The old man from the Guo family had one son and three daughters, the son being the youngest. All four children were born to different mothers. It was said that the old man had married five times in his life, and Qiao Yu would be the sixth wife he was going to marry.
Out of the first five wives, two ran away after being beaten by him. Another two of them had difficult childbirths and only the children survived. The last wife could not stand being tortured by him and committed suicide.
The Guo family was a famous well-to-done family within the surrounding eight villages. In the past, they were also the wealthy businessmen in this area. During the generation of Old Man Guo's father, the family started to decline and they no longer did as well as before.
However, a starving camel was still bigger than a horse, and they were still richer than ordinary families.
