Pigeon: I’m online now, but I don’t have headphones here. I’m in the dorm, so no voice chat with you.
Human-Dragon Unity: Sure, no big deal.
Without further ado, he immediately pulled the freshly logged-in Pigeon into the team.
After a short queue, they entered the match. He picked Clown, while Pigeon took Enchantress.
“Lao Mo, two assassins,” Qin Yongfeng said in surprise. “Can we even play the late game?”
“No one’s playing late game with fewer people. Early game, she’ll help me get you guys farming. Mid game, you guys carry,” Mo Xiangwen shook his head. “If we can’t end it by mid game, just surrender.”
“Fine, but it’s just a game. Why are you frowning so hard?” Qin Yongfeng advised. “If we can’t win, we can’t win.”
At those words, Mo Xiangwen touched his brow and found it indeed furrowed into a tight knot.
“It’s nothing. I just thought of something. After this game, I’m done. You three play without me.”
“Something up?” Zhong Taihong asked. “Want to handle it first?”
“Yeah.” Mo Xiangwen shook his head. “It’s not something I can sort out right away. Let’s finish this game first.”
“Alright.”
As the game started, he simply paused his Overload Mode thinking and focused on playing.
After his teammates helped him clear the red buff, he hit level two and rushed straight to mid lane. Teaming up with Pigeon’s Enchantress, they bloodied the enemy Clockwork—who hadn’t even tasted experience—and forced a double summoner spell burn.
The Clockwork retreated under its tower and immediately sent a message.
Clockwork (all chat): 666, level 2 Q-E point-blank Ignite-Electrocute Clown. Don’t wanna play anymore?
Mo Xiangwen glanced at it and ignored him.
He casually gave up half the jungle to the enemy Blind Man, then turned right back to gank mid again just as the Clockwork came online.
Even though the Blind Man was there this time, the Clockwork had no flash and was still behind in levels. Pigeon’s Enchantress took him down clean.
The Blind Man tried to turn things around in the jungle, only to get ambushed by the waiting Enchantress.
From then on, the enemy mid laner and jungler went completely silent, as if they’d vanished.
Well, not quite—they were typing filthy rants, but he’d muted them already.
“Lao Mo, damn it, he’s pushing under tower and you’re not coming?”
“Don’t rush. Just soak up that experience for now. It’ll happen soon enough.”
The other lanes were developing decently, but even after swapping lanes, they couldn’t match the roaming efficiency of him and Pigeon.
They could only watch as the powered-up duo roamed and collapsed lane after lane.
It was a rare stomp of a game, and the whole dorm’s mood lightened up.
Zhong Taihong in particular cursed nonstop while playing: “Take that for your emotes, you emote-spamming trash—die!” His keyboard clacked furiously.
You could tell from his extravagant Stone Man flashes and ults into solo top laners that he was venting a bellyful of rage.
By the end, he was even saying, “One more, just one more,” a total one-eighty from the guy who’d been begging to surrender earlier.
But since Mo Xiangwen was on Clown, he didn’t dare give the enemies too much farm time. He urged his teammates to finish the base.
Pigeon: Done playing?
Human-Dragon Unity: Yeah, done.
Pigeon: Okay, logging off then.
His roommates saw him frowning in thought and gave up trying to drag him into another round.
Right now, Mo Xiangwen was staring at Yan Nuoya’s WeChat profile picture, seriously pondering a possibility he’d subconsciously avoided before.
He didn’t think it likely, but the coincidences were piling up too high.
During military training a while back, he’d wondered why Yan Nuoya seemed so familiar with him, but he’d shelved it for lack of info.
Now, though, a new possibility had dawned on him.
Was it possible that Yan Nuoya and Pigeon were connected somehow?
Sure, an online friend turning out to be a pretty girl was wild, but with Su Mengli and Su Mengyao as precedents, it wasn’t impossible.
Assuming that as a starting point, a lot of things clicked into place.
Like the admission notice he’d puzzled over before.
Last time, he’d already figured Yan Nuoya probably knew him from way back. This time, he could factor that in too.
From her calm call-out of his admission notice peeking out, to her casually flashing hers without a care.
He couldn’t quite pin it down, but there’d always been a faint sense of something off.
But what if Yan Nuoya had known which school he was attending all along? Didn’t that make perfect sense?
Someone who knew him, knew about him, and knew his university.
Family or friends. Family was ruled out by his parents, so friends—online or offline. He’d never really considered online friends before.
But now he realized his offline friends were few, and even fewer who both knew him well and his school.
Did it fit? Perfectly.
It felt like forgetting how to solve a math problem but guessing the answer, plugging it in, and watching the whole thing work out.
He was starting to lose it a little.
No wonder Yan Nuoya had always felt familiar. It wasn’t until today—teaming up with Pigeon for the first time in ages during the game, and seeing Yan Nuoya with that laptop delivery box this morning—that he’d connected the dots.
No wonder she knew him so well and brushed it off as just being “familiar” with him.
They’d been group chat buddies for years, with flawless game synergy. How could she not be?
But as everyone knew…
Solving a problem by plugging in an answer that works wasn’t enough.
You had to prove it.
Because hey, if you forced it, couldn’t it all just be coincidence?
Sure, it was possible.
More possible than her being a beautiful online friend—or reincarnation, for that matter.
He had no hard evidence right now. It was all just speculation.
A castle in the air, a mirage.
Looked real, but wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny—because he couldn’t out-debate Yan Nuoya head-on.
Confronting her with this would probably get brushed off.
Even if she straight-up admitted it, he’d still come out behind.
Just imagining being teased by Bai Bai for half a month made his face heat up.
So what if she was a beauty? Did that mean she could mess with a groupmate like that?
Fine, if he couldn’t win lane, he’d jungle instead.
Think of another way?
Mo Xiangwen opened Yan Nuoya’s WeChat profile and Moments, but found nothing useful—just blank.
Tencent had a bit more, but who knew what was real? No way to cross-check with WeChat anyway. Useless.
He hoped Yan Nuoya wasn’t Pigeon—that he’d guessed wrong.
Otherwise…
Mo Xiangwen shook his head and sighed inwardly.
Otherwise, even figuring out how to properly “repay” her would be a headache.
