Chapter 119: Crusading Personality
"Well..." Lanlan glanced at Xia Yi beside her.
She originally wanted to ask Zhang Zhe, ’Then why are you sucking up to Xia Yi? Are you covering all the expenses for your dates?’
But she calmed herself down.
She knew her circumstances were too different from Xia Yi’s.
It was a good thing she didn’t ask. If she had known that Xia Yi had paid for their first meeting, her entire worldview would have shattered even more violently.
As it was, she could at least understand it this way: whoever was in the worse position had to be the proactive one.
Her little brain quickly digested this simple "who’s better off" logic.
And she felt it made a lot of sense.
She even felt a sense of regret that she hadn’t met Zhang Zhe sooner.
’A professional Matchmaker really is the way to go. He cleared up my confusion in an instant.’
"I have one last question." Lanlan looked at Zhang Zhe and asked, "Those guys who give me gifts on the first date—does that mean their circumstances are worse than mine, or that they’re just looking for something short-term?"
"Not necessarily. It’s possible they’re just desperate."
"Huh?"
"Haha, just kidding. Some of them are definitely just after your body, but others don’t really have bad intentions. They’re just following someone else’s instructions."
"Matchmakers nowadays all tell the guys to bring a gift for the first meeting."
"So, for the ones who ask to go Dutch on the first date, you can at least trust that they have a brain and can think for themselves."
Zhang Zhe didn’t elaborate. He had already revealed enough.
The truth was, women just couldn’t accept it yet. As men continued to see their investment in the marriage market yield disproportionately low returns, going Dutch on blind dates would eventually become the standard.
Perhaps there would still be guys who tried to gain an advantage by giving gifts.
But the gold diggers would teach them a lesson, making them understand that "accepting your gift doesn’t mean I’m accepting your advances."
...
Because of his female colleague’s appearance, Zhang Zhe and Xia Yi’s date consisted of little else besides watching the movie and eating.
Their progress seemed a bit slow.
But thanks to the woman "practicing her boxing" after the movie, both Zhang Zhe and Xia Yi had gained a deeper understanding of their blind date partner.
Xia Yi was definitely a woman who valued family and believed in marriage.
Zhang Zhe not only shared her views, but he was also just as bold, daring to confront those "boxing masters" in public.
Of course, while both of them had confronted the "boxer,"
Zhang Zhe, being a Matchmaker, clearly reaped a greater reward.
He had just parted ways with Xia Yi and the others and hadn’t even gotten home yet when someone in his WeChat group forwarded a chat log and asked:
"Teacher Zhang, is this tough guy you?"
After Zhang Zhe confirmed it, the red envelopes in the "Bachelor’s Club" group chat didn’t stop coming.
They were all for him.
And no one tried to snatch them.
A few of the older guys who were divorced and had suffered at the hands of the "boxing masters" each sent several red envelopes, for no other reason than to thank Zhang Zhe for venting their frustrations.
𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶
"Brother Zhang, should we try to make this video go viral?"
"Yeah, yeah! You can use this woman as a stepping stone!"
"I don’t think that’s a good idea. These women are extremely vindictive. They’ll latch on to you and won’t let go, just to be disgusting."
"Old Wang has a point. His online store got shut down after being mass-reported."
"Brother Zhang, you make the call. We’ll listen to you..."
The guys in the group didn’t just offer money; they also helped brainstorm.
Zhang Zhe was quite pleased. ’If being a Matchmaker always came with perks like this, life would be amazing.’
He thought about it and decided to reject the guys’ proposal to hype up the video.
He believed that if all these guys helped buy traffic and pay for some reposts, his "heroic deed" from the afternoon could indeed hit the trending charts.
But he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to handle the subsequent fallout.
’Those are a bunch of crazy bitches, after all.’
For one thing, if every person in that woman’s fan group reported his livestream channel just once, his streaming career would be over.
So it was better to just keep his head down and quietly make a fortune.
At most, when people in the video comments asked who the handsome guy was, they could pretend to be passersby and plug Zhang Zhe’s livestream account.
The guys in the group discussed it for a bit.
They agreed that Zhang Zhe’s way of handling it was the most sensible.
On Douyin or Xiaohongshu, they could indeed do as he suggested.
There was no helping it. All the guys in the group combined couldn’t win an argument against those lunatics online. Some of them didn’t even work and just "practiced boxing" 24 hours a day.
But in the real world, it was a different story.
"Brother Zhang, we don’t understand online stuff, so we’ll listen to you. But when it comes to the real world, that’s something we understand very well."
"That’s right. I’ll help you share this video 499 times."
"Count me in. I’ll share it 499 times too."
"Let’s all put in the effort! At the very least, let’s make Brother Zhang famous in Qing City!"
"Let’s go...!"
Seeing everyone so fired up, Zhang Zhe didn’t have the heart to refuse.
He could only send out a few red envelopes as a token of his appreciation.
"Thanks, brothers!"
"From now on, your marriage prospects are my business."
...
That night, during his livestream, the promotional efforts of the brothers in his group began to show results.
Zhang Zhe was streaming on Granny Xu’s account. Normally, he’d have about 2,000 viewers, maybe peaking at 3,000, but the numbers were rarely sustained.
But today, within ten minutes of starting the stream, his concurrent viewers hit over 3,000.
By the time Zhang Zhe was ready to start taking calls, the count was over 3,500.
[Brother Zhang, I’m here to support you!]
[I saw the streamer’s video. It was awesome!]
[Here to show my support too!]
[What video? Can you give me a keyword?]
[Search "Matchmaker does this in a movie theater" and you’ll find it.]
[Can’t find it. Bro, I think you dropped your cigarette. DM me.]
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re twisting things. Why does it sound like some kind of video of me got leaked?"
Zhang Zhe couldn’t take it anymore and had to step in to defend his reputation.
"If you’re interested, you can follow this account."
"Tomorrow morning, I’ll edit the video and post it for everyone."
[Streamer, remember to blur out the woman’s face!]
[Yeah, for real. Be careful. If her face is showing, she could sue you for invasion of privacy.]
[What is all this about? Streamer, did you stop streaming and go shoot a movie or something?]
"Sigh—"
Zhang Zhe sighed. He knew explaining was useless.
The bullet comments were already going wild. Nothing he said would matter now.
’Might as well get on with the stream,’ he thought. ’Let’s fill this not-so-decent chatroom with some decent content.’
"Hello?"
"Hello, Teacher." The woman’s speaking pace was rapid from the moment she connected. Just from the sound of her voice, it was clear she and the word "gentle" were complete strangers.
"Why don’t you start by introducing yourself?"
"Okay, I was born in ’87, I’m about 5’5", and I studied abroad."
"My parents separated when I was very young."
"I work in the tourism industry now, with an annual income of around 400,000."
...
Zhang Zhe jotted down her words, putting question marks next to everything.
When the woman finished, he couldn’t hold back anymore.
"You’ve only given a fraction of the information for each point. What’s up? Are you afraid that if you tell the whole story, you’ll scare off anyone you’re matched with?"
"No, that’s not it," the woman denied. "I just feel like some things aren’t relevant to matchmaking."
"How could they not be relevant?"
"If they’re relevant, then you can ask me. You’re the Matchmaker, don’t you know how to ask questions?"
"Fair enough!" Zhang Zhe could tell now. She had a classic "crusading personality"—every sentence she spoke seemed like an attempt to find a reason to pick a fight.
Many eccentric, middle-aged women in the real world had this same tone, especially the ones who worked office jobs.
Combine that with her age—thirty-eight—and it all started to make perfect sense.
"Alright then, I’ll ask. What region did you study in, and what was the caliber of the university?"
"I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t think it’s relevant to matchmaking."
"Oh, I see." Zhang Zhe nodded. "You don’t have to tell me. I already know. It must have been some diploma mill abroad."