Chapter 86: We Broke Up, but He Still Has Me in His Heart
[How come the streamer’s so early today?]
[Brother Zhang, why aren’t you streaming on Douyin today?]
[Streamer, streamer, looks like you’ve been put on blast again.]
[The first thing I saw when I logged onto Xiaohongshu today was a post calling you out. It said you sold a girl who came for a consultation to some scummy guy.]
"Everyone, don’t believe or spread rumors. This streamer isn’t a kidnapper. The women who come for consultations aren’t children, so how could I possibly be selling people?"
"And selling them out is even more impossible."
"After the stream ends, I only ever collect payment; I don’t help analyze problems offline. Anything that needs to be said is said here on the livestream."
"Saying it in front of everyone—can you call that selling someone out? That’s called exposing them."
"Exposing the behavior of certain women who are ruining the matchmaking market!"
Zhang Zhe’s words were stern and righteous, and he radiated an air of integrity.
This was something the other matchmakers at the agency had taught him.
Before he started streaming, a senior colleague informed him that his ranking on the Earthly Billboard had risen again.
This time, he had climbed to 82nd place on the Earthly Billboard.
He had actually been put on blast twice before by women seeking matchmaking advice, but while he was getting called out, the other matchmakers weren’t exactly idle, either.
The competition on the Earthly Billboard was still fierce.
Especially since the other matchmakers focused on offline services, they had a higher chance of running into extreme cases. And when people paid for offline matchmaking, their willingness to go on Xiaohongshu and put someone on blast was much stronger.
That’s why Zhang Zhe had always hovered around the bottom of the Earthly Billboard.
For a long time, he was even knocked off the leaderboard entirely.
Until the locksmith showed up.
He brought with him a gold digger from a bygone era.
With Zhang Zhe’s help, the man saw her true colors;
And with that man’s help, Zhang Zhe was put on blast. The triggered "sisters" flamed him in a thread a hundred comments long.
They said he discriminated against single, divorced women with children;
They said the "Dorgon" spam in his stream’s bullet chat was disgusting to men who went on blind dates with divorced women;
They said he interrogated the women who came for matchmaking but was incredibly lenient with the men...
"Let me make one thing clear: I didn’t tell anyone to spam ’Dorgon’ in the chat. People did it on their own, and a lot of them were girls."
"I support the right of divorced women with children to pursue happiness, but don’t come take it out on me when you can’t get what you want."
"Putting me on blast isn’t going to make him marry you."
Zhang Zhe felt helpless. He thought that a lot of these XXN had flawed logic.
Like that divorced gold digger—the guy was the one who wasn’t interested in her. If she wasn’t happy about it, she should have gone to him for an explanation.
Why come after the matchmaker?
"Let me repeat the philosophy of this stream: I only help you analyze, I don’t make decisions for you."
[Then what did you mean before when you told that girl to go look in a mirror?]
[Brother Zhang, you’ve changed. You used to just tell girls to go back to dreaming.]
[I saw that post calling you out. It was all true, no room for argument.]
[Streamer, I’m sorry. I used your face as my profile pic and harassed every woman who cursed you out via private message.]
[I hereby declare this stream the bridgehead of the anti-gold-digger war on Xiaohongshu!]
The bullet comments in the stream made Zhang Zhe’s heart pound.
A single screenshot could get him flamed in another hundred-comment thread.
The most ridiculous part was that many of these comments came from accounts with female avatars and usernames. He couldn’t tell if they were men posing as women or just genuine trolls.
Zhang Zhe felt like they had completely figured out how to game Xiaohongshu.
He couldn’t outplay these young people. He might as well just get back to taking calls.
"Hello there, miss. Thanks for your trust."
"In a tumultuous time like this, for you to still be willing to call in... you’re a benefactor to me, and to our entire stream."
"You’re too kind, Teacher Zhang," a girl with a very delicate, feminine voice replied. "I was actually looking for Teacher Xu, but she wasn’t on today."
"So I could only come to you."
"It’s fine, no need to explain. I get it." Zhang Zhe patted his chest and gave a thumbs-up. "The sisterhood is in the heart."
"Alright, let’s start with your situation."
"..." The girl was silent for a moment, as if mentally preparing herself. Once she was ready, she began, "I was born in ’98, and I’m an only child from a small county in the central region. I’m five-foot-five and weigh about 120 pounds."
"I currently work at a state-owned enterprise here in my hometown."
"My annual income is around 100,000 yuan."
"My parents are both self-employed. My mom runs a supermarket, and my dad is a beverage distributor. Our family probably has around a million yuan in savings."
[Her situation sounds pretty good.]
[The girl didn’t mention her education level. Probably not that great.]
[If they don’t dare to rate their own looks, you can assume they’re a dinosaur.]
"As for my looks, streamer, you can check my profile page. There are photos there."
"Alright, I’ll take a look." As long as it wouldn’t get him flamed, Zhang Zhe was willing to rate a woman’s appearance.
He considered his own ratings to be quite fair, so it wouldn’t lead to any misjudgments.
"Miss, these photos of yours have a bit of a campus-style, anime vibe."
"Were these taken recently?"
"Yes, I’m a pretty ’moe’ type of girl in real life."
"But you’re 27," Zhang Zhe said hesitantly. "I’m not saying you can’t act cute when you’re older. Yaorenmao is almost 40, and I still like and tip her videos."
"The question is, are you ready for marriage?"
"Marriage means family, and family means responsibility..."
[I took a look. This girl is a pure weeb.]
[Weebs shouldn’t be on the blind date market. I suggest online dating.]
[Actually, I think a ’moe’ girl would make a great wife!]
[Genshin Impact activated!]
"I was actually planning to get married this year," the girl replied. "My ex-boyfriend works within the system. We were together for two years and were planning to get married during the National Day holiday this year."
"Did it fall through because of the betrothal gift?" Zhang Zhe guessed.
"Yes."
"Don’t worry, that’s pretty common," Zhang Zhe said comfortingly. "Forget two years—even people in five-year relationships have broken up over the betrothal gift."
"Everything’s fine and dandy until you start talking about money before the wedding."
"Generally speaking, if you can break up over the betrothal gift, it means your values and family situations don’t match. In that case, breaking up isn’t necessarily a bad thing."
"But I don’t think that’s it."
"We were together for over two years and never fought once. It was perfect," the girl retorted. "Even though we’ve broken up, I feel like I still like him, and he still has feelings for me too."
"We’re still in contact."
"I called in today because I wanted to ask you, Teacher, how I can break this deadlock."
"?" Zhang Zhe’s jaw dropped.
"You’re saying he’s not even willing to pay the betrothal gift, but he likes you?"
"How can you tell?"
"It’s not like that," the woman explained. "He wants to pay it, but his family isn’t very well-off. He might not have that much cash on hand and would need to borrow money to cover the betrothal gift, the wedding expenses, and so on."
"How much is the betrothal gift?"
"188,000."
"How much does he have in savings?"
"Probably around 80,000 or 90,000."
"You can’t lower the betrothal gift amount?" Zhang Zhe was still confused.
He could already sense something was off about this woman.
"This isn’t a question of lowering the betrothal gift or not..."
"This is *exactly* a question of whether you can lower it!" Zhang Zhe cut her off, speaking bluntly. "You like him, but you can’t lower the price by a single penny. You call that ’like’?"
"The auntie selling fruit downstairs rounded off his bill by 30 cents. Does that mean she’s madly in love with him?"