After New Year’s Day, the final exams officially began. The exam schedule was packed fairly tight, so Xia Zichen went ten days without logging into the game, telling Canmo Wuhen in advance. Canmo Wuhen told him to focus on his exams, said he probably wouldn’t be online much during that stretch either, and that the game could wait until winter break.
After finishing the last exam, Xia Zichen walked out of the exam hall and exhaled deeply — a small personal celebration marking the arrival of winter break. He had reviewed well and the exams had gone smoothly. He could take a proper break with no worries.
He headed back to the dorm to pack up and go home. There wasn’t much to pack, really — just the computer and a few clothes. Shen Yicheng and An Jing had finished all their exams yesterday and left for home a day early. Tang Hui had also finished that morning and was probably home by now.
The dorm area was full of students heading out with luggage, everyone saying their goodbyes in high spirits, welcoming the start of break.
Walking into the dormitory building, the dorm supervisor called out to him. “Xia Zichen, come pick up some books.”
“Books?” Xia Zichen was puzzled.
“Someone dropped them off for you.” The supervisor smiled.
He walked over to the desk and the supervisor handed him two books. One look at the covers, and Xia Zichen immediately thought of Gu Xu. Two English-language books in the original — When Markets Collide and Federal Taxation: Comprehensive Topics — the exact two titles he had spotted in Gu Xu’s stack at the library that day. He hadn’t expected Gu Xu to have noticed which ones he was looking at, let alone actually sent them over. At the time he had assumed it was nothing more than an offhand remark.
“Thank you.” Xia Zichen thanked the supervisor, took the books upstairs, and found himself full of questions with nobody to ask them to. He had no idea which room Gu Xu was in, and no phone number to reach him — expressing thanks wasn’t going to be easy.
He flipped through them briefly. Gu Xu’s books were in excellent condition — no annotations, no creases — which suited Xia Zichen’s tastes perfectly. Spending the break reading these two felt like a meaningful use of the time.
During breaks Xia Zichen generally stayed home and rarely went out. Sometimes An Jing would call and drag him somewhere, which was when he’d venture out. This winter was no exception. N City had gotten a few more snowfalls recently and was colder than usual, so staying home as much as possible was the plan.
Xia Yuze came back every evening to make dinner. Breakfast and lunch Xia Zichen handled himself — no need for his father to worry about those.
By the third day of break, Canmo Wuhen still hadn’t come online. Figuring he might still be busy, Xia Zichen didn’t want to intrude by asking Baicao Zhe or Jianlang.
When the twenty-five-person dungeon run ended, it was already past one in the morning. With everyone free during the break, dungeon sessions ran longer and stretched much later into the night. Xia Yuze generally left Xia Zichen to manage his own hours, as long as he didn’t lose himself in it completely.
After a brief chat with An Jing, Xia Zichen was about to store his items in the warehouse and log off to sleep.
“Still up?” A message suddenly appeared in the private chat channel from Canmo Wuhen, and Xia Zichen’s drowsiness evaporated on the spot.
“What are you doing on at this hour?” By any reasonable expectation, everyone should have been asleep by now.
“Adjusting to the time difference. My schedule’s a little off.” Canmo Wuhen replied.
“Time difference?”
“I’m in the US.”
“How did you end up over there?” He’d been gone for days — and it turned out he’d gone overseas.
“The family decided to spend the New Year here this time, so I came over.” Canmo Wuhen explained. “I’ll go back after the New Year.”
The New Year was still over ten days away, but the streets were already thick with festive atmosphere. It wasn’t quite the kind of traditional feeling people talked about from years past, but it was lively enough. Shops were running New Year promotions, people were stocking up on goods for the holiday, and everything felt busy and full.
“What time is it where you are?”
“Noon. I just finished breakfast.”
“Haha, sleeping in pretty late.” Though honestly, he hadn’t been waking up much earlier than that himself lately.
“Can’t be helped — adjusting to a new time zone is always a hassle.” Canmo Wuhen said. “I’ll match my game time to yours. The two-person PvP tournament can still go ahead as planned. Don’t worry.”
“It’s fine. The game is minor. Take care of yourself.” Getting the time zone adjustment wrong and flipping his whole schedule upside down wasn’t worth it.
“Mm, I’ve got it under control. Don’t worry.”
“Sure. Is there any New Year’s atmosphere over there?” Xia Zichen asked out of genuine curiosity.
“Chinatown has some. Where I’m staying, basically none — they celebrate Christmas there.” He paused for a moment, then continued, “I’ll bring you to see it sometime.”
Xia Zichen smiled. He didn’t even have a passport, let alone any plans to go abroad. He took Canmo Wuhen’s remark as a lighthearted comment and didn’t give it too much weight.
“What do you have planned for the New Year?” Canmo Wuhen asked.
“Nothing much. Just staying home. No relatives to visit.” For Xia Zichen, family was just him and his father. Their New Year had always been this way — just the two of them, no relatives to call on, at most a round of New Year’s greetings sent to friends.
In the days before New Year’s they would stock up on everything they needed so they wouldn’t have to go out during the seven-day holiday and could properly rest.
“That works. I don’t have relatives to visit either. I’ll keep you company.”
“Sure.”
They chatted for a while longer before Canmo Wuhen told Xia Zichen to go sleep. He checked the time — it was nearly four in the morning. He wasn’t particularly tired, but he closed the computer and went to rest anyway. Staying up late served no good purpose.
In the days that followed, Canmo Wuhen’s usual login time was around ten in the evening on Xia Zichen’s end — the time difference turned out to cause less disruption than expected.
After the arena they’d do Tianfeng Yage’s guild dungeon runs together. Because Zhanming Hall’s recent large dungeon runs had included Lian Feier, Shen Yicheng — whether by chance or intention — stopped calling Xia Zichen to join any dungeon where Lian Feier was participating. Xia Zichen didn’t give it much thought. The first elimination round of the two-person PvP tournament was about to start, and Shen Yicheng running dungeons with Lian Feier to gear her up was perfectly reasonable — they were both competing too.
But even without Shen Yicheng calling on him, Xia Zichen was doing perfectly well. The dungeons Canmo Wuhen brought him along for were a step up in difficulty from what Zhanming Hall usually ran. He had tried this particular twenty-five-person dungeon before with An Jing and the others when they were clearing it for the first time, but with too many phases and too much coordination required — all twenty-five players needed to be in sync and familiar with the BOSS abilities and how to clear debuffs — they had called it after taking down the first BOSS and never went back.
Mention this dungeon to Zhanming Hall members and they’d all shake their heads, wanting nothing to do with it, left to wonder whether they were even capable of running dungeons properly.
Where Zhanming Hall had struggled through their early attempts, Tianfeng Yage’s members had long since become comfortable with it — they didn’t go often, but when they did, there was no stress involved.
Chenxi was welcomed into Tianfeng Yage’s guild dungeon runs as Canmo Wuhen’s plus-one. Nobody objected — if anything, they were enthusiastically welcoming to a degree that left Xia Zichen slightly at a loss for how to respond.
After several runs, Xia Zichen had a solid grasp of the dungeon’s patterns and came away with a few high-quality gems along the way — a worthwhile haul.
The first elimination round of the two-person PvP tournament arrived on schedule. Exactly as expected, the two of them cleared the first round without any difficulty. During that same stretch, Chenxi exchanged for another piece of the Yanyang Zhueyue set — a pair of shoes — and the gems from the dungeon runs were just right for refining the set.
Xia Zichen wasn’t in the habit of keeping the voice chat software running, and generally only opened it in the evenings around the time Canmo Wuhen would log into the game. For easier communication, they exchanged QQ usernames. He kept QQ running whenever he was at his computer, which made it simple for Canmo Wuhen to reach him even outside the game.
Knowing Canmo Wuhen spent time in the US regularly, Xia Zichen started sending him passages from the English books he was having trouble with, asking for help with translation. Originally it was just a way to test whether Canmo Wuhen’s English was as good as he’d suspected — and the answer didn’t disappoint. If anything, it came with a small surprise.
Canmo Wuhen was always thorough in his help, working through everything from complex technical terms to full sentences, and often adding small anecdotes or illustrative examples related to the content — clear and easy to follow in a way that made the material genuinely sink in. Xia Zichen found it tremendously useful and came away with an even deeper appreciation for Canmo Wuhen — this person wasn’t just excellent at the game, but remarkably knowledgeable.
Sometimes Canmo Wuhen would set aside an hour specifically to chat with Xia Zichen in English. Whenever he came across a word he didn’t know, Canmo Wuhen would explain it. After a few days of this, Xia Zichen felt his English had improved noticeably — and it was far more engaging than grinding practice sets on his own.
Their conversations also branched out from the game into everyday life. Canmo Wuhen would frequently send him photos of scenery from overseas, each accompanied by an English description or a short interesting story about the place, which Xia Zichen always found enjoyable. So even when neither of them was in the game, the intermittent back-and-forth chatting never felt dull — if anything, they clicked remarkably well.
One evening over dinner, Xia Yuze suddenly asked, “Zichen, are you seeing someone?”
“Hm?” Xia Zichen looked at his father, unsure why he would bring that up out of nowhere. “No, why?”
“Are you sure?” Xia Yuze seemed not entirely convinced.
“Positive.” Xia Zichen said with certainty.
“The past few days whenever you’re chatting, you’ve been smiling. I assumed you were in a relationship.” Now that Xia Zichen had said otherwise, something in Xia Yuze’s tone shifted — a faint trace of relief. No matter how grown a child became, parents couldn’t help worrying about their love lives, afraid they might meet someone unsuitable and get hurt.
“Was I?” Xia Zichen unconsciously touched his face. The only person he had been chatting with lately was Canmo Wuhen. That he’d been smiling was something he genuinely hadn’t noticed.
“Put a mirror on your desk next time and you’ll see for yourself.” Xia Yuze said with a smile.
Xia Zichen pressed his lips together, a little embarrassed. “It’s just that a friend said some funny things.”
Xia Yuze didn’t push further. He knew his son well — if there really was nothing to it, Xia Zichen wouldn’t have offered even that much explanation. So that “friend” carried a certain subtle significance. But he didn’t plan to press. If Xia Zichen didn’t want to say, asking would get him nowhere anyway.
Smiling, he ladled soup into Xia Zichen’s bowl, and father and son continued their meal with easy conversation…
Because Canmo Wuhen’s login time had shifted later, Xia Zichen’s own gaming hours had moved back as well. He logged on just after nine, planning to get through some of the other daily tasks first and then wait for Canmo Wuhen to come on so they could run the daily dungeon together.
Since Canmo Wuhen logged on late, Xia Zichen was always worried it would be hard for him to put together a party for the daily dungeon, so he made a point of waiting. In the game, tanks and DPS were relatively easy to find — but a healer was hard to come by. With him and Canmo Wuhen together, assembling a group was quick. And since Canmo Wuhen had enough HP to fill in as a tank in a pinch, calling in a few DPS was never more than a few minutes’ work.
The moment he loaded into the game interface, Xia Zichen saw the guild channel scrolling rapidly with messages — all from the same person: Xiao Guai Zui Guai.
[Guild] [Xiao Guai Zui Guai]: Someone come help me? I’m being corpse-camped…
[Guild] [Xiao Guai Zui Guai]: Guild master, guild master’s lady, please come save me.
[Guild] [Xiao Guai Zui Guai]: What do I do, there are five of them camping me QAQ
[Guild] [Xiao Guai Zui Guai]: I really didn’t mean to do it, and they’re cursing at me, waaaah…
[Guild] [Xiao Guai Zui Guai]: Someone please help…
…
Xiao Guai Zui Guai had joined a faction after hitting max level, so open-world PvP was an occupational hazard — but being corpse-camped was admittedly excessive. That said, it generally took two to tango.
About half the guild had joined a faction by now, but in all this time, Xiao Guai Zui Guai was the first Zhanming Hall member to be corpse-camped. Normally the guild master would step in to handle something like this, but Shen Yicheng wasn’t online, and nobody else was stepping up to mediate.
Under normal circumstances, if a guild member was being pushed around, the guild would mobilize a group to deal with it, or straight-up declare a guild war. But Xiao Guai Zui Guai had never been well-liked among the guild’s female members, the few male players she was close with were either playing dead or offline, and the guild channel remained silent.
[Guild] [Lian Feier]: Xiao Guai, don’t panic. Wuqing will be on a little later. If you really can’t hold on, just log off for now.
[Guild] [Xiao Guai Zui Guai]: Guild master’s lady T_T, you’re the kindest one here.
[Guild] [Qingcheng Baobei]: If Xiao Guai logs off now, doesn’t that just say our guild is useless? One of our own is being camped and nobody steps in — that’s embarrassing.
[Guild] [Lian Feier]: That’s fair. Anyone free right now, form up — let’s go take out these shameless people and get Xiao Guai’s honor back. Five thousand gold to everyone who shows up. Join the party.
…
The guild was organizing. Even those who didn’t want to do Lian Feier a favor would still do Wuqing Xue one. An Jing and Tang Hui were in the middle of a dungeon run and had every reason not to get involved. Most other members claimed to be busy or about to log off. How many people Lian Feier actually managed to put together, Xia Zichen had no idea.
[PM] [Shenye Qianxing]: Whatever you do, don’t get involved in the Xiao Guai Zui Guai situation.
[PM] [Chenxi]: What’s actually going on?
Even though he had no intention of getting involved, he still wanted to understand. An Jing had gone out of his way to message him, which meant there was more to it than met the eye.
[PM] [Shenye Qianxing]: I haven’t gotten the full story yet. But the people camping her are from one of Tianfeng Yage’s allied guilds. This is definitely not as simple as Xiao Guai Zui Guai is making it sound. With those particular women involved, if you go in to help, there’s a real chance they’ll spin it and paint you as being in league with the ones doing the camping.
Xia Zichen was amused by An Jing’s conspiracy-theory-level speculation.
[PM] [Chenxi]: Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?
[PM] [Shenye Qianxing]: Those women are a special kind of unpredictable. Better to keep your distance. And whatever you do, don’t bring it up with Canmo Wuhen — it puts him in an impossible position, and you don’t want to drag that trouble on yourself.
[PM] [Chenxi]: Alright, I wasn’t planning to get involved anyway. Just wanted to understand what was happening.
[PM] [Shenye Qianxing]: Good. Bro’s heading back into the dungeon.
[PM] [Chenxi]: Sure.
The words had barely finished when Canmo Wuhen’s online notification popped up. A party invite followed shortly after.
He clicked accept. The two flew directly to the dungeon entrance and assembled. The whole Xiao Guai Zui Guai situation was already out of Xia Zichen’s mind — he couldn’t be bothered to spare it another thought.