Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 395 A Way to Avoid Losing
"I said Xiaoxiao."

"what?"

What are your impressions of what happened last night?

What are you referring to?

What happens after you fall asleep.

"What nonsense are you talking about? How could I remember anything from last night if I was asleep?"

"makes sense."

Han Zhou breathed a sigh of relief and stopped asking questions. He then turned to look at the distinctive scarf around Xiao Xiaoxiao's neck.

“You really like this scarf,” he said with a smile.

"None of your business!" Xiao Xiaoxiao turned her head away somewhat awkwardly.

Han Zhou looked her over for a while and said wistfully, "I'm getting more and more curious about what our relationship was before. If you have time, why don't you come home with me soon?"

Xiao Xiaoxiao was taken aback: "Why would I go home with you?"

Han Zhou looked puzzled and said, "Don't you remember? You promised to come home with me for the New Year this year, and there might be some things hidden in my house that only you can find."

"Oh."

Xiao Xiaoxiao nodded, subconsciously touching the peach blossom earring on her earlobe. "The Lunar New Year should be very late this year, right?"

"It's not too late, it'll be February next year." Han Zhou smiled. "There are still about three months left."

"February...it should be spring, right?"

"Next year, the Beginning of Spring falls before the Spring Festival, which, according to the solar terms, marks the start of spring," Han Zhou asked curiously. "So, do you have any wishes you'd like to fulfill in spring?"

Xiao Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes: "I just want to be warmer. Your house doesn't have heating or air conditioning, it must be freezing in winter."

"I moved. The new place has air conditioning." Han Zhou smiled helplessly, then suddenly looked puzzled and asked, "But how did you know my place didn't have air conditioning or heating? Did I tell you before?"

"Do you even need to tell me that?" Xiao Xiaoxiao said nervously, feigning disdain, "Your family is definitely not even as good as mine."

Han Zhou was already used to this guy's unpredictable temper, so he didn't mind her words and asked, "Speaking of which, I've wanted to ask this before, but I thought it might be a bit presumptuous, so I never asked—you said Beicheng isn't your hometown, so where is your hometown?"

He looked at the petite girl beside him.

Xiao Xiaoxiao was silent for a moment, then pouted and said, "Do you think it's not presumptuous to ask now?"

She clearly wasn't going to answer that question.

"If you don't want to say it, forget it."

Han Zhou didn't press further. Everyone has their own secrets; he had one, and Xiao Xiaoxiao naturally did too. So he smiled and said, "I'll wait for the day you're willing to tell me."

Xiao Xiaoxiao did not speak.

As the two remained silent, the excited voice of Guzheng suddenly rang out from behind them: "Han Zhou, Xiao Xiao, let's go catch fish!"

The two looked back and saw that everyone was fully dressed and ready to leave.

Looking at the fishing rods in Guzheng and Mo Yixia's hands, Han Zhou asked in confusion, "Where did you get these fishing rods?"

Gu Zheng was taken aback: "Didn't I tell you? I heard yesterday that there is a lake near the villa and that catching fish is allowed, so I brought the fishing rod from my dorm room."

Han Zhou was even more puzzled: "How come I didn't know you bought a fishing rod?"

He had no idea that Guzheng also had a hobby of fishing.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, the fishing rod belongs to my dad." Gu Zheng explained with her eyes crinkling. "My mom complains that he always wastes time fishing and doesn't catch anything, so she told me to hide the fishing rod. I'm not usually home, so if I hid it at home, my dad would find it easily. So I brought the fishing rod to my dorm room."

"Then why are there two fishing rods?"

“My dad bought another fishing rod after he couldn’t find it, and I hid it again,” Gu Zheng said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Han Zhou paused, looking back and forth between everyone's hands: "What about the third fishing rod?"

“No more.” Gu Zheng shook her head. “My mom said that it’s one thing for my dad not to catch any fish normally, but he also keeps buying and losing fishing rods. She thinks he’s too wasteful, so she won’t let him buy any more fishing rods unless he can catch a hundred fish in a fishing game.”

She felt a little regretful, thinking that if she had bought more fishing rods back then, everyone could be fishing now.

Xiao Xiaoxiao was dumbfounded. She thought to herself that it was already bad enough that this mother and daughter hid someone's beloved fishing rod, but they even turned around and accused the person of being wasteful. It was really too much. So she tentatively asked, "Did your dad catch a hundred fish?"

"No, it's been almost a month, and he's caught a total of thirty-odd fish."

In a fishing game, I only caught about thirty fish in a month...

Xiao Xiaoxiao was silent for a moment, then said with a strange expression, "Your mother is right not to allow your father to fish."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Han Zhou silently mourned for Uncle Gu for a few minutes, then stood up, stretched, and said, "Let's go then. The weather is nice right now, and I've never fished in the lake in the villa area before."

As the group left the villa, they saw a slightly dilapidated car driving out of the villa next door. People were loading cameras and other equipment into the car, which looked like a film crew.

Ouyang Lianyu stared at the car carefully, then said uncertainly, "This car looks like the one I saw last night..."

Mo Yixia looked at the severed limb props that the people were carrying and said, "This should be a horror movie crew. What Teacher Ouyang saw last night was probably an actor in makeup."

She looked at a girl standing at the villa entrance, head bowed, looking aggrieved and being scolded.

Everyone thought so, and this was undoubtedly the most reasonable explanation.

"Ah."

Ouyang Lianyu breathed a slight sigh of relief, a gentle smile appearing on her face.

"Director, the people from the villa next door have come out!"

When Han Zhou and the others noticed the film crew, the crew members naturally noticed them as well. The assistant seized the opportunity and quickly informed the director. Sure enough, the director was immediately drawn to the matter, stopped scolding Xiao Liu, and turned around to look behind him.

He sneered inwardly, thinking that these guys had made him live in fear so many times last night, and he had to teach them a lesson. But what he saw next shocked him. The people coming out of the villa next door were mostly young people, and each of them was extremely good-looking, far superior to the actors behind him. He wondered if he would have the chance to invite them to star in his next movie...

The director's mind started to work. The main reason he was able to make a thrilling blockbuster on a low budget before he was even thirty was that he knew how to control the budget. If he signed more new faces as actors, he could undoubtedly reduce the amount of money paid to them.

What? New actors have no acting skills?

These days, all you need to be a celebrity is good looks; you don't need acting skills at all!

Thinking of this, the director beckoned to the girl who was still looking down: "Xiaoliu, come here, I have something to tell you."

Xiaoliu thought the director was going to scold her again, so she quickly took small steps forward, lowered her head, and said aggrievedly, "Director, I was wrong. I promise I won't squat outside the bathroom door when you go to the toilet again. But I really accidentally fell asleep last night and forgot to remove my makeup. I had an upset stomach this morning, so I squatted outside the door. I really didn't mean to..."

"Alright, alright, let's not talk about this anymore."

The director impatiently interrupted her, pointing to Han Zhou and the others not far away, and said, "I have something else to say. Go over there and ask those people if they're interested in acting in the movie. Tell them I have a really good script waiting for them." Xiao Liu was taken aback and cautiously asked, "Director, are you not going to use veteran actors in your next movie?"

"Yeah, new actors are cheaper," the director replied casually.

Seeing Xiaoliu standing there for a long time without moving, he frowned slightly. "What are you still standing here for? Go on!"

Xiaoliu hesitated for a moment, then said nervously, "Director, I... I just wanted to ask if you would still want me in your next movie? I may be an old actress, but I'm quite cheap..."

The director was stunned, almost laughing in anger. He picked up the rolled-up script and tapped the other person on the head: "You're no veteran actor with that much experience. I'll give you the lead role in my next movie, okay? Go do it now!"

"The...the female lead? Okay!"

Xiao Liu's eyes lit up, and she happily skipped away.

Watching Xiaoliu's departing figure, the director felt inexplicably complicated. He didn't know why, but he felt that he had developed a different kind of affection for this girl.

Before he could figure out what kind of feelings this was, Xiaoliu rushed back and said, "Director, that girl in the baseball cap asked us if the movie we're making is serious?"

The director was taken aback: "Then why did you come back?"

"They came back and asked us if the movie we made was legitimate or not," Xiaoliu asked curiously.

"What did you say?"

The director couldn't resist and hit her on the head with the script.

"But I'm not sure if horror movies are legitimate..."

"Seriously, seriously! Go answer them right now!"

"Okay, I get it now……"

Xiao Liu skipped away again, but quickly returned. "Director, that girl in the baseball cap said again that she won't make any movies that aren't serious, and that she wants to direct them herself."

What kind of amazing beings have I encountered...?

The director looked utterly dejected.

……

"Yixia, what did that girl say to you just now?"

Ouyang Lianyu turned to look at Mo Yixia, who had just followed her, and asked gently.

Mo Yixia tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and lied through her teeth, saying, "She asked me if I had any plans to be the lead actress in an art film, and I refused."

Mo Yixia is a highly skilled liar; you could say she's a natural actress. It's a bit of a shame she didn't pursue a career in film and television. But Han Zhou is certain that the girl just now definitely didn't ask that question—

The main reason was that he overheard their conversation.

The villa area is adjacent to Silver Lake Park, which is famous for its Silver Lake. However, the group was not going to Silver Lake, since fishing is not allowed in the park. They were going to another lake outside the park.

After a night of torrential rain, the lake's water level had risen considerably. None of the people present were experienced anglers, so they were unsure whether it would be easy to catch fish under these conditions.

However, people didn't come here to catch fish; they mainly came to kill time in the afternoon and enjoy the nearby scenery—this is Guzheng's original statement.

But judging from her ambitious demeanor, it was clear that she wasn't just trying to kill time; this was evident from the fact that she deliberately handed another fishing rod to Mo Yixia.

"Han Zhou, can you fish with a guzheng?"

Seeing that Gu Zheng and Mo Yixia had already sat down on their small stools and were adjusting their fishing rods, Ouyang Lianyu asked in a low voice.

Han Zhou wasn't the only one who could tell that Gu Zheng wanted to compete with Mo Yixia in fishing; the others also noticed something amiss.

"Probably not." Han Zhou shook his head. "Even if it is, it won't be many."

Based on his understanding of the guzheng, he knew that although this guy had enough patience, he probably wouldn't like things that were too boring.

"What about Yixia?" Ouyang Lianyu asked again.

"Probably not."

Han Zhou shook his head. Mo Yixia had spent most of her time in her room and probably hadn't had much time to cultivate hobbies. But thinking about her terrifying learning ability, he was a little unsure and hesitated, "I'm not too sure either."

Zhong Yin was concerned about another question and asked in confusion, "Since Gu Zheng can't fish, why does she act so confidently?"

Guzheng was radiant throughout the journey, as if victory was already in her grasp.

Han Zhou's lips twitched: "Didn't you notice the bamboo pole she placed next to her?"

Guzheng didn't stay idle along the way; instead, she found a bamboo pole by the roadside, sharpened one end, and carried it with her the whole time.

Ouyang Lianyu was stunned: "Guzheng wouldn't be planning to use that bamboo pole to spear fish, would she?"

“Yes.” Han Zhou nodded. “As long as you can see fish and the bamboo pole is long enough, the guzheng has that ability.”

Zhong Ling hesitated for a moment, then said tentatively, "But it's clearly a fishing competition, wouldn't this be considered cheating..."

"Senior, have you forgotten what Guzheng said at the beginning?"

Seeing everyone's gaze turn towards him, Han Zhou, as if he had expected it, repeated what Gu Zheng had said before leaving the villa: "'Han Zhou, Xiao Xiao, let's go catch fish'—that's what she said."

Everyone was somewhat surprised by this, but quickly realized: "She said that on purpose?"

Catching fish and fishing are two completely different concepts. Theoretically speaking, as long as you can catch fish, you can use any method for the former.

Han Zhou nodded with a wry smile: "Gu Zheng won't cheat in any competition, but she's already started to work on the rules. I don't know who influenced her."

He glanced at Mo Yixia, who was standing calmly not far away.

Ouyang Lianyu smiled and said, "In a sense, Guzheng has learned to be flexible."

Zhong Yin was somewhat worried: "If that's the case, then Yi Xia is doomed to lose?"

It wasn't that she favored Mo Yixia more; she was just worried that Mo Yixia would be unhappy if she lost too badly.

"Then you really don't understand Yixia."

Han Zhou turned to look at Zhong Yin and smiled, "The problem that I can see, that guy can definitely see too. The reason she accepted the challenge is probably because she has a way to ensure she won't lose."

"What method?" everyone asked curiously.

Han Zhou was the person who knew Mo Yixia best at the scene. Since he said that Mo Yixia had a solution, then Mo Yixia must have a solution.

"I do not know either."

Han Zhou shook his head. "Just wait and see. I can't guess what that guy is thinking either."

(End of this chapter)