In 1940 Wanrong engaged in an affair with Puyi's chauffeur Li Tiyu that left her pregnant. To punish her, as Wanrong gave birth to her daughter, she had to watch much to her horror as the Japanese doctors poisoned her newly born child right in front of her. Wanrong was totally broken by what she had seen and lost her will to live, spending as much of her time possible in an opium daze to numb the pain. Puyi had known of what was being planned for Wanrong's baby, and in what Behr called a supreme act of "cowardice" on his part, "did nothing". Puyi's ghostwriter for "Emperor to Citizen", Li Wenda, told Behr that when interviewing Puyi for the book that he could not get Puyi to talk about the killing of Wanrong's child, as he was too ashamed to speak of his own cowardice.