Xu Zhimo
In 1912, when Zhang Youyi was aged 12, she found an advertisement in the newspaper "Shen Bao" about a girls' school in Suzhou called the Teachers' College Preparatory School. She proposed the idea of attending to her parents and they agreed. She was admitted after passing the entrance exam, along with her elder sister. However, in the 1913, her brother Zhang Gongquan arranged for her marriage with Xu Zhimo, a rising poet and son of a rich businessman. Upon her parents' urging, Zhang quit school and returned home to prepare for her wedding.