Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 434 It's not too late to think about it now.

Before answering your question, I'd also like to ask you one.

Mo Yixia looked at the distant sun with a calm expression, lost in thought.

"what is the problem?"

After a pause, He Ling guessed, "You want to know what kind of person Gu Zheng is?"

After all, they are rivals in love, so it's understandable to want to know more about them.

Mo Yixia gave her a strange look: "I might know the answer to this question better than you do. Is it really necessary to ask you?"

He Ling was taken aback. This guy was really annoying. Although Gu Zheng was also annoying, she actually hoped that Gu Zheng could win the final victory.

"So what do you want to ask?" she asked patiently.

What is liking?

"what?"

"I'm asking you what 'like' means," Mo Yixia said calmly. "That's the question I want to ask."

The sun outside the window gradually lowered, and the white clouds were tinged with a hint of rosy hue. The girl rested her chin on her hand, and the sunlight fell on her almost perfect profile, making the beauty mark at the corner of her eye seem to brighten as well.

Even with a mask on, He Ling was certain that this was a beauty whose looks were no less than Gu Zheng's.

I wonder what kind of man could turn two girls into rivals in love...

Curious, she asked, "You already have someone you like, don't you know what 'like' means?"

Mo Yixia scoffed: "Didn't you never understand what obsession is either?"

"You... never mind, why are you asking me? Haven't you asked anyone else this question?"

"Of all the people I've met so far, you're the only one with a boyfriend, which is why I chose to ask you."

Mo Yixia was very frank and said bluntly, "Besides, I'm also very curious how someone who can clearly feel 'hate' would define 'love'."

He Ling was silent for a few seconds, then hesitated and said, "Do I really look like I hate the guzheng...?"

Before talking to this girl, she always thought she hated the guzheng, but for some reason, after hearing what the other girl had just said, she suddenly didn't know how to describe her feelings.

Is it truly hatred, or an obsession stemming from jealousy and resentment?
“Now it’s your turn to answer my question,” Mo Yixia said, interrupting her thoughts.

This girl is smart, but also really annoying; she never seems to care about other people's feelings. In contrast, the guzheng...

He Ling was silent for a while, then said, "You suddenly asked me what 'like' is, and I don't know how to answer for a moment. But love is always the opposite of hate, so perhaps I can answer your question with my understanding of hate."

"it is good."

He Ling fell silent again, staring at Gu Zheng, who was bowing her head and enduring the insults on the playground, for a long time: "In my opinion... hatred should be a despicable feeling of wanting to destroy the other person."

Mo Yixia pondered: "So love is a noble feeling of wanting to help the other person fulfill their wishes?"

She extracted the exact antonym of "hate" from the other person's words.

"I think it can be understood this way: besides blushing and feeling excited, liking someone is probably a feeling of wanting to give everything for them."

It seemed to be the first time someone had discussed the topic of "liking" with her. He Ling thought about it very seriously and added after a moment's thought, "If I see that the other person's wishes are not fulfilled, I will also be very disappointed."

Mo Yixia remained noncommittal, raising her left index finger from her chin-resting hand and gently tapping her smooth forehead: "What if our wishes conflict with the other person's wishes?"

He Ling paused for a moment, then suddenly laughed: "Isn't this the question you should be answering?"

"Yes."

Mo Yixia stopped tapping, picked up the water bottle from the table, unscrewed the cap, pulled her mask down slightly, and took a sip of water.

What a nice view……

Under He Ling's blank gaze, the girl pulled her mask up again, her tone languid and unpredictable, like the ever-changing white clouds in the sky.

"However, I'm sorry, but how to satisfy everyone without imposing expectations on each other is a topic I'm currently researching."

"I can understand."

He Ling quickly recovered from her brief daze. It was precisely because there was no perfect solution to this problem that she and Gu Zheng had become enemies in the first place. She took a deep breath and asked, "So, regarding who was right and who was wrong in that incident between Gu Zheng and me, can you tell me your answer?"

Mo Yixia glanced at her and said with interest, "You must have asked many people similar questions over the years, and you must have gotten satisfactory answers, otherwise you wouldn't have carried out your revenge plan. Why do you still need to ask me?"

He Ling didn't think for long: "Because you look at things from a different perspective than they do."

"Don't you already know the answer?"

Mo Yixia said in a calm tone, but with a hint of meaning, "Right and wrong often depend on one's position, and even I cannot be completely fair."

“But I still hope you can answer,” He Ling insisted.

Mo Yixia is a person who keeps her promises. Since the other party has already answered the question she wanted to know and repeatedly expressed that they wanted a different answer than before, she will not continue to be evasive.

I can only answer one thing for you—

"When she talked about your former best friend, she didn't say a bad word about you. On the contrary, she described you as a very nice person."

He Ling suddenly looked at the guzheng outside the window, stunned.

In fact, Mo Yixia had never heard Gu Zheng mention He Ling before. The above words were all her guesses. The reason she said those words was simply because she knew what kind of person that guy was.

Foolish, but kind.

...otherwise, he wouldn't have offered help to a rival who was eyeing him covetously.

The image of her sinking to the bottom of the lake that day resurfaced in the girl's mind; she remembered the look in someone's eyes as they struggled to crawl towards her—

That was clearly a look in her eyes that said she'd rather stay at the bottom of the lake than let her rival reach the shore. Thinking of this, Mo Yixia confirmed one thing once again—

That guy is really stupid.

Of course, as foolish as he may be, he was still somewhat of her savior, so apart from not being able to give up Han Zhou, she was willing to give him a little something in return—such as saying a few good words for him.

That's why she just said, "Even I can't be completely fair."

He Ling looked out the window, still unable to recover from Mo Yixia's words.

Although it was a completely irrelevant answer, thinking back to her introduction of the guzheng not long ago, she suddenly seemed to understand who was right and who was wrong back then.

Or...

"It seems you don't really hate that guy."

Mo Yixia's voice rang in her ear, "If you really hate her to the core, then no matter what I say, it won't make a difference. And since you're moved, it means you actually remember what kind of person that person is, right?"

“Yes,” He Ling said.

She did remember everything.

Guzheng wasn't always thinking only of herself. That girl clearly loved to eat, but she would always share half of her delicious food with her. The reason she felt that the other girl didn't know how to share was because she forgot that the girl neither bought toys nor liked to run around. She was always focused on studying and didn't have much to share.

But now that I think about it, every time it rained and the two of them only had one small umbrella, Guzheng would always laugh and rush into the rain, saying that she had never caught a cold since she was a child and that no matter how much she chased after her, she would not come back. This was how she kept the umbrella in her hands.

However, she did not see Guzheng catch a cold the next day, and gradually forgot about it.

Guzheng wasn't unwilling to share her learning methods; it's just that all the methods the other person mentioned were rather clumsy. She simply couldn't believe that Guzheng could achieve first place in the entire grade using such methods, forgetting how hard the other person worked every day.

Mingming had invited Guzheng to her home to study many times, but she always refused with various excuses. At the time, she refused to admit it, but now it seems that she only didn't want to go because she was jealous of Guzheng's rapid progress.

Guzheng does have a very bad temper. She gets into fights with boys at the drop of a hat, which is not like a lady at all. As a result, she has been criticized by the grade many times. However, except for the one time when she was rumored to be a descendant of a savage and had chest hair, all the fights Guzheng got into were actually to protect her.

Back then, there were always some unruly students in school who liked to bully girls who did well in school. They didn't dare to mess with girls like Guzheng, so they always targeted her. When Guzheng found out, she fought with them several times. Because she was worried that Guzheng would be implicated, she took all the blame herself and said that she fought because she didn't like those boys.

Although Guzheng doesn't lie, she's always very stubborn and won't budge no matter who asks. Perhaps because she's said these things too often, she's gradually forgotten that Guzheng was fighting to protect herself and has come to believe that the other person is a girl who really likes to cause trouble.

He Ling's eyes were a little red.

She didn't doubt Mo Yixia's words, because Gu Zheng was indeed not someone who liked to talk badly about others behind their backs. Even those boys who spread rumors about her having chest hair, she never scolded them.

Time is like a file, making good memories even better and bad memories even worse.

Perhaps it was because everyone around her was saying, "You're not wrong, she's the one who's wrong," that she gradually formed a despicable villainous image of Guzheng in her heart.

But wouldn't someone around Guzheng tell her, "You're not wrong, the one who's really wrong is that guy"?

Of course there will be.

But Gu Zheng still didn't treat her as an enemy.

He Ling stood blankly by the window, remaining silent for a long time.

She suddenly felt a sense of relief, relieved that she had heard about the guzheng and thought of a revenge plan, and also relieved that she had chosen the girl in the baseball cap next to her as the person to whom she could "confide".

If it weren't for what this girl just said, she might never have remembered what kind of person Gu Zheng was.

Seemingly sensing her thoughts, Mo Yixia suddenly asked, "Do you regret figuring this out?"

"A little……"

He Ling tried to answer, only to realize that her voice was choked up and her cheeks were wet without her noticing.

She wiped her eyes, not caring if it would smudge her makeup, and tried to force a smile. "But if I don't figure this out, I'll probably regret it even more later."

"Yeah."

Mo Yixia's tone was unusually gentle, and she didn't say much, seemingly giving her time to process her emotions.

The branches outside the window swayed in the wind, as if they were lazily stretching their waists.

"I'll ask you one last question." After a long silence, He Ling spoke again.

"Go ahead."

He Ling looked at the playground. Gu Zheng had already run her 400-meter race and was putting on her coat while talking to another girl: "Why do you think Gu Zheng stayed at the starting line?"

"Of course, it's because I wanted to respond to the persistence of that 'injured' senior. Besides, I heard from someone that this guy never gives up."

Mo Yixia chuckled softly. This was the first time He Ling had heard her laugh. He Ling didn't know if she was laughing at herself or at the rival in love on the playground.

"What, do you think that guy is smart enough to see through that senior's intentions, so he wants to get revenge on her by watching her run the whole race?"

"Ah."

He Ling nodded in agreement, admitting that she had indeed been thinking that way—perhaps, as the other person said, her heart was actually quite dark, otherwise she wouldn't have become the way she is today.

The sunlight streaming into the stadium from the window was somewhat dazzling.

She squinted and suddenly remembered the bright smile on Guzheng's face when she took over the baton not long ago. It looked exactly the same as when she was in junior high school. She wanted to try to learn it, but she couldn't imitate it no matter what she did.

She took a deep breath and forced a complicated smile.

"You're right, I really have forgotten what kind of person Gu Zheng is."

"It's not too late to remember now." Mo Yixia tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

The air remained quiet for a long time.

"Thank you."

(End of this chapter)