Chapter 180 - 178: Huddling Together for Warmth
"That’s not it, that’s not it..."
The young woman’s face flushed red at Zhang Zhe’s words, and she shook her head repeatedly.
"All my best friends say that as long as a girl is willing to lower her standards, she can always get married."
"So why, coming from you, a Matchmaker, do I still have to put in so much effort?"
"Is that right?"
Zhang Zhe just smiled, not answering her question directly.
It was true. Given her circumstances, she could absolutely find a man with no money whose only goal was to carry on his family line.
A man like that would completely ignore the risks and marry her anyway, because then it would be the man’s turn to suck the woman’s family dry.
’Her future father-in-law is drowning in stock market debt? No problem. The man’s family is in more debt than hers even without playing the market. The worst-case scenario is they sleep under a bridge together—at least they’d have each other for support.’
The question was, is that what she was looking for?
Zhang Zhe highly doubted it.
But he was too lazy to explain.
She wouldn’t listen to that kind of talk anyway. She’d never believe that lowering her standards meant she could only find a man like that.
She had been brainwashed by her friends for so long that the neural synapses in her brain were completely different from a normal person’s.
She might not be able to figure out even the simplest of problems.
Zhang Zhe knew he couldn’t wake someone who was only pretending to be asleep. Many older single women still clung to strange ideas well into their forties.
Since she wouldn’t listen to normal advice, he could only offer an unorthodox path. He supposed it still counted as doing his part.
"I have a question for you. Your friends talk a good game, but are they married?"
"No." The woman shook her head. "But they’re in a much better position than I am."
"Is that so?" Zhang Zhe chuckled. "And I’m sure they also think they can find someone just by lowering their standards, right?"
"Yes, and for them, it’s true."
"I get it. So, all the women in your little circle are like this—none of you can find a man who meets your requirements, and you think your only option is to lower your standards and date down."
"Well, that makes it easy." Zhang Zhe nodded. "Bold prediction: you people will probably die single."
Zhang Zhe didn’t explain the specific reason. She wouldn’t have believed him even if he had.
The deeper reason wasn’t actually complex: as women get older, their value on the dating market depreciates far more than that of men of the same age.
At 25, a woman might be dating down to be with a certain man. But by 35, if that same man was still interested in her, it would have to be true love.
Zhang Zhe told the woman exactly what to do.
"Why don’t you all just give up on marriage and live together?"
"This sort of thing has already been tried by older single men. They all lived very comfortably together in the countryside. The only reason they were forced to disband was because a group of bachelors living together made some people nervous."
"If it were a group of women, you definitely wouldn’t have that problem."
"Since you’ve all chosen to be ’sisters,’ why not just be sisters for life? You can all agree to grow old together and provide a safety net for each other. How great is that?"
"That actually sounds pretty good." The woman nodded. "But what about when we’re old?"
"We won’t have any children to take care of us!"
"You’ll take care of each other," Zhang Zhe retorted. "If you ’sisters’ can’t even look after one another when you’re old, do you really think some man you met on a blind date will be willing to take care of you?"
"Don’t you think so?"
"You’re right! That makes a lot of sense!" The woman nodded. "I’ll go talk to them about it after this blind date."
"Mhm, good luck."
Zhang Zhe thought for a moment. Her little group of friends would probably have one of two reactions to her proposal.
The first reaction: they would readily agree.
All the "sisters" would give up on marriage and huddle together for warmth. While that might make the local marriage rate even worse, it wasn’t a terrible outcome for this particular woman.
Zhang Zhe had discussed this very issue with his own good buddies a long time ago.
They all agreed there was nothing wrong with huddling together for warmth.
The greatest blessing of modern times for the common person was that a rich mental life was rarely out of reach.
For very little money—say, buying an Xbox, an automatic mahjong table, or building a high-spec PC—you could experience immense happiness.
During one National Day holiday, a few of his buddies had even tried it out, holing up in a gaming hotel for seven days straight. Everyone agreed it was perfectly fine.
The only point of disagreement was what to do if one of them got seriously ill in their old age.
Some suggested sending the person to a nursing home, some wanted to care for each other and provide a safety net, and others thought they should just opt for euthanasia...
But this kind of group living required a strong sense of self-awareness, common interests, and mutual trust.
Zhang Zhe suspected the woman’s friends hadn’t reached that level yet.
So, there was also a second possible reaction: some "villain" would emerge and tell her:
"Honey, you might not have men lining up for you, but I do."
That would also be a good thing. It would probably shatter the woman’s idealized image of her "sisters," and her way of thinking might slowly start to change.
All in all, it was a win-win!
After the woman had long since disappeared, Xia Yi’s childhood friend, the young guy who called himself Xiaolu, quietly crept back.
He was pretty thoughtful, even bringing a bottle of water for Zhang Zhe. He didn’t stay long, though, because the event was about to officially begin!
...
Zhang Zhe thought that he might organize similar events himself in the future. He quickly put down his phone to observe how things were actually being run on-site.
He wanted to see if any problems would crop up.
He had only been watching for two minutes when, sure enough, something happened.
𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
It was unclear who started it, but when the line of men shaking hands was only about a third of the way through, one of them suddenly shouted:
"Stop shaking hands! Stop!"
"She’s here for a blind date and she’s still acting all high and mighty! Don’t spoil her!"
"Exactly! Fellas, have some dignity! If anyone else shakes her hand, don’t blame us for laughing at you."
"..."
The moment Zhang Zhe heard that, he knew some entitled woman was causing trouble.
At times like this, finding the culprit was simple: just look for the woman in the crowd with the most nonchalant expression. It was definitely her.
A normal person in this situation would feel like they’d caused a disaster and have an expression of embarrassment and panic.
But these entitled women were different. They would strike a pose as if they’d done nothing wrong. In other words, they were completely shameless.
Zhang Zhe quickly locked onto the woman. She was quite attractive; she must have gotten one of the tickets beforehand.
According to the men who had already shaken hands, the woman had refused to shake one guy’s hand because she thought he was ugly. Not only that, but she had also insulted him.
The man in line behind him couldn’t take it anymore and called for everyone to ignore her.
"Who’s got such a strong sense of justice?" Zhang Zhe murmured.
It was rare to see a single guy dare to publicly call out an entitled woman in real life these days. It was an easy way to get sued, so most people just kept their distance.
He turned around, and there was Male Guest No. 38, Xiaolu, grinning at him.
"Brother Zhang, what do you think? See that? Wasn’t I awesome just now?"
"You were the one who started shouting?"
"Of course. It’s not like I’m actually here for a blind date." Xiaolu gave a brazen smile. "But there’s a problem now. That woman says she’s going to report me."
"I don’t care, but my friend might be in a tough spot."
"He’s the one who gave me this spot."
Xiaolu pointed at the number card in front of him, a troubled look on his face.
"Brother Zhang, help my buddy out, please. You’re the only connection I have here."
"Help me with this, and when you and Sister Xia Yi get married, I’ll give you a huge red envelope."
"Deal? Brother-in-law?"
"Don’t call me that. It’s way too early for that," Zhang Zhe said, waving his hand with a serious expression. "But you have such a strong sense of justice. Even if you were a stranger, I’d definitely help you."
"Here’s what you do. While that woman is still standing over there, go find the organizers and report her for disrupting the event."
"Huh? Report myself?" Xiaolu was self-aware enough to know that his one shout had already ruined the first part of the event.
"Don’t be dense. You’re reporting her, of course."
"You’d better do it before the line disperses. Grab a manager and go over there together. Let the people who are actually in charge get a taste of that woman’s arrogant attitude."
"I refuse to believe the people running this event will tolerate someone causing this much trouble."