Puyi's life was both fortunate and unfortunate, fortunately, he caught the "last train" of the feudal dynasty and successfully became the emperor; unfortunately, he was ousted from the throne before he became emperor for a few years, and he was even manipulated as a puppet, and he was not free for decades. However, the first half of Puyi's life was very exciting, as a witness of the times, no one was richer than his life experience.
On July 30, 1950, an agreement was reached between China and the Soviet Union, and Puyi was extradited back to China. Two days later, the Fushun War Criminals Management Center opened its doors to Puyi, where he would spend a long ten-year period. During these days, Puyi carried out ideological reform while visiting various places, and at the same time, he did not forget to write his autobiography - "The First Half of My Life". On December 4, 1959, Puyi was pardoned and released from prison, and in February of the following year, he took a letter of introduction and went to the Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to seek an errand.
In 1962, Puyi married Li Shuxian, a nurse at Chaowai Guanxiang Hospital, and after experiencing the betrayal of the "Daofei Revolution" and Wanrong, he already knew how to cherish. Li Shuxian is 19 years younger than Puyi and has been married twice before, but she is not very satisfied with her husband. Puyi is very old, his health is not good, not only can not do any work, but also need to be taken care of, Li Shuxian is very tired at the end of the day. She had thought about divorce more than once, but under the "care" of the leadership, she still dismissed the idea.
On October 17, 1967, Puyi died of uremia in Beijing, and before he died, he gave "The First Half of My Life" to his wife Li Shuxian, but what he did not expect was that the book caused a lot of "disaster". In 1984, when the film "The Last Emperor" was about to be filmed, the producer contacted the Mass Publishing House, hoping to get the authorization of "The First Half of My Life". Soon after, the editor-in-chief Li Wenda nodded in agreement, but Li Shuxian was left aside, and no one asked her opinion.
Therefore, Li Shuxian sued Li Wenda and the Mass Publishing House in court. Generally speaking, the mass publishing house does not have the right to authorize, but "The First Half of My Life" is quite special, when Puyi handed over to the publishing house was only the first draft, the content was confused, the relationship was complicated, and he was seriously ill, slurred, and extremely inconvenient to communicate. In desperation, Li Wenda could only consult the materials in many ways, constantly interviewed people around Puyi, and spent 2 years to sort out the manuscript, which was successfully published.
It can be said that the book "The First Half of My Life" has half the credit of Li Wenda, after all, he has also paid a lot of effort. However, due to the special age, the court's trial and examination was also intermittent, and it was not until ten years later that the results were achieved. In the end, the court ruled that Puyi was the sole author of the book, and his wife Li Shuxian was the legal heir and enjoyed corresponding rights. In fact, by the time the court's verdict was issued, Lee Wen-da had already died, and Lee Sook-hyun had died the following year, and the book had once again become a "masterless thing."
After a rough calculation, the copyright fee of "The First Half of My Life" is as high as millions, and the readers are all over the world and the sales are amazing. However, there have so far been three different views on the ownership of copyright. First, the copyright belongs to Pu Ren (Puyi's cousin); second, the copyright must not belong to the so-called "Qing Dynasty"; third, the copyright belongs to the state. However, until now, the heirs of "The First Half of My Life" have not been determined, and the copyright dispute has not been resolved.