Livestream Matchmaking: My Intel Infinitely Refreshes

The chat was so uncharacteristically normal it startled Zhang Zhe.

’Is this still Xiaohongshu?’ he wondered. ’Didn’t everyone come here to fight? Why is everyone analyzing this so seriously, so cogently?’

Zhang Zhe even began to wonder if his own stereotypes were getting the better of him.

But the truth was, he just didn’t get it.

On Xiaohongshu, the "boxing" was mainly aimed at men. Women, on the other hand, showed each other absolutely no mercy.

It’s always other women who are cruelest to women.

And it just so happened that the matchmaking market was a battlefield of same-sex competition.

Is it that hard to admit someone else is outstanding?

In the matchmaking market, it really is.

Admitting someone else is superior is tantamount to admitting they have the first pick of partners. In a matchmaking market with more women than men, that’s practically a death sentence!

Mrs. Xu, however, wasn’t surprised when she saw the chat comments. She knew exactly what these people were thinking:

The unmarried ones looking for a partner wanted to break up every couple they could. For every relationship that failed, a high-quality man would be back on the market, and maybe it would be their turn.

Those who had decided never to marry wished everyone were just like them. They wouldn’t just curse the married ones; if they came across anyone who was hesitating, they would uniformly advise them to break up.

As for those already married, some were green with envy. They couldn’t stand to see someone marry better than they did, so they certainly wouldn’t offer any kind words of reconciliation.

Only those who were already married and happy in their marriage would genuinely consider what was best for others.

Mrs. Xu felt she belonged to this last group.

So, she didn’t pay any mind to what the chat was saying. After a quick glance, she closed the livestream window.

"Teacher Xu, are we disturbing you?" Boss He said, looking quite embarrassed and apologetic. "Xiaozhang is new to this business. Sometimes he speaks without thinking."

"Sorry to trouble you."

"Ah Juan, don’t say that." Mrs. Xu shook her head and pointed at Zhang Zhe. "He’s quick on his feet. That girl just now was trying to take advantage of an old lady’s poor math skills."

"I really thought she was suffering. Listening to how wronged she sounded, oh my, she made it seem so real."

"That girl comes on here and tries to play mind games with an old woman like me. It’s just pointless. No wonder she’d give up a good man right in front of her to chase some fleeting, illusory goal."

"Teacher Xu, so you think she got what she deserved, right?" Zhang Zhe asked.

It looked like a question, but he was really just following up on what Mrs. Xu had said.

Hearing this, Mrs. Xu chuckled. "Xiaozhang, I was just about to ask you."

"You weren’t really supporting that girl just now, were you? You were actually supporting her boyfriend."

"Huh?" Zhang Zhe feigned surprise. Of course, he wouldn’t admit it, or he’d risk getting ganged up on by the two women. "Who’s her boyfriend? Do I know him?"

"I was looking at it from her perspective, completely and totally for her own good!"

"Sly fox!" Mrs. Xu pursed her lips. "I know you young people have a saying these days... something about... regardless of right or wrong, you just side with your own gender."

"Teacher Xu, you know about that?" Zhang Zhe was genuinely surprised this time.

It was a concept that had only emerged in recent years, something people liked to say when men and women were "boxing" each other online.

Before the truth of a matter came out, they would pick a side based on gender, regardless of who was right or wrong.

Because if they didn’t, the rational side would be at an absolute disadvantage in the court of public opinion, which could even affect the final outcome.

Only mindlessness could fight mindlessness.

But Zhang Zhe wasn’t like that, so now he really had to explain himself.

"I’m not part of that group you’re talking about."

"The reason I spoke that way earlier is because I consider things from the perspective of the good person. I can’t let a good person get taken advantage of."

"But you’re a Matchmaker," Boss He couldn’t help but interject. "It was the girl who came to you for a consultation, not her boyfriend."

"You definitely have to put yourself in her shoes and think from her perspective."

"Heh." Zhang Zhe chuckled, not refuting her. Instead, he looked at Mrs. Xu. "What do you think?"

Mrs. Xu didn’t state her position right away, but asked a question in return:

"I want to hear what you’re thinking, Xiaozhang."

"What I’m thinking is..."

"I think Teacher He is the type of person who would tell a guy whose wife is cheating on him, ’It’s fine. Sometimes you have to look the other way to keep the peace.’"

"Hahaha." Mrs. Xu burst out laughing beside them.

Zhang Zhe didn’t laugh. It would have been a bit rude if he had.

"Teacher He, don’t take it personally. I’m just giving an example. Let’s say a married woman who’s already cheating comes to you for advice. She has to choose between a twenty-year-old unemployed toyboy and her forty-year-old boring, greasy husband."

"You’d definitely tell her to stay with her husband, right?"

"That’s right." Boss He admitted it very frankly. "I’d definitely advise her to choose stability."

"So what sin did her husband commit?" Zhang Zhe retorted, crossing his arms. "Can you look me in the eye and answer that?"

"Hmm?"

"Teacher He?"

Zhang Zhe had questioned Boss He into silence.

Beside them, Mrs. Xu nodded thoughtfully.

"Teacher He, let me ask you one more thing. What if that woman takes your advice and goes back to her husband, but her husband finds out what happened? In a fit of rage, he stabs her to death."

"Whose fault is her death?"

"That’s her husband’s fault." Boss He finally found an opportunity to speak. "There’s no defending a murderer, right? Cheating isn’t a crime punishable by death!"

"But what if, before she came to you for advice, she had already drafted the divorce papers and was just one signature away?"

"This... I don’t know about that." Boss He was getting flustered. "When you run into someone like that, who knows what could happen?"

"What if I told her to go be with her young boyfriend, and he gets tired of her and dumps her?"

"Then she’d get what she deserves," Zhang Zhe said calmly. "Cheating and then getting dumped. What a perfectly reasonable plot."

"That’s why I say we should stand on the side of the good person."

"That way, no matter what happens later, at least you can live with yourself."

"Teacher Xu, what do you think?"

"I..."

"Sigh..." Mrs. Xu wanted to say something, but a thousand thoughts rushed through her mind, and in the end, all that came out was a long sigh.

The three of them were silent for a good while.

A disagreement had emerged in their approaches to being a Matchmaker.

Zhang Zhe and He Juan had completely different stances. If the client were a normal person, there would be no problem at all.

But when faced with a client who had flaws of their own, their advice could be polar opposites.

The trouble was, in the current marriage and dating market, there were quite a few female clients with problems.

In the end, it was the senior, Mrs. Xu, who smoothed things over.

She said to Boss He with a cheerful laugh, "We’re getting old. The young people now have their own ideas. You can see from the livestream chat that a lot of them think just like he does."

"Maybe this is how internet matchmaking has to be done."

"But we don’t need to doubt ourselves, either. In real life, we still advise reconciliation, not separation..."

"Is it because advising reconciliation carries the least risk?" Zhang Zhe couldn’t help but ask after Mrs. Xu finished. "If you advise separation, is it easy to get chased down and cursed out?"

"Yes." Mrs. Xu and Boss He both gave a bitter smile at the same time.

In fact, it was more than just being cursed out. In the early years, there were even people who showed up at their doors with knives, shouting threats to beat and kill them.

This habit of "sucking up to clients" wasn’t something they, the old-school Matchmakers, had from day one.

They had been conditioned into it, bit by bit, over so many years.

"I understand," Zhang Zhe nodded.

’I understand,’ he thought, ’but I don’t support it, and I won’t learn to do it.’

He now had a clear understanding.

Just now, when his opinion had differed from Mrs. Xu’s, he had wondered if being a Matchmaker was like being a lawyer, with an unwritten rule that you must always side with your client.

Now, it seemed that wasn’t the case.

This senior from the Matchmaker Association, Mrs. Xu, hadn’t found fault with his words, which meant that being a Matchmaker didn’t come with so many unwritten rules.

’It makes sense when you think about it,’ he thought. ’How much do lawyers make, and how much do Matchmakers make?’

If you wanted a Matchmaker to go against their conscience, you’d have to change their payment model to be like a lawyer’s, charging a percentage of the total value of the "betrothal gifts and the three golds" or the "dowry."

Otherwise, there’s no need to suck up to the client.

Not to mention, Zhang Zhe’s matchmaking consultations were completely free.