Chapter 274 - 272: Meeting Bao Qingtian

Chapter 274: Chapter 272: Meeting Bao Qingtian

"No, no, Uncle, hold on a second."

Zhang Zhe hadn’t even reacted yet, but Old Bai couldn’t take it anymore and quickly waved his hands.

"You didn’t tell me about this part."

"How could you say that to him? What man could hear that and be okay with it?"

"What’s not to be okay with?" Second Uncle Bai blinked and looked at Zhang Zhe. "Teacher Zhang, was what I said wrong?"

"Not at all." Zhang Zhe swore he wasn’t laughing; he was being perfectly serious. "You were being responsible to the man. He’s here for a blind date, so he has the right to know this information."

"Exactly." The old man slapped his thigh and sat up. "That girl is so clueless. She told me something like that, and if I helped her hide it from the man she was meeting, wouldn’t I be completely shameless?"

"You guys..." Old Bai wanted to say something.

He opened his mouth, but then silently closed it again.

’He actually wanted to say: The woman told you about her abortion because she wanted you to help her come up with an excuse. You’re Matchmakers, don’t you understand the art of language?’

’Did you have to use words like "scumbag" and "abortion"? Couldn’t you just tell the guy that the woman has a pre-existing health condition and might have a hard time getting pregnant in the future?’

But Old Bai was a man, after all. He could only think these things; he couldn’t say them out loud in front of Zhang Zhe.

If he did, it would look like he was taking sides.

"So, Uncle, the woman attacked you just because of that?" Zhang Zhe asked curiously.

"Not exactly." The old man shook his head. "The guy was pretty understanding. He felt it wasn’t the woman’s fault she ran into a scumbag."

"As long as she could still have children in the future, he had no objections."

"However, he asked me to ask the woman if she really only had that one ex-boyfriend, and if the pregnancy out of wedlock was really the biggest issue."

"That guy’s smart!" Zhang Zhe nodded in agreement.

’Do you think that just because a woman volunteers a piece of her sordid past, it must mean she’s being completely honest and genuinely wants to be with you?’

’Not necessarily!’

’It’s very possible she has an even worse story she can’t bring herself to tell. So she selectively reveals one thing first, just to test your reaction.’

’If you can accept it, then after a while, when the relationship has deepened—say, you’re engaged, or you’ve registered the marriage and are planning the wedding banquet—she’ll drop the next bombshell...’

The man the uncle had met was sharp. The fact that he could think that far ahead already put him ahead of 90% of men on the blind-dating scene.

"He’s smart?" The old man rubbed his already sparse hair. "I didn’t see it that way at the time. I just thought he was a bit too suspicious."

"The girl was being so honest, and he was still assuming the worst of her."

"Uncle, you can’t put it like that," Zhang Zhe said, shaking his head.

Since Second Uncle Bai had come for advice, Zhang Zhe had to explain the basic principles of the matchmaking business to him clearly.

"We’re Matchmakers. It’s a bit like being a real estate agent. Imagine someone is selling a house and says everything is great, except the floor drain clogs easily."

"The buyer hears this and asks you, the agent, to find out if there are any other problems with the plumbing besides the floor drain."

"That’s perfectly reasonable."

"How can you get annoyed at them for asking too many questions?"

"Makes sense, right?"

"Yeah." Second Uncle Bai nodded and sat down. "I didn’t think it through as clearly as you, Teacher Zhang, but I did go ask for him at the time."

"Because judging from the man’s attitude, if I didn’t ask, he’d definitely have his doubts, and then I wouldn’t get my introduction fee."

"Introduction fee?" Zhang Zhe was suddenly very curious. "For someone like you who does one-on-one offline introductions, how much do you get for your trouble?"

"I don’t know." The old man shook his head. "I haven’t received an introduction fee yet."

"But I heard from other Matchmakers that if the two people you introduce end up getting married, you get at least 6,888, and the most anyone’s gotten was 18,000."

"Zhang Zhe, you know what? His head..." Old Bai pointed to the gauze on his uncle’s head. "They paid him 60,000 in compensation."

"If he weren’t so old, I’d suggest he make a career out of provoking people. Young women these days are so hot-tempered; it’s easy for him to set them off."

"Right." Zhang Zhe rubbed his forehead and gave a helpless smile.

’Can’t deny it, the old man’s matchmaking gig is pretty profitable. If he were a bit more efficient, he’d be considered a high-earner in Qing City.’

However, not many people sought out Second Uncle Bai for matchmaking. It was just a pastime for his retirement.

"So what did the woman say?"

"She said there was nothing else, that she’d only ever dated that one scumbag in her entire life." The old man remembered the situation clearly. "She stood right up and told me that if the guy didn’t believe her, they could go to the hospital for a check-up right then and there."

"So did they end up getting the check-up?"

"No, no. She was so confident, I felt there was no need for a check-up. It’d be a waste of money."

"’You felt?’" Zhang Zhe asked, surprised. "Uncle, why were you the one making that call?"

"If I were you, I would have definitely helped the man and woman schedule a premarital health check-up, making sure to specifically test for that. That way, both of them would have peace of mind."

After hearing this, Old Bai quickly patted his uncle. "Did you hear that?"

"Learn how a professional Matchmaker does things."

"Isn’t that what I’m doing?" his uncle retorted with a hint of impatience, but then he turned to Zhang Zhe with a smile. "Teacher Zhang makes a good point."

"I’ve learned my lesson."

"It’s not like the check-up uses my money, anyway."

"Exactly," Zhang Zhe agreed. "People generally only get married once in their life. There’s no need to skimp on something this important."

"So what happened next? How did you get hit?"

"What exactly did you say that made the woman so angry?"

"What I said..." The old man mumbled to himself, recalling the event. "It was probably because I told her that since she’d been with another man and had a child—even if she didn’t give birth, it’s pretty much the same thing..."

"...the betrothal gift couldn’t be the same as what’s expected for a virgin. It had to be lowered a bit."

"She didn’t agree."

"I thought she was in the wrong, so I tried to persuade her."

"But the more I tried to persuade her, the more agitated she got, and eventually she attacked me. She was hitting and cursing me at the same time, saying I was ganging up with the man to insult her character, and that no man was any good..."

"So that’s what happened." Zhang Zhe finally understood everything.

’The issue wasn’t actually that clear-cut. Haggling over the betrothal gift was fine, but using a weakness the woman had voluntarily disclosed as leverage was, understandably, hard for her to accept.’

’From the woman’s perspective, she felt she could have hidden it. After all, an abortion isn’t that easy to check up on if she doesn’t cooperate.’

’She brought it up voluntarily as a show of good faith.’

’But it ended up being used as a reason to "lower her price."’

’It gave her the feeling of "turning herself in only to get a harsher sentence," which of course she couldn’t accept.’

’Combined with Second Uncle Bai’s way of speaking...’

’...it wasn’t so hard to understand why things got physical in the end.’

"The woman overreacted." Zhang Zhe passed his judgment on the matter. "There’s no sense in hitting the Matchmaker. It’s not like the Matchmaker gets to keep the money saved from the betrothal gift."

"What you said, Uncle, was also for the sake of setting them up. You didn’t do anything terribly wrong."

"Exactly!" Second Uncle Bai nodded vigorously, looking at Zhang Zhe as if he were looking at Bao Qingtian.