Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 439 We'll Win Next Time

For some reason, Han Zhou recalled once again what he had heard during the fortune-telling session at the coffee shop that day.

He didn't want to have his fortune told about anything related to love, so he decided to just pick a random question to brush it off. But what he feared most was that the question he drew was, ironically, related to love.

To be precise, what's relevant to love isn't the problem itself, but the answer to the problem.

The conversation from that day resurfaced in his mind.

"The crystal ball tells me that your future will be smooth sailing and all your wishes will come true, but there is a problem."

"what is the problem?"

"While your wishes may all come true, their wishes may not."

"Them? You mean the people around me?"

"To be precise, it refers to the girls around you with whom you have had significant interactions."

"Are you serious?"

"This is a piece of advice: if you continue to get too close to everyone, you may hear them all crying in the future."

"Can I take that you mean they won't have a good ending if they continue to stay with me?"

"Please don't get excited. This is all destiny revealed by the crystal ball. There are countless branches in the future, and I am just describing one of the possibilities."

"To be honest, I've never believed in fate, but if there really are branching paths in the future, I'm sure I'll find the one that satisfies everyone."

"You are not the first person to express disbelief in fate, but since you are here, please respect it as much as possible."

"Okay, I respect that... So what suggestions do you have?"

"Many of the world's troubles stem from an excessive pursuit of perfection. If you are willing to make choices, everything may develop in a more satisfactory direction."

"You're talking like a charlatan right now, both in tone and wording... You're trying to tell me not to be too greedy, right? Did Wang Runxue say something to you?"

"Her words are just to help me understand you better. Please believe me, my divination is not driven by any selfish motives."

"Really? Then I think you're wrong."

"Ok?"

"I respect fate now, so I'll believe you for now. But since you say all my wishes will come true in the future, then there must be no unfulfilled wishes for them either—"

"To fulfill the wishes of all of them... that is my greatest wish from this moment into the future."

"...Even if things are likely to turn into a mess?"

Even if things get messy.

“I see your determination. Divination is a guide for the lost, and it seems you don’t need it. Would you mind if I did another divination?”

"Okay, what did the divination reveal this time?"

"Uh, it's the same divination result..."

"..."

"I swear, I will never come here again. Besides coffee, I'm starting to hate fortune telling now."

……

From that day on, Han Zhou suddenly began to understand why Mo Yixia preferred to go to temples to draw lots.

Because you can keep drawing lots at the temple until you get one that satisfies you.

He certainly didn't believe in fate; he only consulted fortune tellers for good luck. Therefore, when he learned that his fortune telling result wasn't exactly auspicious, he immediately decided to keep it a secret and one day thoroughly humiliate the fortune-telling club president.

He will fulfill all their wishes.

It wasn't entirely to express his determination not to believe in fate. In fact, the girls around him all had some issues, and helping them resolve their inner conflicts was something he had already decided to do. In the process, he would inevitably hear some of their deepest desires.

He's certainly not some omnipotent dream-fulfilling master, but the status bar is. There are some wishes he can't fulfill, but the status bar certainly has the ability to accomplish them.

In a sense, the tasks posted in the status bar can reflect people's wishes to some extent...

No, no, no, that's not right either. Didn't we have a guide mission for Sister Yin a couple of days ago? If we think about it this way, doesn't Sister Yin's wish mean that she wants to be conquered by me?
Han Zhou quickly dismissed this terrible idea.

Although his thoughts were wandering, he kept most of his attention on the guzheng. The word "unique" seemed to have a special meaning for the girl, so much so that she thought for a long time before speaking again.

"Yes, unique, that's what I've always wanted to be."

After Gu Zheng finished speaking, she fell silent. She longed to hear Han Zhou reply, "Aren't you already a unique person?" But she was disappointed; Han Zhou did not say that.

"Is it because this is what your grandmother expected of you?" Han Zhou asked curiously.

"No."

Gu Zheng shook her head. "Although my grandmother always told me that the happiest moment for a person is when they discover their own unique strengths someday, she never asked me to become a unique person."

She paused for a moment and continued, “From childhood to adulthood, apart from asking me to correct my mistakes, my grandmother has almost never made any demands on me. Other children’s parents don’t let them run around or go out at night, but my grandmother is different. She never stops me from doing these things, even though she often has to come out in the dark to find me.”

Han Zhou smiled and said, "It seems your grandmother really likes you."

As the guzheng played its narration, a kind and gentle image was already forming in his mind.

"Do you think so too?" Gu Zheng's eyes crinkled. "Many people say that my grandmother doesn't actually care about me, but they don't understand anything. Love isn't just about binding each other together."

Han Zhou gasped, "How could you say something like that?"

"Is it really that surprising? I often think about the philosophy of life too, you know!"

Gu Zheng glared at him, then her aura gradually weakened, and she said with a slightly red face, "But I didn't say that. It was my grandmother who said it. She said that my parents are often not home not because they don't love me, and that I shouldn't blame them."

As a left-behind child, Gu Zheng had very limited time to spend with her parents from a young age. The reason she still has a sunny and cheerful personality and maintains a good relationship with her parents is inseparable from her grandmother's education from childhood.

Of course, Guzheng's parents do love Guzheng very much, and many people on the playground can attest to that.

“Your grandmother is right. Love isn’t about being inseparable, nor does occasional separation mean you don’t love her.”

Subtly laying the groundwork for his future showdown, Han Zhou steered the conversation back to the main point, asking with a hint of doubt, "Since it's not your grandmother's wish, then why do you want to be a unique person?"

Gu Zheng paused for a moment: "Perhaps it's because my grandmother never made any demands on me, or even left me her last wishes, or left me with any pressure, that after she passed away, I started to seriously think about what kind of expectations she would have for me."

In fact, her grandmother had made requests of her. On the night before she passed away, her grandmother asked her to complete her schoolwork properly, but she failed to keep her promise.

Is it because the absence of any pressure has created an inexplicable sense of burden...?

Han Zhou could understand Gu Zheng's feelings. It was like being at the bottom of your class academically. If the homeroom teacher kept ordering you to study hard and improve your grades, you might not take it seriously, or you might even develop a rebellious mentality and become even more lazy.

However, if your homeroom teacher not only doesn't require you to study hard, but instead shows you concern and care every day, treating you like their own son, then when you see your appalling report card, it's hard not to feel guilty and thus develop the desire to study harder.

Unconditional giving is the hardest to accept, and love given without reason is the hardest to repay.

Unless someone is truly cold-blooded and ruthless, it's hard for anyone not to feel, "I should do something to respond to them," when faced with a similar situation.

"Actually, my grandmother passed away... She said a lot of things to me before she passed away, but I couldn't remember them the next day. I often wonder if it's not that my grandmother didn't leave any last wishes, but that I just don't remember them."

Gu Zheng clenched her fists, clearly still bothered by forgetting her grandmother's last words, and it took her a long time to speak again.

“My grandmother always liked to use the word ‘unique’ when she was alive, so I think if she really left a last wish, it must be that I would become a unique person in the future.” “...But to this day I have not become such a person.”

As the sun gradually set in the west, the golden sunlight turned completely pale red.

The wind picked up again in the woods, but this time there were no large fluttering leaves; they just lazily settled on the ground.

Han Zhou sat in his wheelchair, stirring up the fallen leaves on the ground with his feet. After a while, he suddenly said, "Gu Zheng, have you ever thought that perhaps in your grandmother's eyes, you are already a unique person?"

Gu Zheng was stunned for a moment.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because that's what I think."

Han Zhou smiled and said, "Look, when you were little, your grandma said you were a little stove. Now that you're all grown up, I think you're like the sun—don't you think my thoughts are quite similar to your grandma's?"

He continued to stir the fallen leaves with his foot, so he didn't notice the girl's expression behind him or her slightly trembling voice.

"You mean... you've always thought I was unique?"

"Yes, the sun is unique."

A gust of wind suddenly swept through the forest, and the hair on her forehead blocked her vision. The girl subconsciously looked down and then noticed that Han Zhou had been writing something on the pile of dead leaves with his foot.

But the gust of wind came too suddenly. Before she could see it clearly, the words disappeared with the wind, turning into a sky full of withered leaves.

Gu Zheng really wanted to ask Han Zhou what he had just written, but the words that came out of her mouth turned into something else entirely.

"Then, what do you think makes me unique?"

She tried to ask in a nonchalant tone, but she couldn't hide her nervousness.

"Where?"

Han Zhou was taken aback, and hesitated before saying, "Isn't it already unique enough that you're standing here?"

Gu Zheng blushed slightly. Although she was quite pleased with what he said, it wasn't the answer she wanted: "That's not what I meant. I'm asking you what makes me unique?"

"point?"

Han Zhou turned around and looked the girl up and down for a while. Seeing that her expression was getting worse, he smiled and said seriously, "There's no specific point, and you don't need to worry about it. There are billions of people in this world. If everyone needs to be described with a unique word, then the dictionary would probably be worn out and still not be enough."

Gu Zheng's bright eyes dimmed slightly: "That's because I don't yet have anything unique about me."

"Aren't you just nitpicking?" Han Zhou said, both amused and exasperated. "It's like permutations and combinations, where many similarities are combined to create completely different ones. When different personality traits are combined in different people, everyone is inherently different. For example, can you name a unique trait I have?"

She couldn't really say what the guzheng was, but she still tried to think for a moment, then hesitated and said, "You're incredibly shameless..."

Han Zhou didn't refute it: "There are plenty of shameless people out there, so I'm not exactly unique, am I?"

"But you're more shameless than anyone else..."

"...Okay, that certainly makes it unique."

Han Zhou's lips twitched. He was about to ask the other party to produce evidence when he suddenly realized something and asked in surprise, "As long as you surpass everyone else, you can be considered unique... So that's why you've always wanted to be number one?"

He looked up at the girl's face and understood for the first time the real motivation behind her pursuit of first place.

"Ah."

Gu Zheng didn't deny it, but turned her head away somewhat uneasily. After a while, she said, "Don't you think I'm deceiving myself, or that I'm... or that I'm being unreasonable?"

The reason she never told anyone about this was because she herself was unsure whether her persistence was meaningful. She was afraid that the other person would deny everything she had done in the past and tell her that it had nothing to do with being unique.

...especially Han Zhou.

Han Zhou always says she is his sun, but what sun doesn't understand the meaning of its daily rise and fall?

Noticing Gu Zheng's slightly flushed cheeks and her somewhat hesitant gaze as she looked up at the sky, Han Zhou pondered for a moment and decided to imitate the mind-reading master Mo Yixia, probing, "Are you trying to say that a young girl's blush surpasses everything, even the evening sunset can only hide behind the clouds, so I should give a negative answer?"

"?"

A question mark appeared above Gu Zheng's head. She wanted to ask what nonsense this guy was talking about, but in the end she nodded and hesitated, "I guess so... but, I didn't force you."

She really wanted to hear Han Zhou give a negative answer, saying that her idea was neither self-deception nor absurd.

But Han Zhou disappointed her once again.

"Although I really want to say this, your reason for pursuing first place does seem a bit strange to me. After all, you are already unique enough in my eyes, so I can't completely agree with your idea."

Gu Zheng shifted her gaze somewhat awkwardly, not entirely out of disappointment, but because every time this guy said she was unique in such a matter-of-fact tone, she felt her heart race.

Han Zhou had no idea what Gu Zheng was thinking, and continued, "But I can still understand you. Perhaps the 'uniqueness' you want is not the same as the uniqueness I understand. If you still want everyone to know that you are a unique person, then continue to insist on being number one."

Gu Zheng was stunned for a moment: "It's that simple?"

She didn't think there was anything wrong with Han Zhou's attitude; she just thought he would try to persuade her to stop dwelling on this inexplicable wish.

"if not?"

Han Zhou gave her a strange look. "Didn't I tell you? Just stick to what you think is right, and I'll always support you."

"It really isn't inexplicable..."

"So what if it's inexplicable? We're not exactly normal people anyway."

Han Zhou smiled and looked up at the sun on the horizon. "Even if I'm a little strange sometimes, no one will care."

Under layers of red clouds, the sun was mostly obscured, leaving only a crooked slit, like a burning red "one".

Gu Zheng followed his gaze, her eyes crinkling involuntarily, before she suddenly realized, "The one who's not normal is you, don't include me!"

In the afterglow of the setting sun, the girl's cheeks flushed.

Han Zhou shrugged and didn't reply.

After a long while, until the clouds covering the sun dispersed, he smiled and asked, "So, can you answer my initial question now—?"

"What are your thoughts on losing this time?"

The air fell silent for a long time, and no one responded.

There seemed to be liquid dripping onto his shoulder, but he pretended not to notice and didn't turn around. He just stared quietly into the distance with a calm expression.

Now that he understands the true significance of first place for the guzheng, he can naturally better understand the blow this failure dealt to the latter.

Contrary to her outward appearance, Gu Zheng was not indifferent at all; on the contrary, she kept all her emotions bottled up inside.

...Let's just say it was a very light rain.

After a long time, the rain stopped.

The faint sound of sleeves rubbing against cheeks could be heard behind me, and after a while, the girl's firm voice rang out.

"Next time, I will definitely win."

(End of this chapter)