Sha Ma Te

Sha Ma Te is Shen Tang’s former boyfriend and an intentionally comic figure whose arrogance collapses whenever it meets her indifference. He first appears as a metrosexual man with smoky makeup and an aggressively styled appearance, presenting himself with enough confidence to assume that Shen Tang’s circumstances still revolve around him. Yet the encounter quickly establishes that his apparent swagger conceals both entitlement and an unresolved debt: their relationship lasted only two days, ended after he became physically forward, and left him owing money to the original owner of Shen Tang’s body.

Identity and Introduction

Sha Ma Te enters the story by publicly misreading Shen Tang’s life. Seeing her near a car, he calls out that she has found a sugar daddy, treating the accusation as entertainment and as an opportunity to reclaim her attention. His manner is arrogant rather than concerned; when Shen Tang fails to recognize him immediately, he interprets her reaction as another supposed scheme to attract him. The irony is immediate. He believes himself to be the center of the encounter, while Shen Tang recognizes him primarily as an idiot ex who has not repaid what he owes.

His appearance reinforces the gap between self-presentation and substance. He has decent features beneath an extravagant look, but the narration emphasizes the outrageous styling rather than any genuine attractiveness or authority. Sha Ma Te relies on spectacle, insinuation, and loud confidence to control the social atmosphere. Shen Tang’s refusal to play along strips that performance of its power almost at once.

The Brief Relationship and the Debt

The history between Sha Ma Te and Shen Tang is notably insubstantial. They dated for only two days before he became handsy, while Shen Tang had maintained that intimacy should follow marriage. The relationship therefore ends not because of a grand romantic tragedy but because his conduct violates a boundary she had clearly expressed. His later accusations of hypocrisy attempt to reverse that moral balance: he presents himself as the injured party and casts Shen Tang as someone who has abandoned her principles.

The unpaid money gives the past a more concrete dimension. Sha Ma Te owes the original owner several tens of thousands of yuan, and Shen Tang does not allow his romantic posturing to distract from that obligation. When he unexpectedly encounters her outside a heavily secured residential community, he offers to pay immediately. Shen Tang briefly unblocks him from her blacklist, accepts the repayment, and blocks him again. The sequence reduces his attempted emotional reentry to a simple transaction: once the debt is settled, access to her is closed.

Encounters at the Community Gate

Their second major encounter occurs because Shen Tang is stopped outside the community gate. The security system does not contain her information, and the strict entrance controls prevent her from entering. At that moment, Sha Ma Te’s sports car screeches to a halt beside her, giving him another chance to act as though he has discovered her in a compromising or dependent position. He asks why she is squatting outside the gate, again framing the situation as evidence that he has social superiority.

Shen Tang reverses the humiliation with a single practical reminder: he is the person who owes money and still dares to show his face. Sha Ma Te is sufficiently startled by the accusation that he promises to pay at once. His confidence depends on controlling the story, but the debt supplies an undeniable fact that cannot be dismissed as gossip. Once he realizes that Shen Tang has blocked his calls or messages, his disbelief becomes another comic exposure of his entitlement. He expects continued access despite having failed both as a partner and as a debtor.

Refusal of Reconciliation

After receiving the money, Shen Tang tries to leave. Sha Ma Te follows her out of the car and insists that she must have known where he lived and waited for him deliberately. He then declares that he will never get back together with her, speaking as if reconciliation were a privilege he alone could grant or withhold. The statement reveals his attachment to a relationship that Shen Tang has already reduced to a settled account.

Shen Tang answers by rejecting the premise behind his confidence. She asks why a good horse does not eat back its food, invoking the saying to mark the finality of her refusal. The line is not an invitation to debate; it recasts returning to Sha Ma Te as something beneath her judgment. His silence is followed by laughter from the side, intensifying the public collapse of his authority. A bystander’s amusement confirms that his grand declaration has become a spectacle rather than a threat.

Sha Ma Te then attempts one last reversal. He threatens to wait for the day Shen Tang begs him to take her back, imagining that time will restore his importance. Shen Tang responds that he may wait slowly and see her in the next life. The exchange closes the emotional circuit between them: he remains invested in a future reunion, while she treats the possibility as so remote that it belongs beyond the present life.

Narrative Role and Significance

Sha Ma Te functions as an early obstacle through which Shen Tang demonstrates the difference between the original owner’s vulnerable social position and her own conduct after entering that life. He brings a ready-made pattern of accusation, debt, sexual boundary violation, and unwanted pursuit. Rather than explaining herself or defending her reputation, Shen Tang identifies the practical issue, collects the money, and refuses the emotional script he tries to impose.

His role is therefore less that of a serious romantic rival than of a recurring example of failed male entitlement. He accuses Shen Tang of finding an older patron, mocks her former insistence on marriage before intimacy, assumes she wants his attention, and finally imagines that she will beg for reconciliation. Each assumption is contradicted by her actions: she walks away, demands repayment, blocks him again, and declines to resume the relationship. The contrast gives the scene its comic force while establishing a durable principle in Shen Tang’s characterization: a former lover who caused discomfort and left a debt is not a lost ideal but an obligation to be concluded.

Sha Ma Te’s appearances also establish the book’s use of public embarrassment as a mechanism of reversal. He begins each encounter believing that he can define Shen Tang through rumor or insinuation. By the end, the facts he tried to obscure define him instead: he is the debtor, the intrusive ex, and the man whose confidence cannot survive mockery. His final departure does not produce reconciliation, remorse, or meaningful personal growth. It confirms the boundary Shen Tang has drawn and leaves him waiting for a return that she has already rejected.