Tigers Sniff the Rose

While compiling the national history, historians ask about Princess Danyang and her husband, Prime Minister Yan Shang. The Princess scoffs that their relationship began as the lower offending the higher, and the higher bullying the lower, while the Prime Minister gently insists such words need not be recorded. Years earlier, after her first husbands death, the Princess stayed in a rural household in Lingnan. One rainy day, she awoke to the sound of a young man studying. Seeing his earnest effort but flawed approach, she leaned in to advise him that rote memorization and isolation would never earn him success in the examinations. Guided by her words, the young man eventually entered court, married the Princess, and rose to become a peerless statesman of the nation.