Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 370 Give your sister a massage

"I've been wanting to ask you this since the beginning: why have you been staring at me?"

In the living room, Mo Yixia still had her hands supporting her chin, glancing sideways at the guzheng that was looking this way. "If you want to ask me for the secret to becoming beautiful, then I'm sorry, it's difficult for me to explain the mysteries of genes and heredity to you."

Gu Zheng didn't want to argue, but this guy insisted on mocking her, so she immediately sneered, "Do I need to ask you how to become beautiful?"

She admitted that the guy was very handsome, but she herself was just as good-looking.

"So you want to learn about the mysteries of genetics?" Mo Yixia said dismissively.

"This is high school knowledge. I just graduated, so I'm not going to forget it that quickly!"

"Textbooks only explain theories and never teach people how to put them into practice. You have a lot to learn."

Gu Zheng rolled her eyes: "You mean you can teach me practical knowledge?"

"I'm afraid it's not feasible for now. I'm still exploring this myself." Mo Yixia shook her head slightly, pondered for a moment, and said, "I plan to start my practical work with the topic of 'how to raise offspring.' What do you think?"

Gu Zheng was stunned for two seconds, then suddenly realized what she meant. After holding it in for a long time, she finally couldn't hold back any longer: "You're shameless!"

Mo Yixia pretended not to hear and said dismissively, "Do you know why the words 'shameless' and 'thick-skinned' have similar meanings?"

Before Guzheng could answer, she continued, “Although there is a difference in degree, both words are used to insult people. This tells us a very simple truth: unless you have a face that is 'in the middle' in terms of thickness, you will always run into obstacles in this world.”

"What do you want to say?" Gu Zheng frowned.

"What I mean is, rather than shameless, I'd prefer you to describe me as thick-skinned. As far as I know, that's a less offensive term."

Gu Zheng was stunned for a moment. She thought this guy was going to say something profound, but who knew he would give such a strange answer.

"You're so shameless..." She took a deep breath, deciding not to let the other person have their way, so she changed her approach, "Do you really enjoy being scolded?"

Mo Yixia sighed: "Your aggression is too low, in every aspect—you don't know how to hide your emotions at all. The whole world knows you like Han Zhou, but you've never been able to be with him. Have you ever thought about the reasons behind that?"

A gust of wind suddenly blew from somewhere, scattering the steam from the cup on the guzheng table, which only condensed again a few seconds later.

The girl panicked when her thoughts were exposed so easily. The feeling of having her mind read so readily threw her off balance. She forced a smile and said, "What's it to you!"

"Of course it concerns me, we're rivals in love."

Mo Yixia rested her chin on her hands and stated the facts calmly, "If you win, then I am the loser, and if I win, then you will be the loser."

Gu Zheng felt very uncomfortable with that confident expression. Although she was confident of winning, she couldn't show the same level of confidence as her opponent.

Perhaps it was precisely because she lacked confidence in winning that she set a hurdle for herself, deciding to confess her feelings to Han Zhou only after she had overcome it.

But she knew perfectly well that such a threshold was nothing to her. She wouldn't lose, and she wouldn't fail in confessing to Han Zhou. However, she was always confident when facing the former, but she was always anxious and uncertain when facing the latter.

She was confident that she could be number one in many ways, but she was never ready to be the best girlfriend or even wife in the world.

Gu Zheng suppressed her discomfort, stared at Mo Yixia for a long while, took a deep breath, and asked, "Why do you look so..."

"So indifferent? Or do you just not value you at all?"

Mo Yixia looked at her with interest. "Now do you understand the benefits of being thick-skinned?"

On the sofa to the side, Wang Lengqiu's empty eyes suddenly brightened as he silently stared at the two of them, lost in thought.

Gu Zheng's heart was in turmoil.

If she didn't have a concrete understanding of losing Han Zhou before, then Mo Yixia's words, "If I win, then you will be the one who loses," became a tangible fact, piercing her heart like a steel knife. Just thinking about it made her feel like her heart was being torn apart.

"I will be the winner," she said through gritted teeth.

"Is that so? But no one in this world can always be fully prepared. Even if someone starts half a lap ahead, a genius can still overtake on a curve."

Mo Yixia seemed to have a hidden meaning in her words. After speaking, she seemed to no longer care about the topic. She slowly opened her collar and took out a cell phone from her chest, completely ignoring Gu Zheng's momentary stunned gaze.

This guy... he actually put his phone in a place like this?

Gu Zheng was stunned, almost forgetting what the other person had just said.

Not to mention the guzheng, even Wang Lengqiu, who usually doesn't show much emotion, opened her mouth, seemingly having a rare desire to confide in someone.

However, the two had some differences in their thoughts. Gu Zheng tried her best to suppress the urge to look down at her chest, and also tried not to have thoughts like "I don't think I can do the same thing," which would boost others' morale and diminish her own. She secretly resolved that she must ask Sister Yin later if she had any effective breast enhancement formula, and not let this guy continue to be so arrogant.

Wang Lengqiu, on the other hand, was considering a more practical question: would it feel cold to hold her phone against her chest in such cold weather, and what would it feel like if her phone suddenly vibrated?

……

As the night grew deeper, the girls went upstairs one after another to take a shower and prepare to go back to their rooms to sleep.

Han Zhou declined Mo Yixia's suggestion to take a bath together, and went to the room with its own bathroom by himself with a change of clothes. He adjusted the water temperature and closed the bathroom door.

Soon, the sound of running water filled the bathroom.

Han Zhou closed his eyes, letting the warm water wash over his body, his mind replaying everything that had happened that day.

Putting aside Guzheng and Mo Yixia, Wang Lengqiu's matter alone is enough to give him a headache. He plans to postpone the open discussion for a while and find an opportunity to talk to Wang Lengqiu alone. Ideally, he can get the childhood photo that Xia Qing mentioned from her to confirm whether the boy in the photo is him.

Although I'm quite confident, it would be awkward if the boy turned out to be not him.

Yin Jie was in a bad mood today, especially after she came downstairs from the shower. The way she looked at him was strange. It would be an exaggeration to say that she was looking at a hooligan, but it wouldn't be quite right to say that she was looking at a law-abiding citizen either. He felt very wronged. The person who kept staring at Yin Jie's chest was clearly Gu Zheng. It wasn't him who ordered her to stare at him. Why was she staring at him?
Hmm... Could it be that Sister Yin suspects I did something to my senior in the study?
Han Zhou thought this was very likely, but then he thought that if that were the case, then Sister Yin, who was fiercely protective of her sister, would probably just pull out a wrench and fight him to the death, instead of staring at him with a complicated expression.

Hmm... Could it be that Sister Yin thinks I want to do something to her?
There's nothing wrong with Teacher Ouyang, but she seems to be paying way too much attention to Wang Lengqiu, and I keep getting the feeling she suspects I'm having an affair with her... Seriously, so what if we knew each other as kids? Does a handsome boy and a pretty girl always have to be in love? Can't they just be friends?

Although he felt somewhat guilty, Han Zhou still believed that he and Wang Lengqiu were innocent.

Speaking of which, Xiaoxiao hasn't been behaving quite normally today. She slept all afternoon and is still feeling sleepy, which is really strange. She's also been locking herself in her room and won't come out. Oh well, I'll have to knock on the door again later. If there's still no response, I'll just have to break in...

Han Zhou sighed. After thinking it over, he realized that his gentle and lovely senior was indeed the most worry-free and never caused him any trouble.

As he sighed, he rubbed his foamy hair, closed his eyes, and touched around, suddenly realizing a very serious problem—

Where is my towel?

With his photographic memory, he quickly realized that he hadn't brought a towel at all. Feeling annoyed, the first thing he thought of was that he absolutely couldn't let Teacher Ouyang know about this, otherwise he wouldn't be able to make fun of her for his carelessness anymore.

However, a towel is still necessary for bathing; you can't exactly use your spare clothes to dry yourself. Thinking of this, he could only hope that Ouyang Lianyu wasn't nearby. He took a deep breath and shouted, "Is anyone there?"

The loud sound echoed throughout the bathroom.

The volume should be loud enough. Han Zhou waited quietly for a while, and was about to call out again when he suddenly heard footsteps outside the door. It sounded like someone was jogging over, not approaching the bathroom door, but stopping a little ahead of it.

"Junior, was that you speaking just now?"

The sound was soft and light, clearly coming from a bell.

Upon seeing that the person who came was a senior student, Han Zhou was overjoyed and quickly said, "Senior, I forgot to bring a towel. Could you go to my room to get it? It's in the backpack I brought; it's blue."

"it is good."

Zhong Ling took two seconds to respond. She probably nodded first, then remembered that Han Zhou couldn't see her from the bathroom, and then added softly.

After saying that, he jogged away.

Zhong Ling quickly arrived at Han Zhou's room. She didn't see the backpack her junior had mentioned, but only his phone on the bedside table. She only found the backpack under the covers when she lifted the blanket.

She placed her phone on the bedside table, carefully rummaged through her bag for a towel, moving very gently to avoid disturbing the other items in the bag, and then jogged out of the room, closing the door behind her. She didn't notice that she had left her phone in Han Zhou's room.

The room fell silent.

About two minutes later, someone knocked on the door. After knocking twice without any response, the door was pushed open, and a wet head peeked in through the crack. It was Gu Zheng, who had just finished taking a shower and came to see Han Zhou.

"Isn't he/she here...?"

Seeing that Han Zhou was not in the room, Gu Zheng was a little disappointed. Just as she was about to close the door and leave, she suddenly noticed that the screen of her phone placed on the bedside table lit up.

She hesitated for a moment, thinking that Han Zhou always looked at her phone, so it wouldn't hurt for her to look at his too. She walked to the bedside, picked up her phone, and found that someone had sent her a new message.

Gu Zheng recognized the landscape-themed profile picture; it was Sister Yin's Feixin profile picture. She had a chance to notice that the other person's nickname was "Sister" instead of "Sister Yin," but her attention was instantly drawn to the message from Zhong Yin—

"My lower back is a little sore, could you give my sister a massage tonight?"

Gu Zheng looked dazed, her mind seemingly frozen.

(End of this chapter)