God Save the Bastard

The emperor has no heir, and the court will not let the matter rest. The empress dowager and the ministers lecture him in the throne hall until his scalp goes numb. Everyone assumes he cannot father a child, and the plan being pushed on him is to adopt a boy from the imperial clan and make him crown prince. The emperor will not hear of it. Years ago, before he came to the capital and took the throne, he lived among ordinary people disguised as a beggar, and in that life he had a wife and a son by her. He still carries the purse she sewed for him inside his robe and has been searching for the two of them ever since. In his mind the only crown prince he will accept is the boy he left behind. That boy is Jason Shane. He cannot stand watching his mother cry over the matching purse day after day, so he sets off for the capital to find the father who never came back. On the way a neighbor cheats him and delivers him into the palace, where he is nearly made a eunuch. When Jason turns up in front of the emperor holding a purse identical to his own, the emperor decides the boy must have stolen it and comes close to having him castrated himself. Neither of them knows who the other is. Jason goes through one ordeal after another inside the palace, where a conspiracy over the succession is already under way.