“Zichen?” Seeing him say nothing, Shen Yicheng assumed he hadn’t heard and called out again.
“Haven’t you been running 2v2 this whole time?” Xia Zichen asked, his expression blank. After all this time, he had grown accustomed to teaming up with Canmo Wuhen. Running the arena with Canmo Wuhen felt easy and natural to him. Having Shen Yicheng suddenly ask him to switch — setting aside the adjustment period entirely — who would Canmo Wuhen run the arena with next week?
“Lian Feier has been absolutely ruining Yicheng this whole month.” An Jing said with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile. “Ever since those two started running the arena together, Yicheng doing well enough to scrape the minimum points each week is about as good as it gets. Forget about hitting the weekly cap.”
Shen Yicheng didn’t contradict An Jing’s words. It seemed like the facts left him nothing to push back with.
The atmosphere in the dorm went quiet for a stretch. Tang Hui broke the awkwardness at just the right moment. “Yicheng wants to exchange for a ring, but at the rate he’s been going, it’ll probably take another month. If you can spare some time next week, help him run a session — if the cap gets hit next week, he’d be able to get it.”
Xia Zichen didn’t respond. He wasn’t fond of this kind of thing — coming in to clean up someone else’s mess. Shen Yicheng had chosen to team up with Lian Feier on his own. He made that choice, so it was his responsibility to own.
Thinking about it, Xia Zichen suddenly realized that whatever feelings he had originally held for Shen Yicheng seemed to have faded. Disappointment after disappointment, day after day of growing distance — time was the most merciless thing in the world. Some things got worn away slowly in the middle of it all, without you even noticing. By the time you suddenly became aware of it, whatever feeling it had been was already gone — or perhaps it was always destined to go. You couldn’t retrieve it even if you wanted to, let alone when you didn’t want to.
Seemingly sensing Xia Zichen’s difficulty, Tang Hui continued, “If you feel awkward bringing it up with Canmo Wuhen, I’ll say it for you. We’ll do 6v6 — the points come in faster. Just freeing up one session is enough.”
Tang Hui had always been deeply loyal. As long as a friend hadn’t done something truly out of line or crossed his personal limits, if there was anything he could help with, he would do his best to help.
“I’ll say it myself.” It was clear that Tang Hui genuinely wanted to help Shen Yicheng this time. Which made sense — spending a whole month scraping nothing but the minimum score was something no player could honestly say they weren’t anxious about, especially since Shen Yicheng also ran faction battlegrounds, where gear mattered enormously. Falling behind now would make catching back up a real struggle.
Once Canmo Wuhen came out of his dungeon, Xia Zichen sent him a message.
[PM] [Chenxi]: Done with the run?
[PM] [Canmo Wuhen]: Yeah.
[PM] [Chenxi]: Would it be okay if we only run one session next week?
[PM] [Canmo Wuhen]: What’s up? Something going on?
[PM] [Chenxi]: Some friends asked me to help them run a session. Their Sword Commendation Points have been stuck and it’s making it hard to exchange for gear.
Xia Zichen hadn’t said it was helping “him” — he’d used “them” instead. No specific target, no need to explain further.
[PM] [Canmo Wuhen]: Sure. I’ll run the second session with Jianlang and the others in 4v4.
[PM] [Chenxi]: Got it, thanks.
Canmo Wuhen didn’t ask further. That lack of prying was, to Xia Zichen, the best possible response.
[PM] [Canmo Wuhen]: Don’t mention it. Let’s do our session first on Monday, I’ll schedule mine with Jianlang for Friday — if you and your friends haven’t hit the weekly cap by then, come join us.
[PM] [Chenxi]: Sounds good.
Having spent so much time around him, Xia Zichen had noticed that Canmo Wuhen always thought of everything thoughtfully and arranged things so that he never had anything to worry about.
Before he knew it, another new week had come. Xia Zichen and Canmo Wuhen ran one 2v2 arena session, sweeping all ten matches as usual and collecting more than half the week’s Sword Commendation Points.
On Thursday, following the plan they had worked out, Xia Zichen joined the three roommates and Lian Feier for a 6v6. They called in one solid DPS from the guild to round out the six-person lineup and queued up.
Maybe it was from partnering with Canmo Wuhen for so long — switching into a new group, even one he’d run the arena with before, still felt noticeably off.
Lian Feier was a healer in name, but counting on her to actually top anyone off was out of the question. She’d barely been able to keep up with Shen Yicheng in 2v2, let alone a harder six-person format. Xia Zichen equipped his regular gear, set up his party health monitors, and prepared to carry the whole group’s healing.
The moment they entered the match, all six players charged in. Healers were always the first priority target to burn down. Xia Zichen was stacking HoTs on himself while running toward where An Jing and the others had scattered — as long as they were within healing range he could throw out an AoE heal, but getting split apart the instant a match started was genuinely a challenge for any healer.
This was completely different from running dungeons, where after doing a BOSS enough times you had every phase and ability memorized, and positions for healers and DPS were relatively fixed. The arena was an entirely different concept — the opponent was a real player, which meant infinite unpredictability.
In the past, whenever an opponent tried to split them up, Canmo Wuhen would immediately run back to his side, making it easier for him to heal while also drawing attacks away from him. After running so many matches together, both of them had always maintained the habit of keeping each other within visual range. Even if one player’s connection suddenly lagged out, the other would proactively move toward them and pop a damage-reduction skill.
He might not have noticed it before, but switching partners and then switching back made so many things glaringly obvious. It wasn’t that Shen Yicheng and the others didn’t want to come back — it was that they were sometimes forced to run first. Without being able to fully break or dodge the opponent’s crowd control, all they could do was fight through it.
After a struggle, Xia Zichen finally managed to stack HoTs onto all the DPS players. He glanced at the party health monitor — Lian Feier’s HP had already dropped by two thirds. Xia Zichen’s brow furrowed. He was simultaneously searching for Lian Feier and dodging the opponent chasing him down. He genuinely didn’t understand — Lian Feier was a healer herself. How was she not throwing a big heal on herself?
He finally spotted her hiding behind a pillar in the corner with barely a sliver of HP left. Chenxi dashed over with a movement skill, threw a big heal onto her, broke her crowd control effect at the same time, and hit the DPS attacking Lian Feier with an immobilize. Then Chenxi charged back out to find An Jing and the others — the HoTs from earlier were probably about to expire.
He ran forward with a speed boost and looked back — Lian Feier hadn’t followed. By all logic, with Chenxi having immobilized the opponent, Lian Feier should have taken the opening to run. It was in that moment that Xia Zichen felt for the first time that if he was going to keep running with Lian Feier, he should probably craft a whip like the one Canmo Wuhen had first.
No time to deal with her. Xia Zichen weaved and dodged around the DPS still chasing Chenxi, made his way back to An Jing and the others, stacked another HoT on all four DPS, and used an AoE heal to bring everyone’s HP back to full. He looked back again — Lian Feier’s HP was nearly bottomed out again.
“Stop fighting over there — run to Lian Feier’s side. She’s too far away, I can’t cover both ends.” The spot where Lian Feier was hiding was genuinely far from the main group battle. Even at Chenxi’s maximum single-target healing range, it wasn’t enough to reach that far — and she wasn’t even in visual range on top of it.
“Where did she even run off to?” An Jing asked while hammering his keyboard to cycle through skills.
“By the entrance pillars.” Xia Zichen said.
“God, she sure knows how to hide. Fine, she hides — but can she at least throw a heal on herself?” An Jing had also spotted her HP bar steadily declining.
“Leave her.” Tang Hui said flatly.
Shen Yicheng said nothing. He seemed to have gotten used to it and didn’t run toward Lian Feier either — the opponent in front of him was already more than enough to handle.
Since nobody had any intention of going to Lian Feier’s side, Xia Zichen wasn’t going to go out of his way either. He kept the party topped off while dragging the DPS attacking him around in circles — just keeping the opponent from landing any clean hits on him, topping himself off whenever his HP dipped.
Within seconds, Lian Feier was down. Fortunately, An Jing and Tang Hui had each finished off their own opponents by then — one turned to go after the player chasing Chenxi, the other went after the DPS who had just killed Lian Feier.
[Party] [Lian Feier]: Wuqing, I died QAQ.
Nobody replied. Nobody had time to type and chat right now. Generally speaking, a team with two healers was extremely difficult to beat — but with Lian Feier as the second healer, it was effectively 5v6. In the arena, every single player mattered. Saying one person’s survival or death could determine the outcome of the whole team was no exaggeration at all.
After a hard-fought win in the first match, the group was teleported out and queued up for the next. Xia Zichen took a look at Lian Feier’s healing output and skills used.
Single-target heal used twice. AoE heal used ten times. Crowd control break — never used. Damage reduction — never activated. The numbers genuinely left Xia Zichen at a loss for words, and he now understood why Shen Yicheng hitting the minimum score each week was considered a good result.
[Party] [Wuqing Xue]: Feier, don’t run so far after the match starts. If you’re too far away, nobody can reach you.
[Party] [Lian Feier]: I kept getting chased and just didn’t realize where I’d run to… T_T
[Party] [Shenye Qianxing]: Why aren’t you healing yourself?
[Party] [Lian Feier]: I did heal myself — the moment my HP dropped I used the single-target heal. But then the cooldown wasn’t up for a long time after that, so I couldn’t use it again. The AoE heals I was saving for all of you.
[Party] [Shenye Qianxing]: I’m so lost…
[Party] [Chenxi]: Wait until your HP has dropped by half before using the single-target heal — otherwise it’s wasted. You’re too far away for the AoE heal to reach us. Watch your distance to your targets. The AoE heal works on yourself too, but if you’re crowd controlled your skills get interrupted — break the CC first and then AoE heal yourself.
[Party] [Lian Feier]: Oh. Wuqing taught me all this, actually — I just got so nervous during the match, I was watching Wuqing the whole time and forgot.
“Please…” An Jing rolled his eyes at his computer screen with open disdain.
Xia Zichen couldn’t be bothered to say anything more. He’d already said everything there was to say. Knowing the theory wasn’t enough — the key was actually doing it and getting it down to muscle memory. He’d learned everything the same way himself, bit by bit over time.
“Easy there, kiddo. Don’t bother getting worked up over her.” Shen Yicheng said to Xia Zichen. “It’s normal for girls to have slower reaction speeds.”
Xia Zichen took a sip of his coffee. He’d met girls with sharp mechanics before — it really just came down to the individual. Nothing was innate. What mattered was whether you genuinely put your mind to it.
In the remaining matches, Lian Feier was going down within the first thirty seconds of each round, faster than Xia Zichen had even anticipated. A healer who could heal themselves, collapsing that quickly — it was the first time Xia Zichen had ever seen it. He had never paid much attention to other healers in dungeon content, but the role of healer demanded keeping yourself alive above all else in order to keep anyone else alive — which was why healers always prioritized themselves first, then the tank, then the DPS.
After a hard grind through all ten matches, eight wins and two losses — a result that was actually quite solid. Xia Zichen had his earlier base to work from, plus 6v6 matches awarded significantly more points, so he had also capped his week. Shen Yicheng and the others were still a bit short — one more 4v4 session, and as long as they won four out of those matches, they’d be done. Not that any of that was Xia Zichen’s problem to worry about.
Coming out of the arena, Xia Zichen picked up his coffee mug and leaned back loosely against his chair. His fingers had been pressing keys for so long they ached — he couldn’t even be bothered to touch the mouse.
Shen Yicheng had somehow managed to talk Lian Feier out of joining the 4v4. The three of them brought in a solid DPS from the guild, and with six players total, signed up to keep going — determined to cap their points today. No healer was one thing, but still better than having one who dragged everyone down.
Chenxi stood at the arena entrance. Before long, a white figure descended from above in a flash of movement, landing steadily right beside Chenxi, and sent a party invite.
Seeing the familiar name, Xia Zichen sat up straight and clicked confirm, joining the party in seconds.
[Party] [Canmo Wuhen]: Done?
[Party] [Chenxi]: Yeah.
[Party] [Canmo Wuhen]: Cap your points?
[Party] [Chenxi]: Capped.
[Party] [Canmo Wuhen]: Good.
[Party] [Chenxi]: Tired.
[Party] [Canmo Wuhen]: You did type noticeably less than usual.
[Party] [Chenxi]: Fingers ache.
[Party] [Canmo Wuhen]: I’ll take you somewhere to relax.
[Party] [Chenxi]: Where?
[Party] [Canmo Wuhen]: You’ll see when we get there. Summon your two-seater horse. Give me the reins.
Xia Zichen didn’t ask further. He summoned his horse, mounted up with Canmo Wuhen one after the other, and transferred the riding control over to Canmo Wuhen. This kind of control transfer wasn’t available with just anyone — it required a friendliness rating of over three stars. If it hadn’t been for this transfer, Xia Zichen wouldn’t even have noticed that his friendliness rating with Canmo Wuhen had already hit five stars — higher than with Shen Yicheng.
Canmo Wuhen said nothing more. He took up the reins and cracked the whip. The black horse carried the two of them galloping out of the main city…