Chapter 264 - 262: Love from Mom and Dad

Chapter 264: Chapter 262: Love from Mom and Dad

"It’s not that I look down on him, it’s mainly that he has no drive." The woman’s voice was tinged with annoyance. "He’s always telling me things are fine just the way they are."

"I just feel like he has no ambition."

"He doesn’t think about our future at all."

"Mm, true," Zhang Zhe said, pursing his lips and nodding.

’What a classic story. I’ve got to clip this call.’

The woman seemed to have been brainwashed by TikTok videos, blindly buying into the whole "hustle culture" narrative. But in reality, for most second-generation rich kids from places like Guangdong Province, the most important mission isn’t to struggle and build something themselves, but to start a family early.

Only after they get married will the elders in the family give them money.

Not married? They’ll basically only get enough to cover food and expenses.

If it comes to that, his parents would sooner have another kid than leave the family fortune to a son who won’t even get married.

"But girl, have you ever considered something?"

"If your boyfriend were really ambitious, on top of his family’s wealth, do you think he’d still be with someone like you?"

[This guy’s first step toward being ambitious would be to dump this woman.]

[True, he’s with you because your standards aren’t high and you’re the settle-down type.]

[She’s still after his parents’ money.]

[Women are all like that. So greedy.]

[Two arranged dates back in her rural hometown and she’d learn her place.]

"He..."

"I don’t know."

The woman was stumped and changed her tune, saying:

"But if he’s not ambitious, what will we do when we have kids?"

"Don’t worry about what happens after you have kids for now. First, answer two questions for me: One, if you break up with him, what kind of guy do you think you could find?"

"I... I don’t know."

"That’s fine, I’ll tell you. You’d most likely find a guy from the countryside making 8,000 a month, but with absolutely no family safety net."

"He could save money and hustle with you, but the amount you two would scrape together after a lifetime of struggling probably wouldn’t even be one-tenth of the inheritance your current boyfriend is set to receive."

"Of course, that way you’d get to experience the ’joy of the struggle.’"

"But to be fair, the joy of hard work is truly a higher pleasure. It’s not something you can get from just coasting and collecting cash."

[Then why don’t you come do my labor for me, Brother Zhang?]

[Brains are a useful thing. Too bad this woman doesn’t have one.]

[This girl probably still thinks she can hustle her way to a new destiny.]

[So naive she’s practically bubbling.]

[She should go experience paying off a car loan and a mortgage. Maybe she’d find that kind of life meaningful.]

"Brother Zhang, I think I was wrong."

"What people are saying in the comments makes a lot of sense."

"Huh?" Zhang Zhe feigned surprise. "You’re already changing your tune?"

"How boring. So boring. I thought you were going to stick to your guns."

"That’s not it. I don’t want to break up, I just feel insecure about the future," the woman explained.

"Don’t try to weasel out of it now, girl. It’s fine if you want to break up. The fact that you can recognize you were wrong and change your mind means there’s still hope for you."

"Now, let me let you in on something else."

"Your boyfriend might know this, but he hasn’t told you."

This woman’s situation was pretty average and she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but her saving grace was her willingness to listen to advice. Zhang Zhe was happy to engage with someone like that:

"Why don’t your boyfriend’s parents give him money? Because he’s a big spender, and they’re afraid he’ll go down the wrong path."

"Their son isn’t highly educated to begin with. If he had money on top of that and, say, took off to Hong Kong or Macau, no amount of family fortune could withstand his squandering. So, it’s actually a good thing for you that his parents control the purse strings."

"Huh?" The woman was confused. "But his parents don’t even give him a monthly allowance."

"There’s no need to, and it’s not the right time."

"Let’s put it this way. If you get a chance, take a look at your boyfriend’s good friends. See if they make seven or eight thousand a month but drive cars worth hundreds of thousands and never worry about raising kids."

"With families like this, once the son gets married, his parents will cover everything—the house, the car, even the children’s expenses. Your quality of life will, in all likelihood, only improve. It won’t suffer."

"Really?" the woman’s tone grew excited.

"A 90% chance, I’d say. The child of an only son... grandparents dote on their grandchildren. They’ll definitely shower you with cash. The only question is how much."

As Zhang Zhe spoke, he started laughing himself. There used to be an old security guard at his company in this exact situation. One day, he suddenly showed up to work in a Tesla, then brought out a box of wedding candy from the car for everyone.

I heard that after he had a son, his dad gave his daughter-in-law an entire building to collect rent from.

This woman on the call was a real piece of work. She was already planning to marry a second-generation kid from Guangdong Province but hadn’t even figured out this basic custom.

"Okay, I understand."

"Thank you, Brother Zhang, and thank you to the guys in the chat. I realize now that I was the one with the problem."

[You’re welcome, sis.]

[Since you called him Brother, what more is there to say?]

[Sigh, and here I was, hoping to convince you to break up.]

[Not fair! She was supposed to break up and live a life of struggle! Brother Zhang, you helped her cheat!]

After the girl finished her thanks and was about to leave the call, Zhang Zhe stopped her:

"Wait a second, I have one more question for you."

"This idea to break up... it wasn’t your parents who encouraged it, was it?"

"No, my mom is urging me to marry him. She said she knows exactly what kind of person her own daughter is, and being able to find a boyfriend like mine is thanks to some incredible ancestral luck."

"Haha, a mother knows her daughter best." Zhang Zhe laughed and nodded. "If even your mom supports it, why are you still hesitating?"

"You have a best friend, don’t you?"

"Uh... yes."

"Hahahaha, okay, it all adds up."

"Girl, before you go, let me give you one last piece of advice: if you want a happy family and a happy life, stop sharing your private business with outsiders."

"Mhm, okay, okay, thank you, Teacher."

[Her mom is so right.]

[With a best friend like that, this thing is bound to fall apart sooner or later.]

[Forget best friends. Even blood sisters can get nasty ideas when one marries better than the other.]

[The best friend: "So close to stopping her from having a good life."]

After the woman left the call, Zhang Zhe shook his head and sighed.

"This girl listens to her best friend, not her mom. It’s probably because her family didn’t let her go to a junior college, so she’s holding a grudge and still thinks her parents don’t understand her."

"So when her mom said she knows what her own daughter is like, she must have scoffed internally."

"But the comments are right. If she doesn’t stay away from a ’best friend’ like that, her marriage will be sabotaged sooner or later. Who knows, maybe the friend has her eye on the boyfriend?"

"Alright, now it’s time for today’s chat Q&A."

"If anyone has questions, post them in the chat. I’ll answer the good ones."

[Brother Zhang, Brother Zhang, how do you tell if a guy has ambition?]

"Zhizhi, that’s a great question."

"A guy who has the kind of ’ambition’ we ladies are looking for will always be a little selfish. He’ll always be spending either his time or his money—at least one of the two—on himself."

"That’s the only way he can make more and more money."

"If he just clocks in and clocks out every day without working on himself, then he won’t meet our standards for ’ambition’—unless the company he works for is rapidly growing on its own."