Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 444 A Small Problem

The fun event that Han Zhou signed up for was called "Hot-Blooded Racing." Just from the name, you can tell that it's essentially a game of who can be the fastest. It contains multiple obstacle courses, and the first one to reach the finish line wins.

It's worth mentioning that this is a two-person project, and many levels in the competition require two participants to work together to complete them.

Han Zhou chose to sign up for this project mainly because it was the most formal of all the fun events, with a long process, many rules, and a strong competitive element. Winning such a competition would be more meaningful for Guzheng, and participating might help her forget the unhappiness of losing yesterday.

In fact, he wasn't sure at first yesterday whether he could truly master the guzheng, which is why he held back this extra step. If she really couldn't handle the blow of this failure, then a new challenge might cheer her up.

Since we've lost one game, we can just win it back in another.

Who knew that this tactic not only failed to prove useful, but also backfired.

As for why the guzheng was not told which fun activity she had signed up for for a long time, it was not because there was anything wrong with the activity content, but because it was a two-person competition.

That's right, it's a doubles competition.

It was precisely because this was a doubles competition that Han Zhou was having such a headache.

He understood, of course, that one of Mo Yixia's purposes in participating in the competition was to see him caught in a dilemma. This was both a small revenge against his unrepentant attitude and a moral dilemma of "who is more important, me or her?"

Admittedly, Mo Yixia would never bring up such a question. In her view, love is incomparable. Every love has its own private space. They are parallel to each other, yet they also attract each other. They occupy different weights because of their different environments, and they have incomparable units of measurement. Therefore, there is no strict saying that one is more important than the other.

This is Mo Yixia's answer when the two were discussing the classic, potentially fatal question, "If I and your mother fell into the water at the same time, who would you save first?"

In her view, when you think you are important enough to someone, the prerequisite is that the other person has an equal or even more important place in your heart. Under normal circumstances, no one would force such an important person to make an unnecessary choice.

If your partner's parents are both healthy and their family is harmonious, then rashly asking them "Who is more important, me or your mother?" is actually a rather selfish act.

The real problem might not be the partner who struggles for a long time without being able to give an answer, but rather you who asks this question without considering the other person's feelings, and desperately hopes that the other person will ultimately give you their own answer.

Love is incomparable, and should not be compared.

It was never a tool to make another love seem greater.

Of course, theory is just theory, and that doesn't mean Mo Yixia is completely indifferent to this issue. Just as after giving a long and detailed explanation, she still took it for granted that "remember to save me first."

More importantly... my love for the guzheng and my love for Mo Yixia are measured in the same unit!

This is actually something to compare!
Perhaps the reason Mo Yixia never asks is simply because she believes more in the answers conveyed through actions than in words.

So she entered the competition.

Since it's a two-person competition, who will someone choose as their teammate?

—This is her interrogation today.

Whether you choose one or none of them, it's still an answer.

In addition, sports have always been Guzheng's forte, and Mo Yixia naturally knows this. It's obvious that she would never participate in this competition with the intention of losing, and she must have already thought of a strategy to win the competition.

No... Mo Yixia doesn't have that strong a competitive spirit. She doesn't necessarily have to win the competition; winning the guzheng game is enough.

Gu Zheng was already prepared to decisively defeat Mo Yixia.

Both of them wanted to see the other suffer a crushing defeat, but Han Zhou didn't want to. However, he couldn't withdraw from the competition, which meant he only had two choices: either team up with one of the Guzheng players, Mo Yixia, to defeat the other, or choose neither and team up with someone else.

Han Zhou chose option two without hesitation.

It wasn't about escaping; it was only in this way that he could have enough room to maneuver.

First of all, Guzheng absolutely has to win today's competition. She said yesterday that she "must win next time." If she loses again today, not to mention whether her mentality will be affected, she will lose face. So we must let her win.
But Mo Yixia couldn't lose either. After all, her opponent had "sacrificed herself" and made concessions yesterday, and even quietly helped Guzheng win back a friend. It would be too unfair if she lost the competition today, so she had to let her win.

Both players need to win, so the only possibility is for them to win simultaneously and tie. However, today's rules allow interference with the opponent's progress, so only by becoming an independent third-party "force" can he maintain stable control of the situation and achieve a win-win outcome.

Although it is quite difficult, this plan is obviously more likely to succeed than staying undercover on one side.

It's a good opportunity to complete some event tasks at the same time.

[Event Task: The target characters Guzheng and Mo Yixia have had two disputes, one loss and one draw. Please make them have at least three disputes within three months, and make the total number of wins and losses in all disputes equal. Upon completion of the task, one enhancement skill will be drawn from each of the two target characters.]

This is an event mission that appeared not long ago along with Zhong Yin's strategy mission. It requires Han Zhou to create no less than three disputes between Gu Zheng and Mo Yixia, and to make the total number of wins and losses in the final disputes equal.

Just kidding, one dispute was enough to give him a headache, so how could he dare to start another one? Besides, to complete this task, he would need to create at least four disputes and achieve a two-win-two-loss situation, so he didn't plan to do this task in the first place.

However, the dispute is right in front of us now, which meets the conditions for triggering the mission. So why not try a new approach? Since Gu Zheng and Mo Yixia are already tied one to one, does he not necessarily need to make it two wins and two losses? He just needs to make the two of them tie three times.
If this draw is counted towards the mission progress, it means that this approach is feasible.

To make the win-win plan more secure, Han Zhou went so far as to manipulate the status bar, racking his brains last night to create two new statuses—

[Task Expert → Task Master (Modified): The significance of tasks surpasses everything else, including people. When you are determined to complete a task as quickly as possible, the goddess of fortune will grant you a small favor, and at the same time, your task efficiency will increase slightly.]

[College Student → Dog Student (Edited): It may not be a person, but you are a real dog. After entering this state, your presence on campus will be slightly reduced, making it less noticeable for your small actions. In addition, if you remain silent immediately after barking three times, there is a chance that the person in front of you will ignore you.]

Both of these states helped him muddy the waters in today's game, especially the latter. Although "dog student" sounds a bit harsh, it was still very effective. It's just that he obeyed the rules; if it were someone else, they probably would have barked like a dog as they entered the women's restroom.

Since entering the school, Han Zhou has been testing the effects of the "dog student" persona. It does reduce his presence to some extent. Now that he is surrounded by beautiful women all day long, this can reduce some unnecessary attention.

I heard that some busybodies have already ranked him as the seventh most famous person at Linda University, nicknamed "Celebrity Collector," who specializes in collecting other famous people at the school, especially those of the opposite sex.

Teacher Ouyang is one thing, but even the "mute bride" and the "smiling princess" who rarely communicate with others have ambiguous relationships with him, which is terrifying to many people.

It's worth mentioning that Lin Youya told everyone this news during lunch yesterday afternoon. She had heard it from someone else, and the girl was quite excited when she said it, saying that the code name was absolutely awesome and that she wanted to have her own code name in the future.

Little did they know how strange everyone's expressions were at the time. Celebrity collector... After confirming that this matter had nothing to do with Mo Yixia, Han Zhou swore that if he found out who gave him such a nickname, he would make that guy copy the dictionary ten times over, since he couldn't even come up with a proper nickname.

Perhaps because of this, or perhaps because some kind of agreement was reached, no one wanted to team up with him today. Only Senior Wang Lengqiu stood out and resolutely expressed her willingness to be his teammate; otherwise, she wouldn't have come today.

In other words, Senior Wang Lengqiu participated in the competition because of him.

Looking at the frail girl in front of him, Han Zhou was worried that she would collapse from exhaustion during the match.

At this moment, Gu Zheng had already learned from Ouyang Lianyu that the breakfast she had just eaten was bought by Mo Yixia. She was raising her chin and saying that she would not let Mo Yixia lose too badly because of the breakfast. However, the latter just glanced at her and reached out to make her spit out the breakfast.

When everyone arrived at the playground, "Hot-Blooded Racing" was the first event to be held today, as it required the use of the entire track and most of the lawn, as well as many props. It would start at nine o'clock. All the props had been set up yesterday afternoon, and the playground looked like a small amusement park.

To organize this fun sports meet, the student council secured a large number of sponsors, and the prizes were quite generous, so a lot of people signed up to participate, with couples making up almost 70% of the participants.

After all, "Hot-Blooded Racing" is a two-person competition, and it's an event that focuses on fun. Many couples sign up not to win, but to create a precious campus memory.

Meanwhile, on the other side, a student council member rushed into the student council office, anxiously saying, "It's bad, President! We didn't limit the number of participants in the 'Hot-Blooded Racing' event. There are currently over four hundred participants. If we split into groups of two and compete in batches, we might not be able to finish the 'Hot-Blooded Racing' event by noon. That would leave not enough time for the other events!"

Although it was in response to the slogan of "sports for all", Linda University is not a sports school after all. It only gave one day to hold the fun sports meet, and then classes will resume normally. This means that all events must be completed today.

If things continue at this pace, the sports meet might not be finished until late at night, and the school will definitely hold us accountable.

The student council member was sweating profusely with anxiety.

"Don't worry."

Xia Qing, sitting at her desk, seemed to have anticipated this situation and said calmly, "The purpose of this fun sports meet is for everyone to participate, so there shouldn't be a limit on the number of participants. That's correct, otherwise I would have reminded you already. I will take responsibility if there are any problems."

The student council member first breathed a sigh of relief, then looked worried again: "But... what should we do now?"

Xia Qing was prepared and handed him a plan: "Go to the broadcasting room and announce that the competition rules have been slightly changed. Since two people per group is too slow, just increase the number of people in each group."

The man hesitated for a moment, then said, "But President, many of the people who signed up for this competition are couples. They came specifically for the doubles event. If we change it to a multi-person event at the last minute, they might object..."

Xia Qing shook her head: "It's not being changed to a multi-person event. This competition will still be conducted in pairs, but the final winner will be multiple groups instead of just one group. The groups can compete or cooperate with each other. You can think of it as a kind of two-person relay race."

The man understood quickly, his eyes lighting up as he said, "So you're saying that the competition, which originally only required two people to complete individually, is divided into multiple segments, which are then handed over to different pairs of people in relays?"

If that's the case, it would indeed significantly speed up the competition while ensuring that the original duo participating in the competition would never be separated.

"It's not just that. Take a look at the plan I wrote first. If there's anything you don't understand, just ask me. Once you understand it, go to the broadcasting room and issue a notice. I've already sent people to the playground to prepare for the relevant rule adjustments, so there's no need to rush."

"Okay, I understand!"

Seeing that the chairman had already prepared everything, the man breathed a sigh of relief and quickly looked down at the plan. After a while, he asked, "Chairman, I have a question."

"explain."

"Why did you set the maximum number of people in each group to eight? Wouldn't ten be better? That would speed up the competition faster without diluting the flow of each stage..."

Xia Qing smiled, pushed the computer back to the desktop, stood up, stretched, and then picked up the camera from the table.

"Because if there are ten people in a group, there will be ten winners in the end, so ten prizes will have to be given out. But if there are eight people in a group, two fewer prizes will be given out, which can effectively save the student council's funds."

"Uh... just for this?"

"What do you mean 'just for this'? Funding is very important, okay? Don't worry, I've calculated it. Eight people per group can finish all the competitions within an hour, without delaying other events... By the way, have the number of participants for other events exceeded expectations?"

"No."

The man shook his head, thought for a moment, and couldn't help but ask, "President, you seem very interested in the 'Hot-Blooded Racing' project. Can you tell me why?"

The reason he thought that way was because the president seemed to only focus on matters related to "Hot-Blooded Racing". He not only noticed the problem of too many people very early on, but also prepared a detailed adjustment plan. Other projects did not receive the same treatment, and the president had not even seen the number of applicants for other projects.

Although "Racing" is one of the most important events today, it shouldn't be treated so unfairly.

In response to his question, Xia Qing calmly adjusted the camera and gave a very simple answer with a smile.

"Because it's very interesting."

……

It was twenty minutes later when Han Zhou learned that Xia Qing had changed the rules of the "Hot-Blooded Racing" competition.

It wasn't until then that he understood what Xia Qing meant when she said on the phone the day before, "Don't worry, I'll make it up to you."

Although he didn't understand why the other party wanted to compensate him, wasn't the upper limit of eight people per group clearly tailor-made for him?

Guzheng, Mo Yixia, the Zhong sisters, Teacher Ouyang, Xiao Xiaoxiao, Wang Lengqiu, and finally myself, that makes exactly eight people, right?
We are no longer competitors, but teammates working together. If we all win first place, no one will lose, and no one will be a loser. This sounds like a win-win situation.

For a moment, Han Zhou almost wanted to erect a statue of Xia Qing and keep it at home to properly worship her, as a way of thanking her for her ingenious plan.

Although there was a small problem, it had nothing to do with Senior Xia Qing.

Looking at the three-legged race about to begin in the distance, Han Zhou's expression was extremely strange, and he even seemed a little hesitant to watch the upcoming competition.

Can anyone tell me...

Why were Guzheng and Yixia assigned to the same group?

(End of this chapter)