The servant’s lips trembled.

For several long seconds, she simply stared at the floor, as if even speaking the words aloud could bring disaster upon her.

Then she leaned closer.

“They’re trying to make sure you never have a child.”

My heart stopped.

“What… what are you talking about?”

“The peppers aren’t a tradition,” she whispered. “They’re part of an old belief. Madam believes that if a new bride is ‘purified’ after every wedding night, any child conceived during the first month of marriage will never survive. She thinks she’s protecting this family.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Protecting them from what?”

The servant swallowed hard.

“From the prophecy.”

I wanted to laugh. Instead, I couldn’t breathe.

She explained that decades earlier, my mother-in-law had visited a fortune teller after losing her first child. The woman had convinced her that one day her eldest son would marry a woman whose child would inherit everything—and that child would become the reason the family lost its fortune.

From that day on, fear became obsession.

When my husband’s older brother died unexpectedly, my husband became the family’s only heir. His mother became convinced that the prophecy now pointed to his future wife.

To me.

“So… she wants to stop me from becoming pregnant?”

The servant slowly nodded.

“She believes the peppers destroy the blessing before it can become life.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Does my husband know?”

She looked away.

“I don’t know.”

That answer frightened me even more.

For the rest of the night, I couldn’t sleep.

Every smile my husband had given me over the past month replayed in my mind. Every kind word. Every embrace.

Had he really known?

Or had he simply chosen not to ask where his wife disappeared every night?

The next morning, I decided to find out.

I deliberately stayed awake that evening. Instead of pretending to sleep after my husband closed his eyes, I quietly slipped out of bed and hid behind the heavy curtain near the bedroom door.

Exactly twenty minutes later, the handle slowly turned.

My mother-in-law entered with the servant.

She looked toward the bed.

Only then did she realize I wasn’t there.

Before she could react, I stepped into the light.

“Looking for me?”

For the first time since I had met her…

She looked afraid.

Her calm mask cracked.

“You should be in bed.”

“And I should be in another bath full of peppers?”

Silence.

“You’ve tortured me for a month.”

“It was necessary.”

“For what?”

“To save this family.”

Her voice was completely sincere.

That was the most terrifying part.

She truly believed every word.

Just then another voice echoed through the hallway.

“Mother…”

My husband.

He stood frozen in the doorway.

His eyes moved from me…

…to the servant…

…to the wooden bucket filled with fresh red peppers.

His expression slowly changed.

“What is this?”

His mother remained silent.

I watched him piece everything together.

Then he looked at my swollen, blistered hands.

The marks I had hidden every day.

His face turned white.

“You did this to her?”

Still no answer.

“You did this…”

His voice broke.

“…and I never knew.”

He turned toward me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tears finally escaped.

“I tried.”

“You always said you were tired.”

“I was afraid.”

He covered his face with both hands.

“I thought you were simply adjusting to a new home.”

For a long moment, nobody spoke.

Then my mother-in-law calmly said,

“You don’t understand. I did this for you.”

“No,” my husband answered quietly.

“You did it to control me.”

The next morning, he canceled every family meeting.

He moved us into a hotel.

Within a week, we had rented our own home.

His mother called dozens of times.

He never answered.

Months later, doctors examined me carefully.

Miraculously, despite everything, there was no lasting physical damage.

But the emotional wounds took much longer to heal.

My husband spent months earning back the trust that had been broken—not because he had hurt me himself, but because he had failed to see what was happening right in front of him.

He also confronted the truth about the family he had grown up in.

The perfect image had been built on silence.

His father admitted he had known about similar “rituals” imposed on previous daughters-in-law decades earlier, but had convinced himself they were harmless traditions.

They weren’t.

They were abuse disguised as custom.

Eventually, my husband severed financial ties with his parents.

He chose to build a life where fear and superstition would never decide another person’s fate.

Two years later, we welcomed our first daughter.

When I held her for the first time, I remembered every burning night, every tear I had hidden, every moment I believed I was completely alone.

My husband looked at our little girl and whispered,

“No family tradition is more important than protecting the people you love.”

For the first time since our wedding, I believed those words completely.

Some rituals survive because no one dares to question them.

Sometimes, all it takes to end generations of fear is one person willing to ask a single question:

“Why?”