After being married for half a year and still not pregnant, I welcomed my mother-in-law Li Fengying who moved from the countryside. Bowls of bitter "fertility" pills and insults like "chickens that can't lay eggs" turned my marriage into a place of execution for childbirth.
When I was diagnosed with permanent uterine damage in the hospital, my husband Chen Jianguo was holding the blind date arranged by my mother-in-law to see the marriage room; when I was struggling in pain on the hospital bed, my mother advised me to "turn a blind eye" and accept that my husband had an affair and had a child; when I collected evidence and prepared to resist, I found that my mother-in-law had already inquired about the psychiatrist and was ready to label me as a "mad woman" and throw me out.
From meekness to desperate counterattack, I faced not only a vicious mother-in-law and a cowardly husband, but also the traditional shackles that have objectified women as reproductive tools for thousands of years. In this war without gunpowder, what I want to take back is not only dignity and freedom, but also the most basic rights as a person-the right to be seen, heard, and respected.
