Six years after being pushed off a 34-meter cliff while pregnant, Wang Nuannuan was finally granted a divorce this October from the man who had nearly killed her. In a video posted the day after the court’s decision, Wang sat in a well-lit room wearing a light blue shirt and white pants, her hands folded gently over a soft cushion. “My divorce finally went through,” she said with a smile before breaking into tears. “Justice may be delayed, but it will always prevail.” She then stood and bowed deeply to the camera, expressing her gratitude to her supporters.

In June 2019, Wang and her then-husband, Yu Xiaodong, were visiting a national park in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, when Yu pushed Wang off a cliff in the early morning. Believing she was dead, Yu fled the scene. Remarkably, Wang survived the fall and was found by a tourist couple who had become lost in the woods.

Wang’s horrific ordeal, miraculous survival, and her arduous journey to bring the perpetrator to justice have been the center of media attention since 2019. But many were shocked to learn that she was still married to Yu, the man convicted of attempted murder in 2023. In reality, the criminal trial, which dragged on for four years through two appeals, took precedence over the divorce proceedings. Although Wang had filed for divorce in Nanjing after the criminal case concluded, the process faced significant legal challenges largely because Yu, currently serving a 33-year-and-four-month sentence in Thailand, refused to cooperate. The high-profile case has become China’s first divorce trial with the defendant incarcerated overseas.

When Wang was finally granted a divorce, along with an additional 500,000 yuan in compensation, a rare sum in divorce cases, she became an inspiration for many women struggling with domestic violence and facing difficulties in obtaining a divorce.

Under China’s Civil Code, divorce by mutual agreement requires a mandatory 30-day cooling-off period. In practice, abusers rarely consent to divorce. Even when they do, claims of domestic violence do not exempt the couple from this process, during which either party may withdraw. Tragically, in 2023, an abused woman in Guangzhou was stabbed to death by her disgruntled husband just two weeks into the cooling-off period.

The alternative legal route is to sue for divorce, which requires proof that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. Such proof may include bigamy or cohabitation with another person, evidence of domestic violence, abuse, or abandonment, and other related circumstances. However, many instances of violence go unrecognized, even for high-profile cases, as victims may lack the necessary legal knowledge or find it difficult to gather admissible evidence while under the abuser’s control. The 61-year-old rural woman, Su Min, whose story of embarking on a solo road trip inspired the 2024 film Like a Rolling Stone, had to pay her abusive ex-husband 160,000 yuan after repeated negotiations to secure his agreement to the divorce.

Finding the courage to leave is never easy. In another high-profile case, Xie Yumei, a woman from Sichuan, had suffered abuse from her husband since 2021. Despite reporting the violence to the police and seeking help from local women’s organizations, Xie struggled to leave her abuser, especially with a young child to care for. When she finally filed for divorce, he tracked her down and violently assaulted her, leaving her with lifelong injuries. During the divorce proceedings, child custody and property division became additional hurdles. Amid heated public outcry, Xie was finally granted a divorce in 2024, while her abuser was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

In Wang Nuannuan’s case, even serving the defendant, Yu Xiaodong, has proven challenging, as Thailand is not a member of the Hague Service Convention, which facilitates the cross-border delivery of legal documents. Fortunately, with assistance from Thai legal authorities, the Chinese Embassy in Thailand was able to serve the documents and obtain Yu’s trial transcripts. Despite Yu’s repeated changes of mind, the divorce trial ultimately took place on September 26, with Yu participating via video conference.

Wang Nuannuan’s story has sparked widespread discussion—and even anxiety—about love and marriage, while her extraordinary resilience has inspired many.

In her memoir Rebirth, published this August, more chilling details about the case are revealed: “He held me from behind, his hands gently wrapping around my swollen belly, then softly kissed my right cheek…Then, all of a sudden, he loosened his grip. Before I could react, the gentle embrace turned into a violent shove on my shoulder. A split second later, a chilling voice thundered in my ear: ‘Go to hell!’” Wang recalled.

After being found and rushed to the hospital, Wang, critically injured, woke up to the heart-stopping sight of Yu at her bedside, threatening to kill her if she tried to speak the truth. She later learned that, as Yu was driving out of the park with a plane ticket back to China, an approaching ambulance caught his attention. He followed it to the hospital, where Wang was receiving treatment, and claimed the fall had been an accident. Wang was then forced to remain in the same ward as her attacker, who refused to leave even for a few minutes. She had to feign forgiveness to get Yu to confess on tape, which later became crucial evidence in the trial. Over a week after the incident, Yu was finally arrested by Thai police at the hospital.

According to Wang’s memoir, she and Yu first met at a gathering of Chinese expats in Thailand in 2017. At the beginning, Yu appeared generous and caring, claiming to be an entrepreneur from a wealthy family seeking business opportunities in Thailand. Wang, at the time, was running a successful trading company and a boutique hotel in the country. The two soon began dating and married just two months later.

However, the truth soon began to surface: Yu had never secured a job or business project; instead, he had taken to gambling and embezzling money from Wang’s company. Wang also discovered that Yu had a criminal record in China. When Wang eventually refused to pay off his gambling debts, Yu decided to kill her and stage the scene as an accident to inherit her assets.

To lure Wang to the national park, Yu told her, “At 33 years old, he had never seen the sunrise,” Wang recalled in her memoir. “He said Pha Taem National Park is the earliest place in Thailand to see the sunrise…Our family was about to welcome a newborn, and the power of new life was like the morning sun. I was so moved by his words.”

Details like these have since become widely discussed online, with many viewing her story as a cautionary tale for single women seeking love. Part of her experience later inspired the 2023 crime-suspense film Lost in the Stars.

Wang endured a grueling process of rehabilitation while simultaneously fighting a legal battle to ensure Yu’s conviction and sentencing. Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment came when she lost her child, who suffered from deformities caused by the extensive medical treatments she had undergone. Yet, against all odds, and despite being told she might be paralyzed for life, Wang not only learned to walk again but also gave birth to a baby boy in 2024 through IVF with an anonymous donor.

That same year, Wang returned to Pha Taem National Park in Thailand, the scene of the crime, to confront her trauma and thank the locals who had saved her life. From the bottom of the cliff, where she had fallen in just a few seconds five years earlier, she climbed to the top. As she gazed out over the mountains and forests, she felt that she had finally found closure.

After her business in Thailand went bankrupt during the pandemic, Wang began a new career as an influencer in Hangzhou in 2023. She now has over 64 million followers on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. Despite skepticism that she might exploit her own tragedy, she does not hesitate to retell her story. As she wrote in her book, “I share this experience repeatedly not to dwell on the pain—I have long since laid the past to rest. I unveil these scars only to offer others a warning, a lesson, and perhaps a spark of insight. This, for me, is the true meaning of my rebirth.”