Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 304 is so cute!

"Do you also think that what just happened has something to do with me?"

Hearing the voice, Han Zhou was stunned. He turned to look at Xiao Xiaoxiao, who was standing next to him with her head down. The fact that she could ask such a question clearly meant that she had the same idea.

Despite his best efforts to hide it, he still sensed a hint of unease in the girl's tone.

“It’s just a possibility,” he said softly.

He could understand Xiao Xiaoxiao's feelings at this moment. Anyone would feel uneasy if they knew they might be different from ordinary people and couldn't be sure whether this abnormality was a blessing or a curse.

Just like students who are about to see their college entrance exam results, even if they have prepared themselves mentally and even thought about all the possibilities of failure, when they actually have to face it, this anxiety will still grow uncontrollably.

Han Zhou was the same way.

Seeing that Xiao Xiaoxiao remained silent, he smiled and said, "There are many other possibilities. Maybe this place really is haunted... like a vengeful spirit that died with its eyes wide open or something."

Xiao Xiaoxiao shrank her neck, looked up and glared at him fiercely, and muttered irritably, "Then I'd rather be the 'ghost'."

"Then you might be disappointed." Han Zhou shook his head and smiled. "As far as I know, ghosts don't have shadows."

"Tch, you talk like you've seen a ghost..."

Xiao Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes and glanced down at the two shadows, one big and one small, on the ground. Although she knew the guy was talking nonsense, she felt much more at ease.

After hesitating for a moment, she gently kicked Han Zhou's ankle.

"I said, um..."

"Ok?"

"You... do you think that if I really were a ghost, I would hurt everyone?"

Han Zhou was taken aback, not expecting this guy to be worried about this. He laughed and cried at the same time, "Have you been watching too many horror movies? Even ghosts in horror movies need some skills to hurt people. What can you use to hurt people?"

"Be serious, I'm asking you a genuine question!"

"I'm serious too."

Han Zhou looked helpless, but said seriously, "If you could really hurt others, the girls' dormitory would have been emptied long ago. And based on my experience, truly vicious ghosts don't attack people directly; they prefer to put pressure on you first, like calling you late at night..."

As soon as he finished speaking, a rapid and sharp ringing sound suddenly rang out in the dark passage, sounding particularly jarring in the night.

Xiao Xiaoxiao's expression froze, and her petite body trembled involuntarily.

The group in front was already tense, looking around and pondering the flashlight malfunction. The sudden sound behind them made their scalps tingle and they almost jumped up. They quickly turned around to look in the direction of the sound, as if facing a formidable enemy.

The atmosphere became tense, and a sense of panic spread around.

Under everyone's gaze, Han Zhou smiled apologetically, then awkwardly pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"Sorry, I forgot to mute it."

He glanced at the caller ID, then quickly hung up, repeating "I'm sorry" several times.

The group looked at each other, unsure of what to say.

The atmosphere became a little awkward.

Xiao Xiaoxiao was the first to react, and she was immediately furious, but she managed to control her emotions with great difficulty. This guy almost scared her to death. If it weren't for the live broadcast, she would definitely have kicked him hard.

Seriously, you almost scared me to death!

The others also came to their senses one after another. Bai Suya patted her chest and said with lingering fear, "I suggest that everyone turn their phones to silent mode from now on."

Apart from Zhang Tao, the others nodded in agreement, their expressions not exactly pleasant. Even Sun Fei, who knew there was a script, still showed signs of fear.

The moment his phone rang behind him, his heart nearly jumped out of his mouth.

Han Zhou looked apologetic and said he had already turned his phone off silent mode.

"It's okay, let's go."

Zhang Tao was the only one who wasn't scared. Seeing that it was just a false alarm, he didn't waste any time and led everyone upstairs. They soon arrived at the second floor and began to explore.

Apart from load-bearing walls, there were no walls separating floors, so the group didn't stick together completely. Instead, they searched in pairs, keeping in each other's sight at all times.

During the search, Han Zhou turned his phone brightness down to the lowest setting, found a contact, and sent them a message.

"I'm not available to answer the phone right now."

“I know,” the other party replied quickly. “I was watching your live stream. I made that call on purpose.”

Han Zhou was startled. He turned to look at the camera not far away and raised an eyebrow, saying, "If I remember correctly, you should be in the classroom having evening self-study right now, right?"

"That's normal."

"Isn't that abnormal?"

"I've taken leave."

"Taking leave?" Han Zhou was taken aback. "You're sick again?"

"No, I followed your senior's account and just received a notification that he was going live. I thought maybe you were doing a live stream with him, so I asked for leave to go back to my dorm. I didn't expect you to actually be live streaming."

In the dormitory, a girl wearing a mask and a baseball cap rested her chin on one hand while typing slowly with the other. "Looks like we really are on the same wavelength."

Han Zhou's lips twitched, and he retorted irritably, "What do you mean by telepathy? You've been watching Zhang Tao's live stream the whole time, haven't you?"

"No, it's a meeting of minds."

"If we're on the same wavelength, then we're on the same wavelength..."

Han Zhou sighed, "But I remember you're not allowed to use your phones during class, right? Why did you pretend to be sick and go back to the dorm to play on your phone? What if the school catches you and tells your mom?"

"I wasn't faking illness."

The girl replied matter-of-factly, "To be precise, I didn't even have time to explain why I needed to go back to my dorm before the teacher granted me leave."

"Why?" Han Zhou was taken aback. "Your mother wouldn't actually be a member of the school's board of directors, would she?"

“After I told him that our school does not have a board of directors, the teacher’s expression told me that he probably thought my recent rapid progress was the result of studying late into the night every night, and suspected that I was overworking myself, which is why he granted me leave without hesitation.”

"This works?" Han Zhou asked suspiciously, his expression strange. "Wait...you didn't anticipate this day, so you deliberately pretended to be very tired to lead him to think in this direction, did you?"

"We really are on the same wavelength."

The other party replied quickly, without denying his guess.

Han Zhou knew this would be the case, and couldn't help but feel a headache coming on: "This is not something to be encouraged..."

Knowing this guy's personality, if he dares to skip class today, he'll probably find a way to escape from school tomorrow.

"You're wrong. The reason I cultivated the image of a diligent student was not only to make it easier to ask for leave, but also to appease my mother and for the sake of my classmates."

"Why?" "Which kind of person do you think puts more pressure on others: a hard worker who makes continuous progress through diligent study, or a genius who can overwhelm everyone without doing anything? As it turns out, many people are more willing to accept the former. When I stood on the stage to give my acceptance speech for the 'Most Improved Award,' you have no idea how relaxed their expressions were."

"You really went to great lengths..."

Han Zhou chuckled twice. This guy really always had a point. Then, curious, he asked, "There's something I want to ask you..."

What kind of remarks can I make when I go on stage?

"Correct."

"you guess."

Han Zhou hesitated for a moment, then tentatively asked, "Study hard and make progress every day?"

Based on his understanding of Mo Yixia, he knew that this girl would most likely not prepare a proper speech and would just give a perfunctory one.

That's right, the person he was messaging at that moment was Mo Yixia.

"I'm not like some people who say one thing and mean another, who are clearly happy to see my call but pretend to want to lecture me. I hate sweet talk and can't be bothered with pretense, so my answer is very straightforward—"

"Cooking, just practice more."

Han Zhou was not surprised. Mo Yixia did have this style. But wasn't she afraid of offending people?
Mo Yixia dismissed his doubts: "They'll just think I'm making fun of myself."

You don't care even if I offend you, right...?

Han Zhou mentally added a comment, then suddenly remembered something important and asked, "By the way, Yi Xia, do you know why I participated in today's live stream?"

Mo Yixia seemed to have thought about this question beforehand, and quickly replied: "The title of the live stream is 'Seeing Ghosts in the Middle of the Night.' You're not interested in this kind of thing. If we disregard your senior's enthusiastic invitation, then it must be related to the girl next to you now. Her name is Xiao Xiaoxiao, right?"

Mo Yixia had met Xiao Xiaoxiao and heard about her from Han Zhou, so she had a deep impression of her.

"Yes, I must admit, being your classmate is indeed very stressful..."

Han Zhou sighed, then briefly explained his conjecture and the unusual phenomenon that had just occurred to Mo Yixia, hoping she could help him organize his thoughts.

Mo Yixia arrived at just the right time; he believed the other party could see more important, hidden information.

"Let me take a look first," Mo Yixia replied.

"it is good."

Han Zhou thought Mo Yixia meant to gather more information and agreed, "Then you should pay more attention. I suspect there might be some unusual situations later."

He's now taken a liking to this unfinished building; he might actually find some important clues tonight.

Unexpectedly, Mo Yixia replied, "You misunderstood. I wanted to see how many people in these comments were calling you 'husband'."

"?"

A question mark appeared above Han Zhou's head.

In the dormitory, Mo Yixia watched the rapidly flashing comments in the live stream and said with interest, "That one with the pig with its hands on hips as its profile picture must be Guzheng, right? Replying to each and every one of these people to shut them up, it's really cute..."

"Whether it's profile picture or behavior."

She opened the other person's profile and silently followed them.

Han Zhou was surprised; Gu Zheng was also in the live stream?
Meanwhile, in the girls' dormitory, three girls who had been silent for a long time looked at each other, and finally couldn't hold back any longer. They mustered up their courage, nudged the shoulder of the short-haired girl in front of the computer, and cautiously began to persuade her.

"Um... Guzheng, how about we just forget about it? These people are just joking, there's no need to take it seriously..."

Gu Zheng frantically pounded on the keyboard, her eyes red, and said, "I'm not kidding, I've seen people already asking what Han Zhou's major is!"

"There's nothing we can do about it..."

The roommates wore wry smiles. To be honest, if they hadn't known the relationship between the boy named Han Zhou and Gu Zheng, they probably would have tried to find out more about this handsome guy.

However, they really didn't expect the guzheng to react so strongly.

Seeing that Guzheng was about to smash the keyboard, one of the roommates thought for a moment, then suddenly had a bright idea and whispered something in Guzheng's ear.

"How about you do this..."

Gu Zheng's hands froze, and her face visibly flushed red: "This...this won't do any good, will it?"

"How is it useless? It's at least more useful than you replying to them one by one, right?" My roommate said seriously, with the tone of someone who's been there. "And Guzheng, in my opinion, you should be more proactive. You've seen it yourself, outstanding guys don't lack suitors. If you're not more proactive than others, even if you like each other, there's a risk of someone being snatched away."

The other two roommates nodded in agreement, then added, "Even with your talent, Guzheng, no one could possibly be your match..."

Gu Zheng was stunned for a moment, and a stunningly beautiful face suddenly appeared in her mind.

Her roommates were right. Although Han Zhou had done a lot of things to make her happy during this time, she had to be more careful and respond accordingly, otherwise some guys might take advantage of her vulnerability.

It's just changing a name, nothing to be afraid of. I can just change it back right after the live stream ends!

Thinking of this, Gu Zheng bit her lip, suppressing her shyness, and typed on the keyboard to change her online name in the live stream to "Empress".

After hesitating for a moment, she added the words "Han Zhou" in front of the name, but then thought it was inappropriate. Wouldn't that let those guys know Han Zhou's name? So she changed "Han Zhou" to the initials and added three eye-catching exclamation marks after it.

"HZ's official wife!!!"

—This is her new online name.

She knew that doing this was actually not very useful, but it was indeed better than replying to each message one by one.

Looking at the obviously childish username in front of her, Gu Zheng's face flushed again. She suddenly remembered the childish things she would do when she was angry with someone as a child. However, although she was a little embarrassed, she didn't feel too awkward. Instead, she felt secretly pleased.

Meanwhile, Mo Yixia on the other side naturally noticed the name change of Guzheng and was also very clear about the meaning of the two letters "HZ".

"She's really cute..."

She rested her chin on her hand and thought for a moment. She had originally wanted to change her name to something more confrontational, but considering that her mother might find out, she decided to give up on the idea and then told Han Zhou about it.

That rascal……

Han Zhou was both amused and exasperated upon learning of this. He actually understood what Gu Zheng was thinking, but he could only pretend not to know for the time being.

It's worth mentioning that Mo Yixia didn't immediately launch into the dreaded question, "Who do you think is the rightful wife?" Instead, she said, "We agreed that you should come see me this weekend. Have you decided where to take me?"

Han Zhou was about to reply when Xiao Xiaoxiao couldn't stand it anymore. Seeing that he had been playing on his phone with his head down since earlier, she was so angry that she gritted her teeth: "Can't you concentrate for a second?"

Han Zhou glanced at her and said seriously, "You might not believe me, but I'm actually very worried about you."

"Just chatting is fine, but you're making a fuss over me? You're just lying." Xiao Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes, clearly not believing him. "...Who are you chatting with?"

You'll find out later.

Han Zhou kept everyone in suspense, replying to the message as he spoke: "I heard there's a very famous zoo in Lincheng. Let's go check it out together this weekend."

He was distracted by Xiao Xiaoxiao's conversation and didn't notice that the message had been sent to the wrong person.

(End of this chapter)