Chapter 122: You’re Trying to Salvage This?

Chapter 122: Chapter 122: You’re Trying to Salvage This?

"If some older woman can earn over 100 gold bracelets, that’s her own talent. Who told you it must be from sleeping with old men?"

"It’s not necessarily an old gold digger. It could also just be a gold digger who’s gotten old."

Zhang Zhe chuckled and didn’t continue the discussion on this topic.

If you do the math, the first wave of people who got rich in the ’80s and ’90s are now mostly at the age where they’re retiring to enjoy their golden years.

The wealth in their hands is astonishing...

Some things are better left unsaid.

Otherwise, it just becomes a catalyst.

It was like how Brother AA ran a bunch of social experiments on dating and ended up creating a master manipulator: a girl who would go Dutch on the first date to win guys over, securing one long-term meal ticket after another and just living it up.

If Zhang Zhe spelled it out too clearly, some of the older single women in the stream might actually go find themselves a retiree.

"Some of you guys should just drop the idea of trying to cash in."

"Some of you are even older than me. What are you thinking?"

"Everyone should just live their own lives honestly. Don’t think you can get rich by selling your body and soul."

"Go look at the subways in any first-tier city. All those men and women with dead eyes? They’re all selling their bodies to their bosses. How many of them have gotten rich?"

[Stop roasting us, stop roasting us, SOB SOB SOB]

[Sisters, don’t even think about selling yourselves. I thought about trying it once, but with some guys... you just can’t stomach it.]

[Let’s just be honest workers. Watching Brother Zhang’s streams for a bit of fun is enough for us.]

Zhang Zhe actually quite agreed with the sentiment in the comments about "going to the pier to get some fries." His stream was kind of like that, too—collecting small gifts while occasionally waiting for a big client to show up.

Sometimes, a viewer would pay for a consultation:

"[Zhu Buziqing], are you there? You just bought my consultation slot. I saw the system notification."

"Come on the mic!"

A one-on-one call with Zhang Zhe was free, but there were always generous viewers who felt bad about freeloading and were willing to pay 99 yuan to cut in line.

And that was the case with this particular viewer.

"Brother Zhang, good evening."

"Good evening to you too." Zhang Zhe nodded. "So, brother, are you here for a dating market profile analysis or a marriage prospect consultation?"

"To put it simply, am I helping you profile your ideal partner, or helping you analyze your current one?"

"Neither." The guy paused. "I’d like you to help me analyze whether my girlfriend and I should even continue."

"Hiss—" Zhang Zhe sucked in a sharp breath.

’Analyzing this kind of thing is a bit stressful.’ But since it was a paying customer, he naturally had to rise to the challenge.

That’s what he was paid for, after all.

"Go on, tell me your story."

"Okay, so my girlfriend and I are around the same age. I was born in ’99, and she was born in ’00."

"We met online. We’re both from Ji Province, and we’re both working in Yanjing now."

"I work at a big tech company, making around 15,000 yuan a month. She’s an assistant for a minor celebrity, making about 10,000 a month."

"Neither of us are only children. I have an older sister who’s already married, and she has a younger brother who’s still in high school."

"We’ve been dating for a little over a year, and we were getting ready to get married, but a problem came up. Now, it feels like we can’t go on..."

[Calling it now, they broke up over the betrothal gift.]

[Seems like all conflicts between men and women these days are about money.]

[She has a younger brother? Dude, why haven’t you run for the hills yet?]

[This guy has an older sister. That’s the funniest part.]

The comments summed it up perfectly. It was a clash between two "Voldemort" families—her younger brother on one side, and his older sister on the other.

They both definitely knew what the other was about.

"Are your hometowns in the same area?" Zhang Zhe asked curiously.

"No, so our customs are a bit different," the guy said in a low voice. "Where I’m from, we don’t really do the whole betrothal gift thing, but where she’s from, they have all those outdated feudal dregs."

"What about your families’ financial situations? Who’s better off?"

"I’m a bit better off. My dad is a truck driver, and my mom is currently farming at home. My family saved up a bit in the early years and has two apartments out by the Sixth Ring Road, probably worth around 3 million yuan combined."

"Her family is from a regular small town. Her parents run a small business there, and their property is all local. Their family assets are probably worth a few hundred thousand yuan."

"There’s a pretty big gap in your tangible assets," Zhang Zhe analyzed seriously after listening.

The guy’s circumstances clearly meant he could find someone better.

But this was a relationship, not an arranged match. Family background and such are often the last things you consider. Usually, it’s looks first, then feelings...

"How much did her side ask for as a betrothal gift?"

"188,000, and with the ’three golds’ and red envelopes, it comes out to around 230,000."

[So Ji Province doesn’t play around either!]

[That betrothal gift amount actually isn’t that high for Ji Province.]

[This is insane. I thought it was just my region where the betrothal gifts start at 200,000.]

[No wonder young people don’t dare to get married anymore.]

Seeing the comments all saying the betrothal gift was high, the guy spoke up to explain, "I also think it’s a bit high, but my parents agreed to it. They already have the money ready."

"That’s normal, because you two have over a year of history," Zhang Zhe told him. "It’s not necessarily that your parents think the amount is reasonable. They probably just trust your judgment. After all, she’s been your girlfriend for over a year."

"There’s an emotional foundation there. If it all fell apart over a few tens of thousands of yuan, your parents would find it a pity too."

"That’s true..." The guy sounded dejected by Zhang Zhe’s words, his tone pained. "But when I took my parents to her house for the formal proposal, we started arguing over some minor custom."

"My girlfriend is a bit emotionally unstable. She threw a fit on the spot, stormed back to her room with a sour look on her face, and wouldn’t come out no matter how we tried to coax her."

[???]

[Oh, wow. A future daughter-in-law like that?]

[I’m a daughter-in-law now, and I’ll be a mother-in-law in the future. A woman like that would never be allowed to marry into my family.]

[His girlfriend is in her 20s, right? Is she throwing a childish tantrum?]

[We can’t just listen to one side of the story. This guy probably has his own issues too.]

"What was she angry about?" Zhang Zhe asked curiously.

"She probably felt that my family wasn’t respecting her, because we’d been haggling over the betrothal gift and the ’three golds’."

"Were they asking for more before?"

"Yes, they were asking for 288,000 before. But because I have an older sister myself, I know that if we gave them that money, her family would just give it all to her younger brother, so I didn’t really agree."

"I might have said some harsh things, too. Something like her brother should rely on himself if he’s capable, and not on selling his sister."

"Of course, she said some nasty things back."

"I thought it was all in the past, but she probably held onto it and then just exploded."

"Okay, that’s not important." Zhang Zhe smiled and waved his hand, sensing the guy felt a little guilty and was trying to take the blame. "Words said in anger are like that. If a couple made a federal case out of every angry word, they’d never be able to live together."

This guy was a younger brother himself. His deconstruction of this Voldemort relationship was completely justified.

It gave off a strong "My family has that dynamic too; you think I don’t know where that betrothal gift is going?" vibe.

"The one thing I’m curious about now is, what is your girlfriend’s parents’ attitude?"

"They’re supportive. Both sets of our parents have been talking things over calmly. She’s the only one who couldn’t really control her emotions."

"Okay, let’s continue the analysis then." Zhang Zhe smiled. "When a girl’s own parents aren’t even supporting her, why would she still throw a fit?"