Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 456 Caught off guard
In December, Lincheng did not see a snow-covered landscape; despite the continued drop in temperature, there was still no snowfall.

The meteorological observatory predicts that by mid-December at the latest, Lincheng will welcome its first snowfall in nearly ten years, and it will be a rare heavy snowfall.

A heavy snowfall—

Aside from the innocent and carefree teenagers on campus, this news did not generate much anticipation among people outside of school.

So what if it snows?

Aside from spending more time in bed, wearing thicker clothes, and spending less time outdoors, life in Lincheng will not change much.

"You must be passionate about life"—most people will understand this sooner or later, but by the time they reach that age, they often have already lost the ability to find passion.

Just as one cannot simultaneously possess youth and the feeling of youth.

Fortunately, such "numbness" is still far from the students of Linyi University. At this moment, they are in the prime of their youth and full of passion. Almost everyone is looking forward to the arrival of heavy snow. The first thing they do every morning is to look out onto the balcony to see if the tree branches outside have turned white.

Besides the shared anticipation of heavy snow, many interesting things have happened at Linda University recently.

First, with the end of the fun sports meet, the video of Han Zhou drifting in his wheelchair quickly went viral online, causing his fame to soar at Lin University to the point that almost everyone knew him. Even using the nickname "dog student" to reduce his presence could not stop people from paying attention to him.

Almost every day, many people would come to the classroom to see him, this "big star," and even a legitimate talent agency came to invite him to participate in a talent show, hoping to make him debut as an inspirational figure with a disability and strong will.

When he stated expressionlessly that he was not disabled, the man was not disappointed; instead, he became even more excited, saying that the script could be rewritten to create a more moving and compelling character.

Despite being disabled, she used love as a crutch to stand up again, and even trained her arms to become new legs for love, which can be called a medical miracle among medical miracles.

As for who the "bail" is, it's naturally Wang Leng, who's rumored to be mentally unstable...

Han Zhou told the man to get lost before he could finish speaking.

Secondly, with the approach of New Year's Day, all colleges are working overtime to rehearse their programs, so the university has been quite lively recently. You can feel the vigorous energy of young people wherever you go. I heard that even the status of the square dancing aunties in the nearby park has been challenged.

As in previous years, the New Year's Eve party was organized entirely by the student union. In recent years, the New Year's Eve party has become increasingly monotonous and boring, consisting mainly of singing and dancing, which has been criticized for a long time. I wonder if President Xia Qing will come up with anything new this year.

Everyone is eagerly anticipating this.

As a member of the dance club, Guzheng has been rehearsing intensively lately. Whenever she doesn't have class in the afternoon, she goes to the dance studio to practice, and only has time after 7 p.m.

Thirdly, a rumor has recently spread on campus—whoever can decipher the code phrase "abstract stick figure" will have a chance to win the heart of senior student Wang Lengqiu.

According to insiders, this news is absolutely true and reliable. As a result, Wang Lengqiu has been surrounded by a lot of "abstract guys" in the past few days, and they have even formed an abstract club together. Unfortunately, Wang Lengqiu still doesn't want to even glance at them.

The fourth piece of news is a recent update that has just appeared in various chat groups—Professor Ouyang's boyfriend is suspected to have appeared at Linda University and is about to meet with Professor Ouyang's parents to discuss marriage!

—The information comes from a Mr. Chen Long who wishes to remain anonymous.

"Damn it! Which bastard betrayed me this time?"

"You guys are just enjoying the show, why do you always try to drag the person who's in it into it? Is there no justice in this world? Is there no law?"

"I want to emphasize again, I really didn't spread the news that Teacher Ouyang is getting married this year, and I never said that she was living with her boyfriend! Don't make baseless accusations!"

"'I am really Chen Zheng' has been banned by the administrator for 24 hours."

Seeing the mute notification in the group chat, Han Zhou's lips twitched. He looked up at Ouyang Lianyu, who was frantically typing on the other end, and said helplessly, "Teacher Ouyang, you need to give me an explanation. Who leaked the news at such an important time?"

The timing of this rumor is far too dangerous.

Today is the day he meets with Professor Ouyang's parents. He is currently very famous at Linda University and is easily recognized when he walks near the university. If some paparazzi find him with Professor Ouyang today, it will be hard not to associate it with this rumor and suspect that the two are having an affair.

So what if they're having an affair? It's just dating. But a teacher-student relationship isn't exactly something to talk about. He may be thick-skinned and not care, but it could easily affect Ouyang Lianyu's future life.

To prevent this from happening, he has been asking to move back to his dormitory these past few days, but Teacher Ouyang has refused to agree and insists that he can only leave after he has fully recovered from his injury. So he is still living at Teacher Ouyang's house to this day.

"You still have the nerve to ask me?"

Ouyang Lianyu was sending a message to punish Chen Long by making him clean the toilet. Upon hearing this, she didn't even look up and said, "Chen Long is your roommate. Shouldn't you be the one giving me an explanation?"

His tone was gentle, but tinged with a hint of resentment and helplessness, not like he was putting on a brave face. "I haven't even been back to my dorm lately, so how could I have had a chance to talk to Chen Long about these things? Besides, I'm always tight-lipped, so the problem definitely isn't with me," Han Zhou said earnestly.

"It's not my fault."

"Then whose fault is it?"

"I don't know either--"

Seeing that Ouyang Lianyu's hand movements suddenly stopped, Han Zhou looked strange and asked suspiciously, "Teacher Ouyang, can you look up at me when you speak?"

Ouyang Lianyu froze, not daring to raise her head for a long time, looking like a guilty thief.

There was definitely a problem... Han Zhou was both amused and exasperated, and sighed, "Teacher Ouyang, I just let it slip by accident. It's not a huge oversight, so why can't I admit it?"

"It's not really me."

Ouyang Lianyu wanted to explain, but her voice sounded guilty no matter how she tried to explain. "It's...it's my parents who arrived in Lincheng ahead of time. They're wandering around the school now. They're the ones who spread the news that I have a boyfriend, and Chen Long happened to overhear it when he was passing by."

She had only just heard about this from Chen Long.

Han Zhou's heart skipped a beat: "Didn't you say your parents wouldn't arrive in Lincheng until noon?"

To prevent any unexpected situations during their meeting, they booked a well-known restaurant far enough away from the university in advance, intending to have lunch there to reduce the risk of being seen by students from the university.

But Ouyang Lianyu's parents actually went to Lin University ahead of time?
That's what they told me.

Ouyang Lianyu's smile was bitter. "I think they probably already suspected that you were a fake boyfriend I found, which is why they came early to look for evidence and try to catch us off guard."

"It really caught me off guard..."

Han Zhou was very fortunate that the older generation nowadays didn't like playing on their phones much, and even less so watching short videos. Otherwise, if Ouyang Lianyu's parents saw his video online and went around the school promoting "This is my future son-in-law," it would be a complete disaster.

According to Ouyang Lianyu, her parents are a middle-aged couple who, even after buying smartphones, are not keen on trying new things and don't even have short video apps downloaded on their phones, so they probably wouldn't see him online.

"Then what should we do? We absolutely cannot meet with your parents at school, otherwise it will be a huge problem. But if we just let them ask around at school, I'm worried things will get out of control." Han Zhou frowned slightly, thinking of a solution.

For him and Ouyang Lianyu, whether their fake relationship was exposed or their "real" relationship was made public, it was an unacceptable thing. But they were unable to appear at school at this time and could not directly address the problem.

After a moment's hesitation, Ouyang Lianyu said tentatively, "How about... we find a shill?"

"To?"

Han Zhou's eyes lit up, and he instantly understood what the other party meant. "You mean you want someone to pretend to be an insider and use information that will satisfy your parents to send them away?"

Ouyang Lianyu's parents weren't on a school field trip. Once they learned something useful, they should have left and stopped asking around.

"Correct."

Ouyang Lianyu felt a little awkward. If possible, she didn't want to use any means to deceive her parents. The lies would be exposed sooner or later, and the buried truth would only hurt more. However, since things had come to this, she had no choice but to bite the bullet and go for it.

If honesty could bring her the desired outcome, then she wouldn't have bothered making things so complicated.

Han Zhou thought the plan was entirely feasible, so he immediately took out his phone and spoke quickly, "Then you should quickly ask Chen Long where he met your parents. I'll send a message to Gu Zheng right away and ask her to go and intercept them."

Apart from Mo Yixia and Guzheng, no one else knew that he was going to pretend to be Ouyang Lianyu's boyfriend. Now that Yixia was not around, in order to prevent things from getting more complicated, he could only ask Guzheng to help him act as a shill.

...It's a bit strange, but there's nothing we can do about it.

Han Zhou and Ouyang Lianyu were sending messages to each other, trying to resolve the issue as quickly as possible before things got complicated.

What the two of them didn't know at that moment was...

Before Guzheng, the "shill," arrived, Ouyang Lianyu's parents had already found a suitable person to question.

(End of this chapter)