A woman in Shenzhen’s Guangming New Zone brought in reporters from Metropolis to try to coax her husband into talking to her for the first time in 26 years for a report that was broadcast on July 23.

Mrs. Zhang on her knees begging her husband to talk.

Mrs. Zhang, who works in a factory in Shenzhen and has four children with Mr Zeng, claims that they don’t live together and they only see each other on holidays. “I don’t even know where he works,” she told reporters.

On one of the rare occasions he came to her home, Zhang brought reporters up to her front room and initially he would not turn around to face the camera. The reporter then said to Mr. Zeng: “Your wife has many questions she wants to ask you, would you mind answering?”

Mrs. Zhang then scolded him for refusing to speak, which suggests there is a reason why he’s scared of her.

The stand-off continued even after more family members entered the room and she said: “You’re going to drive me insane.” She then got down on her knees and begged him to talk.

The reporter gave it a try by asking him: “Is the reason why you don’t speak to your wife because she won’t let you?”

“No,” he responded.

The reporter then asked: “Does she encourage you to remain mute?”

Mrs. Zhang then interrupted by saying: “Reply please. Won’t you reply?”

She then offered the suggestion that the reason might be he thought she was angry that he lost two fingers in a chainsaw accident many years ago, but she said she had repeatedly stressed that she wasn’t angry.

The narrator then suggested that the reason for his muteness may be that he has a pathological inferiority complex.

Then a female reporter who was sat between Mrs. Zhang and her husband said to Mr. Zeng: “Speaking is a joyful thing. Bottling everything up is bad for you. If you speak then we can know exactly what the problem is and who is to blame.”

A reporter, left, trying to get some answers out of Mr. Zeng.

The female reporter then said to him, while the cameras were rolling: “Look at your wife, turn your head and look at your wife. Do you fear her Mr. Zeng?”

Then, finally he spoke, muttering: “I do fear her a little bit.”

Then there was a buzz about the room as the reporter continued asking: “What do you fear about her? Please tell me.”

He explained, “She often speaks very harshly.”

“Harsh in what way,” he was then asked by the female reporter.

Mr. Zeng said: “After we got married, she was often out with other people and seldom came home.”

The reporter then asked: “How do you know this?”

“A fellow villager told me,” Mr. Zeng said.

The report then ends by showing Mrs. Zhang with a guilty look on her face.