After Wu Xia graduated from middle school and returned home, matchmakers began visiting one after another.
A young woman eventually has to marry, and marriage is a serious affair. Her younger aunt and Grandma Wu took it very seriously, treating every matchmaker or tentative inquiry with the same gravity.
After more than a year, a rather good match was proposed, and Wu Xia had no objections.
It should have been a happy occasion, but during the marriage proposal process, before the engagement was officially finalized, the young suitor unexpectedly fell ill.
The illness came on suddenly. He fell sick that night and was dead by the next day.
The young man had a stomachache so severe he was rolling on the ground in pain. Back then, it wasn't common practice to rush someone to the hospital when they got sick. He took some folk remedies, but they didn't work. By the time they realized something was seriously wrong and wanted to take him the next day, it was already too late.
