraps of comfort from the few occasions when he pisses her off enough to garner an angry glance. Spontaneous emotion! Yay! I didn’t like Gu Tingye much for an awfully long time, but I have enormous sympathy for him here, as I, too, have had quite enough of Minglan’s performative docility and want to see her true hardcore self emerge for once.

And then, finally, in episodes 63-64 it happens! A crisis occurs and a very pregnant General Sheng Milan comes charging in, sword quite literally in hand, to save the day. And her husband misses it all! He’s away on a salt taxation mission! He only arrives in time for the mopping up operation because Minglan’s sister-in-law has written to her husband (who is also on the salt tax mission) asking him to come asap (and sending - sensible lass – 6 fast horses to speed things up). In the emotional aftermath, Gu Tingye asks Minglan why she didn’t ask for his help, doesn’t she trust him? And Minglan, irritated by his persistent obtuseness, says no, she doesn’t, as a Marquis he’s got too much to lose for her to involve him in such risky defiance of social convention. It’s all rather wonderful, although I also look forward to the inevitable scene where Minglan finally feels she can let down her guard with him and be her true self. Right now, though, there are still another 8 episodes to go, she’s got a baby to give birth to, and those salt farms won’t tax themselves!