Tigers Sniff the Rose

The setting is the Da Chao (大朝) dynasty, an invented one, with its capital at Shengan (盛安). Princess Danyang (丹阳公主), Mu Wanyao (暮晚摇, played by Meng Ziyi), is the legitimate daughter of the imperial house. She has come back to the capital after the humiliation of a political marriage abroad, and is sent south to Lingnan to pray for her late mother.

On the road back, her carriage axle breaks on a mountain path, and she meets Yan Shang (言尚, played by Li Yunrui), a penniless scholar who does odd jobs at a village school while studying. She is struck by his intelligence and gives him a push; with her help he begins to rise from commoner to the court. The two move from a chance meeting in Lingnan to an alliance in Shengan, each using the other as a piece in the game and, as the show goes on, as support. The official synopsis adds that they go from rivalry and mutual suspicion to reconciliation.

The series is adapted from the novel Shang Gong Zhu (尚公主) by Yi Ren Kui Kui (伊人睽睽). According to English Wikipedia, it is directed by Qin Zhen and written by He Fang. It has 40 episodes, and streams in China on Tencent Video, with Disney+ carrying it overseas.

The Chinese title uses shang (尚), which in old usage means to marry a princess. Read that way, the name means roughly "marrying the princess", which points at the premise: the husband is the lower-ranking partner. The English title, Tigers Sniff the Rose, is the one the series uses for international release.

Because the dynasty is made up, the show can borrow the look of a historical court without being tied to real events.