Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 81 Past Events

The subway is traveling at high speed inside the tunnel.

Han Zhou and Gu Zheng sat in their chairs, neither of them speaking, silently gazing at the darkness outside the car window, both looking preoccupied.

The subway was quite crowded at first, but after one transfer, there were not many people left. The number of people decreased with each stop, and after a few stops, only a few people remained. The carriage was empty and unusually quiet.

Han Zhou scrutinized Gu Zheng's expression and finally couldn't help but say, "Being so hesitant and timid isn't like you."

He didn't expect this guy to be able to hold back for so long; he didn't say a word after getting in the car.

Gu Zheng rested her chin on her hands, staring out the car window in a daze, and said wistfully, "Yes, it's nothing like me."

Seeing that she still didn't seem willing to say more, Han Zhou had no choice but to ask suddenly, "Did I say something wrong before?"

"What do you mean?"

Han Zhou sighed: "Otherwise, how could your face change so quickly, like the weather?"

"Are you trying to say that I'm moody?" Gu Zheng raised an eyebrow slightly.

"At least today."

Han Zhou didn't deny it, but sighed and said, "You've changed your expression several times today without telling me why. What else can you call this but being moody?"

Gu Zheng was taken aback, realizing that she had indeed been acting strangely today, and that Han Zhou had been accommodating her the whole time. It wasn't good, but she refused to admit it. She tilted her head and said with dissatisfaction, "I'm just in a bad mood. Can't you comfort me?"

Han Zhou smiled wryly and said, "I want to too, but how can I comfort you if you don't tell me?"

Gu Zheng retorted defiantly, "How could I dare to tell you if you don't comfort me?"

"If I comfort you, will you tell me?"

Guzheng mimicked her, asking, "If I tell you, will you comfort me?"

"Yes, I will."

Han Zhou pressed her head down, making her turn to look at him, and sighed, "Someone clearly said they would tell me about their past. Are they planning to be a liar?"

Gu Zheng was stunned for a moment, feeling the warmth on her head. She hurriedly slapped his hand away and pouted, saying, "Don't touch my head. I'm not a child anymore, and I'm not a liar. I... I'm just scared."

After hesitating for a moment, she muttered, "You haven't been coming to see me every day like you used to. It's not that this is bad, it's actually normal. You used to come every day and it was so annoying... but isn't this different from before?"

"Besides, you're clearly so weak. I even helped you fight back against... no, I helped you fight back against some thugs when you were forced to. You keep saying you can't live without me, but now you're saying you don't need my protection anymore. Doesn't that mean you don't need me? If you have to say something, you're the one who's lying."

Gu Zheng was somewhat incoherent, but what she was trying to say was not hard to understand. Although it was just a few small gestures, she felt that Han Zhou was becoming distant from her.

Han Zhou stared at the girl's face for a long time before he couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Pfft!"

"What are you laughing at?" Gu Zheng said fiercely, both embarrassed and angry. "I'm talking about something very serious!"

She had finally mustered the courage to say these words, making it sound like she couldn't live without him. She felt incredibly embarrassed, and instead of saying something nice, he even dared to laugh.
"I know, I know," Han Zhou laughed loudly. "I just didn't expect you to worry about something like this. The way you were acting just now was like a child throwing a tantrum."

behave in a spoiled manner?

Gu Zheng's face flushed instantly. She stomped her foot and angrily punched him twice: "You're the one acting like a child! You're the one who's being spoiled! Don't laugh!"

Han Zhou laughed even harder and said, "These are all things that you don't need to worry about at all. Even if you have done a lot of bad things in the past, I will not hate you."

Gu Zheng punched him again, then hesitated and said, "I haven't done anything particularly evil, it's just..."

"Don't just say 'just'."

Han Zhou suppressed his smile, looked into her eyes, and asked seriously, "What happened yesterday?"

He was somewhat concerned about the situation at yesterday's class reunion.

Gu Zheng was silent for a moment, then shook her head and said, "It's nothing, just like before, no one pays attention to me. They probably deliberately called me over to bask in the sun, but I'm not unhappy." "Really? It's good that you're not unhappy." Han Zhou shook his arm and said, "Then tell me about your past."

Seeing his nonchalant expression, Gu Zheng suddenly felt less afraid, so she stopped hiding it and asked, "Do you remember the girl standing on the far right in the graduation photo?"

"I remember, Sister Miao told me that she was your best friend in junior high school."

"Yes."

Gu Zheng's face showed a look of reminiscence. "Actually, my grades in elementary school were not good. I only started to study hard in junior high school. I didn't go to school in the city before, and I was not used to it when I first came here. There were many things I didn't understand. He Ling helped me adapt to school life. She is a very nice person and takes good care of me. We quickly became friends."

Clearly, He Ling is her best friend from junior high school.

"He Ling is amazing. I heard that she has always had excellent grades since elementary school and in junior high school. She got first place in the whole grade in her first monthly exam. I admire her and want to be number one. So I often ask the teachers for help and spend a lot of time studying in the classroom, and I do the same at home."

Han Zhou listened silently. Gu Zheng's intelligence was the same as his, seven points. This level of intelligence was higher than most ordinary people, which meant that she was considered smart by ordinary people, but she was far from being a genius. She still needed to put in enough effort to achieve good results, and if she wanted to maintain her position at number one for a long time, she would need to put in even more effort.

Although I don't know why Gu Zheng is so obsessed with being number one, she earned it through hard work and deserves to be in that position.

Han Zhou achieved second place in the entire grade through his own efforts. He knew that the reason he could not catch up with Gu Zheng was not because of her "always strive for first place" skill, but because she worked harder than him.

"My ranking improved a lot in the second monthly exam. He Ling was genuinely happy for me and even invited me to her house. I saw many certificates of merit at her house and discovered that she knew a lot of things. I felt even more that she was a very outstanding person."

"By the time of the midterm exams, my grades had risen to the top twenty in the grade. Everyone was amazed by my progress, because when I first entered school, my grades were only at the bottom of the grade. The teacher asked me to come up to the stage and share my thoughts and learning methods. At the time, I didn't really have many ideas, so I only said one sentence—"

"I will be number one."

A burning light ignited in Guzheng's eyes. "For me, 20th place is just the beginning. Only first place can satisfy me. Otherwise, I will never stop."

"When I said that, He Ling looked at me encouragingly and even clapped for me. She didn't seem worried about losing the first place. Actually, I've always been grateful to her because she has helped me a lot. I consider her a friend and my only rival."

"Although I kept improving, He Ling was still in first place until the end of the first semester of junior high school. I felt that this was because I didn't work hard enough, so I studied like crazy during the holidays and even studied the content of the next semester on my own. Finally, in the first monthly exam of the second semester of junior high school, I successfully beat everyone and got first place, and He Ling became second."

"From that day until graduation, he remained number one in the entire grade."

"I could tell that He Ling was genuinely happy for me, but there was a hint of worry in her eyes. She had less time to play and worked harder than before, both in and out of class. Naturally, I didn't want to admit defeat, so I worked even harder and was determined not to give up my number one position."

"I won't lose."

After a moment of silence, Gu Zheng continued, "After a while, I gradually heard people in the class talking about me, saying that I was an ungrateful person. Even though He Ling had always taken such good care of me, I insisted on working like a learning machine to try and take first place from her. I pretended to be a diligent and studious person all day long. I didn't want to play and made others suffer as well. But I clearly didn't do anything."

"I ignored those people. After I had mastered the basic knowledge of junior high school, I felt that maintaining first place was no problem, so I started to spend some time on sports."

“I don’t need to put in much effort in sports. It’s my talent, probably inherited from my mom. I’ve always been very healthy since I was little. It’s easy for me to beat everyone, including the boys in my class. This makes some boys lose face, so they start talking badly about me behind my back, saying that I have high levels of male hormones, and there are even rumors that I have chest hair.”

Han Zhou frowned.

Gu Zheng said nonchalantly, "I beat up all those people. Later, their parents came to the school and forced me to admit my mistakes, but I refused. So I received a minor punishment. One of the parents tried to hit me, but I dodged it. She told me to be careful in the future."

"And then?" Han Zhou asked.

"Later..." Gu Zheng blinked and smiled with her eyes crinkling, "Later, my mother found the parent who threatened me and beat her up. Not long after, that family moved away."

Han Zhou knew this would happen. Miao Yan'er was not a rule-abiding person, but a real violent person. Otherwise, she wouldn't have studied self-defense and taught it to her daughter, who was not a good-tempered person either.

Moreover, Guzheng's father was not a very steady person. Both parents had childlike mindsets and raised Guzheng in a laissez-faire manner, not indulging her, but never letting her suffer any injustice easily.

The guzheng was quiet for a moment, then quickly suppressed its smile.

"From then on, everyone knew that I was not easy to bully, but my popularity also got worse and worse. Even the teachers didn't like me very much, but I didn't care. I never thought I had done anything wrong before, until that incident in the third year of junior high school."

"It was because of that incident that I lost He Ling as a friend."

I took my medicine and slept all day yesterday. I was worried that my writing might sound preachy, so I kept revising it. One more chapter will be a little late; I'll add the rest gradually.

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(End of this chapter)