Using poetry to draw attention and break out of a deadlock, secret tricks in business battles, a court struggle over the heir to the throne, powerful clans crushing poor families, princes recruiting allies and maneuvering against one another, false accusations and fabricated charges, assassination attempts and deadly pursuit, the secrets of an old case involving a father and daughter, Silk Road smuggling and corruption, the dark truth behind missing military funds, ordinary people dragged into the whirlpool of imperial power, two women caught in a jealous love triangle, poetic fame as a double-edged sword, the risks of reciting poetry from memory, the danger of having one’s identity exposed, the Crown Prince and Prince Qi both trying to win him over, poetry in one hand and account books in the other, crises in both the martial world and the imperial court
