Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 390 Your hat is quite nice.

In order to recoup her losses, Xiao Xiaoxiao was extremely careful every time she threw the rings. Unfortunately, after throwing several rings in a row, the only thing she managed to ring was a piggy bank that didn't look very valuable.

She remembered having a piggy bank like this when she was a child. It was filled with coins and made a crisp sound every time she shook it. She wanted to fill the piggy bank and give it to her parents, but before that day came, she was handed over to human traffickers by her parents.

If I remember correctly, that piggy bank was kept in a cardboard box under her bed in her bedroom. So many years have passed, I don't know if it has been discovered, or if it has been filled up or smashed.

The early winter sun wasn't warm. Xiao Xiaoxiao tightened her oversized coat, put away her thoughts, stopped thinking about those old stories, and focused her attention on how to recoup her losses.

Looking at the few rings she had left, she felt a pang of heartache. Gritting her teeth, she decided to humbly ask Han Zhou for advice on how to improve her ring-tossing accuracy. However, despite tugging at his sleeve several times, he ignored her completely.

She looked up and noticed that Han Zhou was staring into the distance, lost in thought. Following his gaze, she saw that he was looking at a girl wearing a mask and a baseball cap.

The girl's hair was very long, almost covering her buttocks. Although most of her face was obscured, it was easy to tell that she was very pretty. At this moment, she was standing in front of a stall, observing a chess puzzle on the ground.

It's worth mentioning that this girl, like Han Zhou, was also wandering around outside in her school uniform during school hours, but their uniforms were clearly different, indicating that they came from different high schools.

"Do you know her?" Xiao Xiaoxiao asked curiously.

"I don't know him." Han Zhou shook his head.

"She knows you?"

“I don’t know him either.”

Xiao Xiaoxiao's face fell: "Then why did you keep staring at her?"

"You don't understand, this girl is a bit special."

"Pfft, what's so special about it? Is your hair particularly long?"

Xiao Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes and said with disdain, "I told you you're a scumbag. You can't take your eyes off any pretty girl you see."

"You wouldn't understand even if I told you." Han Zhou shook his head, offering no further explanation.

A week ago, on the day he first met Xiaoxiaoxiao, his status bar suddenly malfunctioned—for some reason, he could no longer see other people's identity information at any time.

Although the function was restored to normal the next day, some "aftereffects" still occurred, namely that he still could not see the guzheng's identity information.

As his "reliance" for survival, Guzheng is different from others in that she is an "unlockable character" as certified by the status bar.

For the past week, Han Zhou had been pondering the reasons and significance of this change, until he just saw the girl wearing a mask and a baseball cap in the distance, and he finally had a bold guess—

Like the guzheng, this girl had no identification information above her head, including her name.

To this day, Han Zhou has never met anyone with the same situation as Gu Zheng, just as he has never met any other unlockable characters in the past.

The guzheng is special.

So... will this girl, who is also so special that her information cannot be viewed, be an unlockable character like Guzheng?
Han Zhou wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he felt like he recognized the girl. He thought he'd seen her somewhere before, but he couldn't quite place when.

But that's not important. What's important is that this girl is likely to become his second source of points. Han Zhou was a little excited and stopped worrying about whether he had met her before. With the idea of ​​"better to kill the wrong person than let the right one go", he decided to go and chat with the girl in front of the chess game.

"Xiaoxiao, you play here for a while. You can ask the owner for more rings when you run out. I'll be right back."

Xiao Xiaoxiao, who was tossing the ring, was startled by what she heard. She subconsciously clenched the ring in her hand, opened her mouth as if to say something, but in the end she only answered with a "good" and then tossed the ring without saying a word.

Han Zhou handed the large bear plush toy to the stall owner and said with a smile, "Boss, please keep this for now and take care of this girl for me."

"okay!"

The boss patted his chest and assured him there was no problem.

He placed the doll on the bench and noticed the girl in the wheelchair looking down, her hand casually tossing the ring around. He chuckled and asked, "What's wrong, little girl? Are you unhappy?"

"No," Xiao Xiaoxiao replied in a muffled voice.

Are you worried that your brother will leave you here alone and wander off?

"No!"

Xiao Xiaoxiao denied it loudly, turned her head away uncomfortably, and said with dissatisfaction, "Besides, he's not my brother."

"What? He's not your brother!" The boss was startled and asked warily, "Then who is he to you?"

It's not impossible for a little girl with limited mobility to be abducted by a stranger.

"Yes Yes……"

Xiao Xiaoxiao didn't know what her relationship with Han Zhou was. She thought for a long time but still didn't know how to answer. She became a little impatient. But when she looked up, she saw her boss take out his phone with a serious expression, as if he was about to call the police. She immediately panicked and quickly stopped him.

"No, don't call the police! He's my brother!"

The boss looked at her suspiciously and asked, "Are you sure he really is your brother?"

"I'm... sure," Xiao Xiaoxiao said reluctantly.

"I'll just say it."

The boss immediately composed himself and said with a smile, "I didn't intend to call the police. I took the phone to see this."

He handed the phone to Xiao Xiaoxiao. The screen wasn't a dial pad, but a memo.

The memo contained a lot of information, but it was quite brief. Some items were only two or three words long, and it was estimated that only the boss himself could understand it. Xiao Xiaoxiao looked puzzled, wondering why the boss was showing her this.

"Sorry, sorry, you probably don't understand it very well."

The boss realized his memo was too brief, scratched his head awkwardly, and explained, "These are the ways I write down how to soothe my daughter. She's only two years old, and she's always crying or fussing, and she gets angry easily. She's very difficult to soothe. Every time I manage to soothe her, I write down the method so that I can be sure it won't happen again in the same situation."

Xiao Xiaoxiao's face fell: "Are you saying my temper is as bad as your daughter's?"

"Of course not." The boss smiled awkwardly. "But when your brother left just now, your expression was very similar to my daughter's expression when I left. She always seems to think that I will abandon her and run away alone. She always clings to my leg and won't let go."

Xiao Xiaoxiao clenched the last ring in her hand, lowered her head, and remained silent for a long time before finally asking, "So, will you abandon her?"

The shop owner meant to comfort Xiao Xiaoxiao with his experience as a father, completely unaware that he had said the wrong thing. There was an abandoned child right in front of him, so he laughed and said, "Of course not. Who would abandon their own family? I set up this stall for that girl, didn't I?"

He spoke with the air of someone who'd been there before, saying, "I think you're deliberately trying to make your brother dislike you by being bad-tempered. That's not a good idea. Your brother probably already figured it out. If you two ever argue in the future, he'll definitely use this to laugh at how childish you are."

Xiao Xiaoxiao looked a little awkward. She wanted to deny it directly, but hesitated for a moment before asking, "Is...is it that obvious?"

The boss gave a meaningful smile: "To those who care about you, every reaction you make is very obvious."

He was pleased with himself, thinking that he had done another good deed today and successfully comforted a little girl. He would definitely brag about it to his daughter when he got home.

Just then, the girl in the wheelchair suddenly stared at him warily: "So you care about me too?"

The boss's smile froze.

Han Zhou was unaware that his boss was giving Xiao Xiaoxiao a psychological counseling session, but his boss was right about one thing: he had indeed seen through Xiao Xiaoxiao's intentions.

Xiao Xiaoxiao had been moved between several families. In order to return to her biological parents, she naively thought that as long as she behaved badly enough, she could be considered a "defective product" and returned to the seller. As a result, she gradually developed a bad personality. However, instead of getting what she wanted, she was abused and beaten and then sold to another family.

Even now, this guy still seems so childish, trying to force himself to stop caring about her in this way.

"They really never learn their lesson..."

Han Zhou shook his head inwardly, glanced back at Xiao Xiaoxiao, and saw that she was chatting happily with the boss, which put his mind at ease.

The girl wearing a mask and a baseball cap stood in front of the chess stall the whole time without leaving, but she didn't seem interested in the chess puzzle on the ground, and it was unclear what she was thinking.

This put Han Zhou, who had originally planned to use chess as a starting point for conversation, in a dilemma, as he hesitated about how to strike up a conversation with the other party.

But before he could speak, the girl suddenly glanced in his direction and asked, "Did you need something from me?"

Her voice was cool and clear, but it didn't have the aloofness described in novels that kept people at arm's length. She didn't seem like someone who was difficult to get along with.

Han Zhou was overjoyed and was about to speak when he heard the other person continue, "You've been looking at me for the past two minutes. Is it because you think I look like someone you know?"

Clearly, the girl had noticed his gaze long ago.

Is she mistaking me for some idle high school student trying to hit on someone with some old-fashioned excuse...?

Han Zhou felt a little embarrassed, but he knew that his behavior of staring at others was indeed presumptuous. He was about to explain when the girl interrupted him again.

"I also feel like you look familiar."

That girl is being rude...

Seeing that the other person was talking to himself, Han Zhou said helplessly, "Sorry, I don't think you look familiar."

The girl looked him over for a moment and said calmly, "We passed each other once a week ago."

"A week ago?"

Han Zhou was taken aback. He tried hard to recall where he had seen the girl before, but couldn't remember. He asked in confusion, "You can remember her for so long after just passing by?"

Mo Yixia usually only remembers things that interest her, but there's no need to tell this guy about such things, so instead of explaining, she asked, "Since you don't think I look familiar, what's the reason you came to find me?"

Han Zhou was silent for a moment: "Actually, I do think you look a bit familiar."

He thought about it carefully, and it seemed that he couldn't come up with any other reason besides this one. He couldn't very well answer that it was because you didn't have a name on your head, could he?
"But you just said you didn't think I looked familiar."

The girl looked over calmly, and for some reason, Han Zhou felt as if her thoughts had been read.

"When you talk to me, you almost never make eye contact with me, nor do you look down to find a crack in the ground. You spend most of your time looking at the top of my head. Is it because there's something on my head?"

No, is this guy really that perceptive?

Han Zhou was startled. And what did it mean to look down into the ground? Should I feel ashamed in your presence?
That girl was really impolite...

He thought to himself, but said without changing his expression, "Your hat is quite nice."

……

"Why are you back so soon?"

Xiao Xiaoxiao was holding her piggy bank, the only one she had won in the ring toss game, and looking worried, when she suddenly saw Han Zhou walking over with a gloomy expression. She quickly covered the piggy bank with the hem of her coat and teased, "Did you get kicked out?"

Han Zhou sighed: "You're right, I was sent back."

Xiao Xiaoxiao initially wanted to gloat, but seeing his preoccupied appearance, she worried that he might be upset, so she immediately swallowed her mocking words and instead said, "You don't even know how to strike up a conversation? Push me over here, and I'll teach you how to talk to girls!"

"No need, she's already gone."

Han Zhou looked regretful. He never expected that simply complimenting the girl on her hat would immediately provoke her anger. She warned him that she would call the police if he dared to approach her again, and soon after, she left with a woman who rushed over, who appeared to be the girl's mother.

He still couldn't understand why the girl was angry, and reflected, "Xiaoxiao, if I complimented your hat, would you be unhappy?"

"Of course I will," Xiao Xiaoxiao replied casually.

Han Zhou's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly asked, "Why?"

"Because I wasn't wearing a hat at all!" Xiao Xiaoxiao said, dissatisfied.

"You really are..."

Han Zhou's lips twitched, and he grabbed the hood of Xiao Xiaoxiao's coat, raising his hand to cover her head. "Now you're wearing a hat, right?"

The jacket belonged to him and was already too big for Xiao Xiaoxiao. When the hood was flipped up, it covered the girl's chin, making her look quite comical, which made Han Zhou laugh out loud.

Xiao Xiaoxiao's vision went black, and she immediately became furious. Without even taking off her hat, she bared her teeth and claws, ready to take revenge, and punched Han Zhou in the nose with a flurry of punches.

Han Zhou's smile vanished instantly.

……

In winter, darkness falls quickly; it gets dark before six o'clock, with the sun setting in the west, casting a dim red glow on the horizon.

Han Zhou pushed the wheelchair toward the hospital, the wheels crushing the fallen leaves on the ground with a "crunching" sound.

The road was lined with bare trees, giving it a somewhat desolate appearance.

Xiao Xiaoxiao sat in her wheelchair, holding the piggy bank she had won in a ring toss game, her head nodding as if she were asleep.

She played from morning to afternoon. Although she didn't need to walk, she was still not fully recovered and had limited energy. Even just tossing a hoop around and getting some fresh air would have made her tired after such a long time.

Han Zhou smiled, slowed his movements, and pushed the wheelchair over the steep slope as carefully as possible so as not to disturb the guy's sleep.

However, he soon regretted it.

It was an uphill road. It was easy to leave the hospital, but going back would be much harder. As a weakling with only three points of stamina, he was already struggling to push the wheelchair, so there was no need to worry about so many details.

As a result, the wheelchair began to move forward with difficulty.

As the sun sets, it paints a disheveled silhouette.

"Phew—next time, if I have the chance, I must extract a skill from the guzheng that can enhance my physical strength..."

After finally managing to push the wheelchair onto level ground, before he could even catch his breath, Han Zhou's phone suddenly rang in his pocket.

(End of this chapter)