Disabled woman finds joy through art

Liu Xiaoju, who stands under one meter tall with a round, cheerful face, has spent her life defying the odds.

Her life embodies a paradox: fragility and fortitude intertwined. Each stitch in her embroidery carries the weight of her struggles and the brilliance of her triumph. Through cracked bones and broken dreams, she has woven a tapestry of resilience, proving that even the most fragile threads can create something enduring.

Born in 1987 in Loudi city, Hunan province, her story is one of relentless resilience against a genetic condition — osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease — that shadowed her from infancy.

By the age of three, she experienced her first fracture, and from then on breaks became a cruel routine.

"I lost count of how many times my bones snapped," she said. Simple movements, even sneezing, could trigger fractures, earning her the nickname "Porcelain Doll".

Confined to cycles of hospitalization and homebound recovery, her childhood was marked by isolation and physical agony.