After becoming pregnant, Grandma Yang's attitude towards her improved, and she specifically cooked Southern dishes for her. She went to the countryside to buy free-range chickens and organic eggs, stewing soup to nourish her. She asked about her well-being and taught her precautions for pregnancy.
Seeing Grandma Yang being so kind, Xu Zhuozhuo forgot her previous difficulties. When she called home, she only spoke of good things, as her parents were illiterate and communication was inconvenient due to the distance. She didn't want them to worry.
However, the good times only lasted for three months. Her adoptive mother bribed a doctor to check the baby's gender. Upon learning it was a daughter, she immediately stopped caring, going out to play mahjong every day.
Xu Zhuozhuo, with her pregnant belly, did the laundry, cooking, and cleaning by herself. When she felt unwell and wasn't up to par, Yang Jinhan would criticize her.
"It's just a pregnancy, why are you so dramatic? What woman doesn't have children? Stop pretending, pregnancy isn't that hard. Too bad I'm a man, otherwise I'd wish I could get pregnant and be a lord at home, living a life of leisure."
When Xu Zhuozhuo retorted, Grandma Yang chimed in, "When I was young, I had a big belly and still had to work in the fields. Jinhan was born into this world. Now, you complain so much about just cleaning the house. Someone earns money for you to spend, you live in a big house, you should be secretly happy."
Xu Zhuozhuo said she was on maternity leave and her company would still pay her, so she wasn't spending Yang Jinhan's money.
Grandma Yang then said that women should focus on family, taking care of their men and children is the right way. Xu Zhuozhuo couldn't win against their combined arguments and became a doormat at home.
After ten months of pregnancy, Xu Zhuozhuo gave birth to a daughter. Grandma Yang insisted on naming her Yang Zhaodi. Xu Zhuozhuo named her own daughter Yang Zhixu, hoping her husband would return to their former loving ways. Yang Jinhan also felt that naming the daughter Zhaodi would damage his reputation. So, he granted Xu Zhuozhuo's wish.
After giving birth, the incision was extremely painful, making it impossible for her to stand. Xu Zhuozhuo wanted to hire a confinement nanny, but Grandma Yang mocked her for a long time. Several confinement nannies came, but were all driven away by Grandma Yang's unreasonable behavior.
Thus, during her confinement, Xu Zhuozhuo ate steamed buns dipped in soy sauce with chopped scallions for every meal. Her husband didn't understand her either. At night, she was alone with the crying, restless baby. After confinement, she looked pale and was very weak.
After her maternity leave, she had to return to work. Yang Jinhan supported this, as Xu Zhuozhuo's salary was not low. With her son's repeated instructions, Grandma Yang also repeatedly promised to take good care of her granddaughter.
Xu Zhuozhuo was a little uneasy and installed a monitor in the living room. She saw her mother-in-law directly feeding her daughter milk powder mixed with boiling water. The baby cried loudly from the heat, but her mother-in-law ignored it.
With no other choice, Xu Zhuozhuo had to quit her job and stay home to take care of the child, becoming a housewife. Having lost her source of income, her status in the family decreased further.
Grandma Yang constantly made sarcastic remarks to her, and when Yang Jinhan was unhappy, he would even resort to physical violence. She wanted a divorce, but without a source of income, she couldn't even get custody of her daughter.
She dared not tell her family about these matters. Every phone call was filled with good news and no bad. After all, it was she who had disregarded her parents' advice and married Yang Jinhan.
Her mother's words still echoed in her ears: "Zhuozhuo, you are still young and don't understand the complexities. Our family doesn't care about the dowry of tens of thousands of yuan. That money will be returned to your new family. Their family is unwilling to even spend this small amount, which shows they don't care about you deep down."
What did she say then?
"Mom, people don't do that dowry thing anymore. His mother raised him alone, it wasn't easy, she couldn't afford a dowry. We will work hard together, and we will definitely have a good life in the future. I believe in him, I love him, and I don't want to make things difficult for him just to marry me."
She understood the difficulties of their family, but it seemed no one in their family understood her. She truly regretted it.
Afterward, Grandma Yang pressured her every day to have a second child, saying the second child must be a boy for the old Yang family. She was force-fed strange traditional remedies and Chinese medicine daily.
She finally became pregnant this year, but due to her poor health and depression, and also the problematic strange medicines, she miscarried after only two months of pregnancy.
She had just undergone a D&C procedure yesterday, and today Grandma Yang called her up to clean the house.
After losing the child, the original owner was relentlessly pressured by Grandma Yang to have another child, being fed bowl after bowl of Chinese medicine. She couldn't take it anymore and called her friends to confide in them. But how did those friends respond?
"Zhuozhuo, this is where you're wrong. Jinhan is an only child. You married into their family, so you should leave an heir for the old Yang family."
"Zhuozhuo, don't be ungrateful when you're blessed. I wish I could find someone to marry and live a life of leisure at home. Working 996 every day is so tiring. You just cook at home, how leisurely is that? You can do whatever you want with the remaining time."
The relatives on the Yang family side also mocked her as a hen that couldn't lay eggs.
At this moment, Xu Zhuozhuo's mind was becoming increasingly muddled. She then remembered that all her friends were actually Yang Jinhan's friends, and the relatives here were also Yang family's relatives. No one would stand by her side. A girl who marries far away, and marries the wrong person, is truly helpless.
Xu Zhuozhuo couldn't cope and committed suicide by jumping off a building, leaving behind Yang Zhixu, who was only three years old.
Xu Zhuozhuo's wish was to divorce, escape this home that had burdened her beyond endurance, return to Nanshi to care for her parents, and ensure Yang Zhixu grew up happily.