Shocking The Imperial Court

She had one night with the emperor and wanted nothing after it except a quiet corner of the palace and to be left in it. The child she gives birth to does not look like a human infant. Her first thought is that it cannot be his, that she will be charged with treason, and that her family will go to the block with her. The emperor comes and cries over the cradle, and the empress dowager does the same. The court crowds in around the baby and treats it as a god who has come down into the world, and nobody explains any of it to the mother, who spends the following days not knowing what she is being congratulated for. The child belongs to a people that has almost died out, and its birth matters to what is left of them.