Chapter Nine: Pressured into Marriage: Deep-Rooted Class Prejudices

“Pressure to marry” seems to have become a common understanding among adults in our country.

In their eyes, once you finish school, it’s time to settle down, and they start nagging you to find a girlfriend...

When Gu Yin had just graduated from university, his mother began her endless nagging over the phone, and it hasn’t stopped since. Especially these past two years at home, it’s basically a heavy scolding every three days and a light one every five. Gu Yin feels like any kind of pressure placed on his head would just explode.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to find someone; the problem is how?

There’s a saying that once you leave campus, it’s hard to meet suitable members of the opposite sex. That’s absolutely true. After graduation, if there aren’t many women in your workplace, the only way to meet someone is through family-arranged blind dates.

“You teach driving, right? Don’t you often teach some female university students? There are plenty of good-looking ones. Why can’t you try to get along with them?” Mrs. Wang said, frustrated by his stubbornness.

“...Do you think all those female university students are fools?” Gu Yin rolled his eyes.

His job does put him in contact with some women, both high-quality and low-quality, but the problem is that nowadays, even the low-quality women have sky-high standards. They think of themselves as strong and independent, and even if they can’t match a civil servant or a state employee, they want someone with a house, a car, and savings.

Especially female university students—there’s a rumor that “innocent female college students are easy to fool,” but that’s utter nonsense. They’re all just young people who haven’t stepped fully into society yet. They have high ideals, don’t understand how hard money is to earn, and don’t know their own worth. They still have beautiful fantasies about their futures, convinced they’ll never be stuck in a cubicle working 9-to-9-6 shifts. They all plan to become graduate students, civil servants, or get official posts. How could they possibly look at Gu Yin, a driving school instructor, with any respect?

You might say Gu Yin has a car and a house; his conditions aren’t bad?

Well, yes, he does have a house and a car, but unfortunately, the house is a relocated property, and the car is a 99,800-yuan, second-lowest trim, pure electric BYD Qin.

“Sigh...”

Whenever Gu Yin’s mother brought this up, she would sigh and say, a little puzzled:

“You say our car isn’t cheap and looks pretty good. When I went to the park to help set up a blind date for you, why did that young lady leave as soon as she saw our car?”

“That Liu Zhong’s family’s car is even less expensive than ours...”

They bought the car mainly so Gu Yin could use it to look for a wife. According to his mother, how could you go on a date without a car? You have to pick her up and drop her off, right?

In this small county town where living expenses are low, a 100,000-yuan car is already considered expensive. So when they bought it, Mrs. Wang was quite proud, and relatives and neighbors praised the purchase. But for some reason, every time Gu Yin took that car out, the young women who had been interested in him suddenly lost all desire to talk.

Gu Yin shook his head silently, saying nothing.

What else could it be?

Because everyone knows that people driving this car are basically ride-hailing drivers!

Do you understand what “ten thousand people ride” means?

---

On the internet, there’s a joke about the BYD Qin: a woman’s husband drives that car and picks her up after work every day. One day, her colleague said enviously:

“I’m so jealous—you get a taxi home every day after work.”

Because of its high cost-performance ratio, this car has basically become exclusive to ride-hailing services!

If BYD Qin owners gather, you wouldn’t even get a ride at the high-speed rail station...

If Mrs. Wang knew that the car she had saved for five or six years to buy for her son was such a “curse,” she’d probably break down on the spot. So Gu Yin never bothered to explain this to his mother.

“By the way, I ran into that young lady you met last year downstairs again today...”

As they kept talking, somehow the conversation turned to Chen Yunjin. Mrs. Wang sighed and said:

“Ah, that girl is really nice and pretty, but unfortunately, she got a government post. That’s beyond our reach.”

Honestly, Gu Yin felt a little resentful when he heard that. The older generation like Mrs. Wang seems to have a deep understanding of the word “government post,” as if once someone gets an official job, they’re on a completely different level.

Like his mother, who clearly thinks her son is not good enough for that girl, so she doesn’t even hold out hope.

Gu Yin wanted to argue but found no ground to do so, and in the end, he could only sigh silently and shake his head.

...

Next-door hallway.

Chen Yunjin’s home.

Though she looks like a goddess on the outside, her home situation is far from ideal. Chen Yunjin’s place is messy; dirty clothes are scattered everywhere, the floor is covered with footprints, clearly not mopped for many days, and the bathroom trash bin is full, with garbage spilled on the floor and not picked up...

She and her roommate Zhao Jinxia aren’t good at housework, so their place is always a mess.

“Luckily, the recording ended before I came back...”

Chen Yunjin touched the live-streaming camera in her bag and quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

That’s right. As a vocational school teacher, she had recently taken a friend’s advice and signed up for the show “Making Peace with Life.”

This program actually has no real entry barrier. When it first started, its slogan was “Live streaming for all.” As long as you’re interested and purchase the camera provided by the platform, you can join.

In other words, it’s a disguised way of selling merchandise...

---

Although working within the system is relatively easy, the more beautiful the girl, the higher her expenses. Just on cosmetics and clothes each month, she spends nearly half her modest salary. After food, drinks, and rent, there’s almost nothing left. Participating in the program allows her to earn an extra two or three hundred yuan a day, so why not?

When she signed up, Chen Yunjin even fantasized that with her looks, she might accidentally become famous. She had already crafted her persona in her mind: “The Most Beautiful Vocational School Teacher!”

She imagined a crowd of admirers fawning at her feet, and the congratulations from people around her would satisfy her vanity. Just thinking about it made her happy.

Unfortunately, reality is harsh and ideals are lofty.

The entire day the program aired, the total number of viewers on her stream did not exceed ten...

This left her a little frustrated but helpless, because everyone else in the program was the same. For example, her roommate Zhao Jinxia, who was now sitting on the sofa eating takeout.

This girl was sweet and cute but not fond of clothes. At home, she’d take off her bra and wear only a white camisole, her sexy legs curled on the couch as she watched dramas and ate, carefree and easygoing.

“Yunjin, you’re back?”

Seeing Chen Yunjin return, Zhao Jinxia put down her long legs and came over, asking:

“How was the live stream today? Did many people watch?”

Zhao Jinxia had clearly learned how to jab at the sore spot—right where it hurts. Chen Yunjin felt offended but couldn’t get angry, so she forced a smile and said:

“Um... it was okay, maybe about a hundred or so people.”

“Oh, that’s not bad.”

Zhao Jinxia’s bright eyes twinkled with eagerness. Obviously, that wasn’t the topic she really wanted to talk about. Like a gossip, she asked:

“Do you still remember Gu Yin, the guy you went on a blind date with? The driving instructor from the next hallway?”

“Of course,” Chen Yunjin frowned, thinking to herself that she had just seen him downstairs on the pedestrian street.

“Why bring him up all of a sudden?” she asked.

...