Tigers Sniff the Rose episode 31 recap: The ledgers he memorized

In short

Instead of accepting exile, Yan Shang hands the Emperor Lingnan's ledgers, written out from memory. The Emperor jails him again, purges the Crown Prince's network and confines the Crown Prince, then tells the princess she will marry Meng Zaishi and stay in the capital.

What happens in episode 31

The princess brings Yan Shang before the Emperor, who tears into him. He boasted he would expose Lingnan's corruption and came back saying he found nothing. He deserves to die, the Emperor says, but for her sake he will only be banished from the capital for good and sent to be magistrate of Lanyang. She urges him to give thanks: never seeing each other again is better than dying, and she will stay in her gilded cage. Yan Shang doesn't move. He takes off his hat and opens his robe. Wrapped around his body are sheets covered in tiny writing. He memorized the Lingnan ledgers and wrote them all out.

He presents them and begs the Emperor to arrest the corrupt officials and save Lingnan's people. The Emperor is stunned by his memory and says the originals will be checked. But Yan Shang first claimed he found nothing, which is lying to the throne, so he goes back to prison. The princess feels betrayed. She runs after him, slaps him several times and demands to know why he broke his word. He says nothing, but slips a note into her hand. The Emperor keeps her in the palace.

The Emperor circles every name in the ledgers and orders a sweeping arrest. The Crown Prince scrambles to raise troops and strike back, but the Emperor moves first and jails his supporters. Brought before his father, the Crown Prince says he gathered soldiers only to deal with Yu Cheng'an; how else could he have won at the hunting grounds? The Emperor asks why, a month after Yu Cheng'an's fall, he never reported any of it. The Crown Prince has no answer and calls it a humiliation. The Emperor storms out and has him placed under strict confinement.

The Emperor tells Chancellor Liu that Meng Zaishi's men are loyal to the death, so keeping him in the capital will keep them in check. In prison, Yang Si glares at Yan Shang with pure hatred: if he had kept quiet, neither of them would be here. The princess reads the note and her anger fades. Yan Shang didn't want her to face the Crown Prince's faction alone, and chose this way to clear her rivals.

Meng Zaishi is kept in the palace with music, beautiful women and fine food, but he is quietly planning a way out. The Emperor tells the princess that Yan Shang can't be trusted and that he has new plans for her: she will marry Meng Zaishi, but this time they will both stay in the capital. She sees he means to make them both pets with their claws pulled, and is sure Meng Zaishi will refuse. He has already agreed, the Emperor says, on one condition: the wedding follows half the capital's customs and half his own people's. In his cell Yan Shang asks the guard the date. As he feared, the poison is reaching its peak.

Why it matters

Episode 31 uses Yan Shang's memory to break the Crown Prince's network, puts Yang Si behind bars, and sets up a second forced marriage for the princess.

Based on the episode synopsis, summarized in our own words: TVmao (电视猫) episode synopses