RST cross referencing not working in code highlighting

Question

I use docutils in order to produce documents via rst file.

In my document, I need to add and highlight some source code. Also I use cross referencing to make some keywords (section names) hyperlink to the respective section. So, simply append an underline to the end of the word, e.g mysection_ which refers to:

mysection
---------

Some text...

The problem occurs when I use the format of code highlighting. That is, if I use .. code:: C and then a block of C code, cross referencing in the source code does not work:

.. code:: C

    #include "example.h"
    int main()
    {
        printf("My Section is:");
        mysection_();
        return 0;    
    }

So, how can I have both code highlighting and cross referencing?

Update:

The same situation might happen also in Stackoverflow. When you put a code in a block of code sample, then some features like referencing are disabled! Is there any solution to enable referencing in a code sample?

For example in the following, referencing does not work:

# This hello world example was copied from [C-HowTo website][1]
# As you noticed, links do not work here, but you see below code block,
# the same link works.
# Also link to [Stackoverflow](http://stackoverflow.com) does not work!

#include<stdio.h>

int main() {
    printf("Hello World\n");
    return 0;
}

C-HowTo website

Stackoverflow