Chapter 260 - 258: Not Favoring Boys Over Girls

Chapter 260: Chapter 258: Not Favoring Boys Over Girls

"Cook? But Brother Zhang, we always eat out."

"I know." Zhang Zhe couldn’t help but smile. "Let me guess, you think that for something like cooking, you can just hire a housekeeper after you get married?"

"...I do actually think that."

"Understandable." Zhang Zhe nodded.

"For a typical household, that’s not a problem. But in your situation, if you know how to cook and can win a man’s heart through his stomach, that would be a huge plus."

There’s one thing many women don’t understand:

Every relationship is different and needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Those who don’t get this tend to wonder, "If it works for other couples, why can’t it work for us?"

’Zhang Zhe had thought this girl would be a bit sharper.’

’But it seems she’s not quite there yet.’

"But... I can’t cook," the girl said, a little embarrassed. "At home, my mom always did the cooking. And then I was living abroad, so I never had the chance to learn."

"Yeah, that’s understandable. I was just giving you an example. Don’t be nervous."

"The benefit of cooking is that you can take the initiative to help manage your man’s diet. For example, your boyfriend—he’s suffering from insomnia and refuses to see a doctor, right?"

"Brewing some soup or making some congee for him might help regulate his system. It could be useful."

[She could make some traditional Chinese medicinal cuisine.]

[If I put myself in his shoes, and my girlfriend cooked for me, I’d know for sure she was the one.]

[The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.]

[Honestly, for a top-tier bachelor like her boyfriend, marriage is definitely about creating a warm home. A wife who cooks is a must.]

[What century are we in, still expecting women to cook? Can’t the man cook for himself?]

[She really doesn’t have many strengths. Brother Zhang is bending over backward to help her find some.]

Zhang Zhe knew a little about traditional Chinese medicine. In TCM, insomnia is often categorized into several types based on its root cause, such as deficiencies in the heart and spleen, yin deficiency leading to excess ’fire,’ internal disruption from phlegm-heat, or liver qi stagnation transforming into ’fire.’

And for each type, there are corresponding dietary remedies.

Although some bullet comments were contrarian, saying it was better to just get a doctor to make a house call than to mess with all this stuff, everyone had to admit: if a woman was this thoughtful, any normal man would be incredibly touched.

The emotional value alone was worth more than anything.

"After hearing what you said, Brother Zhang..." The girl had an epiphany. "I’ll go home in a bit and have my mom teach me how to make congee."

"I saw in the bullet comments that poria and yam congee can help with insomnia, so I’ll start by making that."

"That’s not how you do it." Zhang Zhe dismissed her idea with a shake of his head. "You still don’t get what the core of providing top-tier emotional value is."

"The core is empathy and personal effort."

"If you’re going to make congee for your boyfriend, you have to do the research yourself—find out what’s good, what’s appropriate, what might actually work. You don’t just make poria and yam congee because someone in the bullet comments mentioned it."

"He’s your future husband, not a guinea pig."

"Oh..." the girl replied, sounding a little hurt. From the way she said it, it was clear she knew how to play cute.

"Okay, I think that’s enough of a lesson for today."

"Why don’t you sign off and take some time to process all this."

"Okay, thank you, Brother Zhang. If I run into any more problems, can I come back and ask you again?"

"No need for that. Just add me on WeChat. If you run into any issues in the future, you can message me privately. I’ll reply when I can."

"Okay, then..."

"After I go back and do what you said... at what point can I bring up marriage again?"

[So dense. Let the guy be the one to bring it up!]

[When you feel the time is right.]

[To be honest, you’re so much younger than him. In another two years, he’ll be the one getting anxious.]

[I think you can make your move again in six months, max.]

"You were born in ’98, so you’re 27 now..." Zhang Zhe did a quick analysis. "I think another six months should be about right."

"Actually, by my estimation, it won’t even take six months. Your boyfriend will be the one to bring it up with you."

"Because if you do what I’ve told you, he’ll definitely notice the change in you. If he’s not an idiot, he should get the message."

"But I have to be clear with you about one thing."

"For a top-tier guy in finance, the probability of not encountering temptation from beautiful women at work is basically zero."

"Before you get married, you’ll probably need to think this through carefully."

Zhang Zhe could come up with ways to handle the boyfriend’s side of things, but as for the woman’s own issues, even he was powerless to help.

If she couldn’t accept it, there was nothing more to be said.

Even if they did get married, she’d have to be prepared for a divorce.

"Mm," the girl sighed. "That’s... something I’ll have to think about carefully after I sign off."

"Go ahead."

Zhang Zhe felt a bit helpless as well.

The common way to handle this kind of situation was for the couple to have a tacit understanding: the man keeps his work life separate from his home life, never bringing it home, thereby guaranteeing her position as the lady of the house.

[I bet she’ll compromise in the end. She’s never going to find another guy this outstanding.]

[But the girl’s a great catch herself, isn’t she? Why go for a finance scumbag?]

[He’s not necessarily a scumbag, his work environment just has a lot of temptation. You think he’s really sexually repressed or something?]

"Wait a minute, how are there still ’sisters’ in the bullet comments saying this girl deserves better? Are you for real?"

Zhang Zhe saw one particularly ridiculous comment and just couldn’t hold back:

"Do you think the girl is an idiot? And even if she were, do you think her family are idiots too? This guy is a once-in-a-lifetime catch, the kind that just falls out of the sky."

"Believe it or not, her family and all her relatives will be telling her to lock him down."

"Her best friends, though... that’s another story. They just might tell her to dump him and find someone better."

...

Zhang Zhe glanced at the viewer count for his stream. It was already over 5,000.

He was already the top streamer on the local rankings for Qing City.

He wasn’t sure how the rankings were calculated, though. It was possible the last young woman’s donations had pushed him to the top.

’That means there’s still room to grow!’

Zhang Zhe connected with the next caller.

This time, the person who came on was finally someone with a more typical case for the dating market.

"Hello, Brother Zhang. I was born in ’97. I got my bachelor’s from a second-tier university, then went straight into a combined Master’s-Ph.D. program at a Project 985 university..."

"My parents live in a small, fourth-tier city and have respectable jobs. I also have a younger brother who is sixteen years my junior."

"But my family doesn’t favor sons over daughters. They’ll support me when it’s time to buy a car or a house."

[And that’s *not* favoring sons?]

[Second-tier undergrad, Project 985 Ph.D... an honest opinion? You started trying too late.]

[In Brother Zhang’s stream, any mystique I had about women with Ph.D.s is completely gone.]

[Just show your IP address. We’ll know if your region favors sons just by looking at your location.]

"My family really doesn’t favor sons!" the girl said, getting flustered by the bullet comments. "If my parents favored boys, they would have kept trying for a son right after I was born."

"My parents aren’t government employees, so stop with the wild speculation in the comments."

Zhang Zhe didn’t stop the girl from arguing with the comments. For one, the more she fought back, the more engagement it generated. For another, the more she talked, the more information she revealed.

Clearly, the woman was very sensitive about the fact that she had a younger brother.

She had probably been judged for it on the dating market before.

"So, you’ve finished your Ph.D., right?"

"Yes, that’s right. I graduated last year."

"Have you started going on dates? Looking to settle down?" Zhang Zhe asked.

"I only started dating this year, but I haven’t met anyone suitable, so I thought I’d come on and ask for advice."

"Okay. In that case, to see if your family really favors sons, we don’t need to talk so much. We just need to look at one thing:

A house, a car, savings... how much of that have your parents already given you?"

"And don’t give me any of that ’they’ll give it to me when the time is right.’ When is that, exactly? The day you get married? After they’ve passed on? Or maybe after your little brother is married and settled?"

It’s impossible for parents to treat all their children perfectly equally. But for a daughter with a Ph.D., if her parents really cared, buying her a basic car or helping with a down payment on an apartment would be enough to show their attitude.

But buying nothing, holding on to everything, and telling their daughter to rely on her own merits to get married while saving everything for her brother... even if they don’t consciously think they’re favoring their son, in practice, it amounts to the same thing.