Chapter 1
Even if Tan Weishi wasn't a princess in Danyang, she was still a very influential figure. She was the most influential art patron in the entire city. When Tan Weixin had to leave the theater troupes she founded due to various busy affairs, leaving behind many script outlines and a bunch of increasingly professional actors and staff who didn't know what to do, the leisurely little princess took over these interesting matters. Not only that, Tan Weishi also used her rather generous princess residence's fixed silver allowance to sponsor quite a few poetry societies, painting clubs, and the like, and even occasionally participated in some of their activities. And when the Embroidered Princess and His Majesty the King were in a mood, Tan Weishi did not completely indulge in her temper as the noblest pursuit, but instead invested her more vigorous enthusiasm into the first symphonic poem and play in the history of Dongping and the entire Central Plains—*Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai*.

Although the name was blatantly plagiarized from *Liang Zhu*, the plot of this poem and play was actually Shakespeare's famous play *Romeo and Juliet*. If you want to know why the name and the plot seem so nonsensical together, it can only be blamed on the fact that when Tan Weixin was thinking of a couple's names, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai just appeared like that. Whether the story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai will be brought to the stage again in the future is still unknown, but such a spoof was obviously a very exciting thing for Tan Weixin at the time. As for Ma Wencai, in the play he became the name of the "mysterious hermit" who provided Zhu Yingtai with the "resurrection" potion.

After being immersed in such an extremely artistic environment for a few years, even if Tan Weishi didn't understand literature and art originally, she would have quite remarkable insights. What's more, Tan Weishi originally had a considerable interest in these things, otherwise, she wouldn't have readily agreed to take over the theater troupe's affairs at the time.

Tan Weishi was not only the sponsor of this poem and play, but also participated in the entire process of the poem and play from beginning to end, including the script, stage design, actor selection, rehearsal, and modification. In fact, a part of the script was written by her. The poetic talent she showed in repeated discussions and revisions of the script amazed many people, and they sincerely sighed that none of the Tan family's children were simple characters.

However, while Tan Weishi was organizing rehearsals, in a side hall of the royal palace, Tan Xiaopei was summoning several obscure officials he would never usually think of, discussing some absolutely confidential matters. And these matters were precisely related to Tan Weishi's sulking.

Tan Xiaopei was not a fool, nor was he a reckless person. When considering a marriage for Tan Weishi, the strictness of his selection of candidates was simply beyond imagination. No wonder, even when he had no ill feeling towards Ye Tao, he tested Ye Tao for so many years with a father's persistence and awkwardness. How could Tan Xiaopei be careless about Tan Weishi, who seemed not as capable as her sister, but was a more considerate and lovely daughter? Almost all eligible young men in Dongping had been screened by him. Later, even those young men from families in Yunzhou and those top families in Chunnan, who now had good relations with Dongping, were included in his consideration. Selecting from such a huge list of candidates, comprehensively considering morality, character, talent, wealth, family background, etc., and then presenting them to Tan Weishi for selection, those candidates were by no means as unbearable as Tan Weishi complained to her friends, her sister, and her two brothers.

Tan Weishi was not the kind of princess who stayed at home and didn't go out. Over the years, she had met all kinds of people, especially countless talented young people. If she was not satisfied with the candidates Tan Xiaopei proposed, if she had a favorite or even a better impression of someone, Tan Xiaopei would definitely find a way to make it happen for his daughter. In Tan Xiaopei's opinion, probably no one would deliberately refuse to marry into a family that was determined to unify the world and had a good chance of unifying the world. And when Tan Weishi had almost no other opinions besides rejection and resistance, Tan Xiaopei came to the same conclusion as Dai Qiuyan: there was a problem, there must be a problem.

At this time, the script outline of *Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai* unexpectedly appeared in front of Tan Xiaopei, further increasing Tan Xiaopei's imagination.

Was it family hostility like in the play? No, impossible! Tan Weishi couldn't possibly know people from those families in Xiling or those families in Northern Liao. And within Dongping, with the Tan family's founding of the country through warlordism and their consistent character, there were no families that could be called enemies in the country.

So what was the reason? Because of the other party's identity, age, experience, etc.?... No matter what, Tan Xiaopei decided to take action.

He first summoned Jin Ze, Tan Weishi's captain of the guards, and questioned him in detail about everyone the Embroidered Princess had contacted over the years, or rather, all groups. Then, Tan Xiaopei removed the obviously impossible candidates from the list, such as those who had only met once and for a short time and could not have left any impression; such as those people from families who came to greet the beloved little princess, because Tan Xiaopei knew that these people could not possibly be considered impossible by Tan Weishi because of their status; such as those who had relatives (and Ye Tao was eliminated in this round of consideration). Then, after thinking it over and over again, Tan Xiaopei removed all the women...

Even so, the number of people remaining on the list was still several hundred. In this helpless situation, Tan Xiaopei used the Intelligence Bureau in a way that made people laugh and cry.

Although Nie Rui couldn't help but roll his eyes whenever he thought about this matter in private, he didn't question Tan Xiaopei's use of public resources for private purposes at all. The Nie family was originally a vassal of the Tan family, and then became independent. After several generations, although their power could only be considered weak, there was still a senior official like Nie Rui who could enter the central government. Nie Rui's loyalty to Tan Xiaopei and the Tan family was even higher than his loyalty to Dongping as a country. He unhesitatingly ordered an investigation into those hundreds of people, hoping to find out who the Embroidered Princess Tan Weishi's sweetheart was.

He didn't know where he heard the saying: a person's poems are a manifestation of his inner consciousness, or something like that. Tan Xiaopei, in his desperation, wanted to understand from this aspect how far Tan Weishi had progressed with that mysterious "sweetheart," and why she was unwilling to reveal the matter.

Pretending to be dissatisfied with the huge expenses Tan Weishi had incurred in supporting those poetry societies and painting societies over the years, Tan Xiaopei directly sent people to take over the entire Embroidered Garden, saying that he wanted to thoroughly investigate the princess's expenses. Tan Weishi had no other choice but to snort a few times in dissatisfaction and ran to the poem and play rehearsal in the explanation hall of the Yi Zhan Tower. However, she didn't expect that as soon as she left, a dozen of the Intelligence Bureau's most senior intelligence agents entered the Embroidered Garden. They carefully searched every room in the Embroidered Garden, opened every box, pulled out every drawer, and even carefully searched every book and every page, lest they miss any small piece of paper. And after these people had copied down every word Tan Weishi had written over the years in its original format, they quickly returned everything to its original place, lest they leave any traces and let Tan Weishi discover that they had been in the Embroidered Garden.

As a senior cultural sponsor, a poet and lyricist who was studying and had quite remarkable achievements, and an enthusiastic companion who was always happy to correspond with friends far away, Tan Weishi had left a lot of records over the years, and it would take a lot of time to flip through all the pages. At this time, professional intelligence personnel began to play a role again. They classified Tan Weishi's various documents according to the degree of privacy of the location where they were found, and arranged the timeline according to whether the writing of these things had a clear time and a verifiable time sequence. They cross-referenced the timeline with the list, classified the connections with various people, and eliminated those who were already on the list... Then, a part of them thoroughly combed through all the non-literary texts, such as letters, basic records, and questions and answers between friends, searching for the keywords that would usually appear in the correspondence between lovers. Another part of them picked out all of Tan Weishi's literary works... They didn't dare to make judgments on this kind of creation. This part of the content needed Tan Xiaopei to find someone else to sort out and analyze.

Therefore, Tan Xiaopei summoned Bai Xianyong, the curator of the Literature Museum of the Archives Bureau, Yu Pingbo, a scholar of the Wenhua Hall and a famous lyricist, and six famous literary figures headed by Jin Xingyao, Madam Jin, the director of the Wangong Shuyu Pavilion, to explain the contents of these poems to him. These people enjoyed a high reputation in the field of literary creation throughout the country and even the entire Central Plains.

To be honest, these people had not read much of Tan Weishi's poetry. None of them were the kind of people who needed to pave the way for their careers by praising members of the royal family. Some had already achieved success and fame, and some didn't care about these things at all. What they cared about were only things like poetry, lyrics, and essays. They had heard a little about Tan Weishi's deeds as a well-known cultural sponsor, but they had really not seen much of Tan Weishi's works, except for the collective creations in the plays she participated in. And when a large number of works were piled up in front of everyone, they were also shocked by the large number and high quality of Tan Weishi's works.

After some sorting, they focused their attention on two works:

One of them was:

*Lingbo Bu Guo Hengtang Lu, Dan Mu Song, Fang Chen Qu. Jinse Hua Nian Shui Yu Du? Yue Qiao Hua Yuan, Suo Chuang Zhu Hu, Zhi You Chun Zhi Chu.*

(Crossing Hengtang Road, the fairy treads lightly, only to watch her fragrant dust depart. With whom shall I spend these splendid years? In moonlit bridges and flowered courtyards, in latticed windows and vermilion doors, only spring knows.)

*Feiyun Ranran Henggao Mu, Caibi Xin Ti Duanchang Ju. Ruo Wen Xian Qing Du Ji Xu? Yi Chuan Yancao, Man Cheng Feng Xu, Meizi Huang Shi Yu!*

(Floating clouds linger in the twilight of Henggao, with a colorful brush I write new lines of heartbreak. If you ask how much idle emotion I have, it's like a river of smoke and grass, the catkins filling the city, the rain when the plums are yellow!)

And another poem attracted everyone's unanimous attention even more:

*Chong Wei Shen Xia Mochou Tang, Wo Hou Qing Xiao Xi Xi Chang.*

(Behind deep curtains in Mochou Hall, after lying down, the clear night grows long.)

*Shen Nu Sheng Ya Yuan Shi Meng, Xiao Gu Ju Chu Ben Wu Lang.*

(The life of a goddess is but a dream, the maiden's dwelling is inherently without a lover.)

*Fengbo Bu Xin Ling Zhi Ruo, Yue Lu Shui Jiao Gui Ye Xiang?*

(The wind and waves do not believe the water chestnut is weak, who taught the laurel leaves to be fragrant in the moonlight dew?)

*Zhi Dao Xiang Si Liao Wu Yi, Wei Fang Chou Chang Shi Qing Kuang.*

(Knowing that longing is of no use, it doesn't hurt to be melancholic in my madness.)

If they had read Tan Weishi's two works in other occasions and in other situations, everyone present would probably congratulate Tan Xiaopei on having a talented daughter whose writing could be compared with the masters of the time. However, reading these two works in this situation and being asked to make explanations, made everyone present feel very troubled.