[Logan Wright]: Anyone who wants to join, sign up and then add our class’s guild. I just had someone help me set it up, it’s called Class Four Kneels.

[Emily Shaw]: That name is great! Simple, direct, and still full of swagger—really shows our class’s style.

[Quinn Shaw]: Count me in.

[Wanda]: I just went to ask around—next door’s class has five healers, four mages, and the rest are basically all swordsmen. Not sure what class Leonard Brooks is playing, he has three accounts.

Watching the way Class Three couldn’t wait to get in-game and start fighting, Ethan Young felt a bit of a headache: “Are they serious?”

If it was just a face-to-face fight, the formation probably wouldn’t be so grand, but once it’s in a game, it’s like everyone’s involved. As long as you have an account, everyone’s dying to rub the other class’s face in the dirt.

During the four afternoon classes, everyone was clearly distracted, their minds full of going home to play games. When the dismissal bell rang, Luke Carter was the first to pack up and dash out: “See you, brothers! I gotta hurry home and work on my combo skills. No more talking, see you in-game—”

Ethan Young was leaning against the corridor railing making a call. Ms. Miller was nagging on the other end, but the corridor was too noisy, so he couldn’t really hear and just replied with a few “mm”s.

Luke Carter passed by him, waved, and shouted, “I’m off, Yu-ge!”

Luke Carter was running so fast that the water bottle stuffed in the side of his backpack almost fell out. Henry Howard, leaning on the windowsill, reminded him, “Haozi, your water bottle.”

Grace Miller was mid-sentence when she heard the slightly chaotic footsteps coming through the phone. The noise and bustle of the campus, and the energetic voices of boys.

Ethan Young waited a while, but Ms. Miller didn’t say anything: “Mom?”

“It’s nothing,” Grace Miller snapped back to attention and gave a final reminder, “Be careful on your way home.”

Going home for the weekend, Ethan Young packed a few homework books, then thought for a moment and stuffed in a set of test papers. He was about to zip up his backpack when he suddenly felt a chill on his neck.

Henry Howard had worked up a sweat playing ball at noon and still felt uncomfortable, so he took the chance after school to go back to the dorm for a quick shower.

He bent down a little, rested his chin on Ethan Young’s shoulder, water dripping from his hair: “Two days without seeing my little one, I’ll miss him.”

Ethan Young zipped up his bag and turned his head slightly as he spoke: “I haven’t even left yet—”

The words cut off abruptly.

As Henry Howard leaned in, he took advantage of the position and kissed him.

Bringing a coolness, catching him completely off guard.

It was supposed to be just a kiss with no other thoughts, simply reluctant to let him go, completely forgetting that as soon as they touched, things would spiral out of control.

The feeling of losing control was even stronger than playing ball at noon. By the time Ethan Young opened his eyes again, his waist was pressed against the edge of the desk, digging in painfully, his school pants slipped down to his hips, hanging loosely.

“You’re hard,” Henry Howard teased him through the fabric, “Beg me?”

Ethan Young let out a muffled groan, his five fingers lightly threading through Henry Howard’s hair, coming away wet.

Even though Henry Howard told him to beg, he still reached in, pulling down the waistband to help him. Ethan Young noticed that after Henry Howard finished, he was about to pull away, so he opened his half-lidded eyes and asked in a hoarse voice, “Not going all the way?”

Ever since that last birthday, the two of them hadn’t done anything too much. Even when Henry Howard was unbearably hard, he would still force himself to let go at the last step.

Henry Howard was afraid it would hurt him, and worried he hadn’t fully recovered yet, plus the kid still had to take the bus home soon—no matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t the right time: “Not going home? Planning to stay here with me overnight?”

Ethan Young let go of Henry Howard’s nape, braced himself on the desk, and put some distance between them, finally clearing his head a bit.

Henry Howard asked again, “Tomorrow night at Broken Heart Cliff, coming or not?”

“Hell no, not going.”

Ethan Young didn’t even dare to imagine that scene: “That’s so stupid.”

The same person who kept saying “stupid, not going” went home and, as the time for the showdown between the two classes drew closer, hesitated for a while but still logged into his old game account called “x”.

Ethan Young didn’t have much feeling for Genesis Corp, he only registered an account back then because Ray Jones had hyped it up to him like his life depended on it: I swear on my life, it’s really fun! If it’s not, you can chop my head off and use it as a soccer ball!

But he didn’t play for long, his account was stuck at level forty-six, and a lot of skills were still locked.

Ethan Young lowered his head and messaged Henry Howard: Do you have any extra accounts?

Henry Howard replied quickly: Yeah, wait a sec.

Ethan Young exited the private chat and saw that the class group was still talking about the duel tonight, way more heated than their usual study discussions.

The Class Three group chat was buzzing for a while, and then an unbelievable Eddie popped up.

[a＝(vt一v一)/t ]: Which game is this?

Xavier Stone asked twice, and after getting the answer, grabbed his mouse, found the Genesis Corp official website, and clicked download.

When Henry Howard sent over the account and password, he also commented: Our class monitor actually broke his seventeen-year streak of never touching online games.

Ethan Young thought, it’s more than just breaking a record. Their class monitor had even said that online games were the most boring kind of spiritual opium for teenagers, a waste of his study time.

Henry Howard gave him a max-level account, a warrior, specializing in melee.

Everything was fine except—

“What the hell is this name,” Ethan Young called him, and before Henry Howard could say anything, added, “Are you nuts?”

On the computer screen, the berserker with a black tattoo running from his chest to his shoulder looked cool, holding a Green Dragon Blade, but above his head was the most idiotic name ever: ╰→Addicted to Missing Youヤ.

Henry Howard didn’t see the problem. He hadn’t taken the account name seriously before, and only just remembered to change it when Ethan Young asked for it: “It’s a couple name, look at mine.”

Henry Howard’s game character was an assassin, dressed all in black with only his eyes showing under a hood, and above his head: ﹏I'm Smitten With You〆.

Ethan Young: “”

Most of Class Three was already online. To get more practice with teamwork, more and more people were logging into the guild.

When the class monitor showed up with the “Don’t get addicted to games” Eddie name, the whole class went silent.

Then the two idiotic couple names appeared in the guild list, and the whole class finally lost it in silence.

In the game, everyone’s names were all over the place, so it was hard to tell who was who. They switched back to the class group voice chat, which also made it easier to coordinate during the fight.

Quinn Shaw’s place was a bit noisy, probably still eating dinner, and she couldn’t help but shout as soon as she joined: “Forget the class monitor, but who the hell are these two idiots?!”

Wanda was putting on his headphones as he spoke: “Did they join the wrong guild?”

Luke Carter: “Are they stupid?!”

“It’s me and Lao Xie,” Henry Howard said, “Any objections?”

“”

“No, no, of course not,” Luke Carter thought they weren’t from the class, but after hearing Henry Howard say that, he tried to make up for calling them ‘stupid’ earlier, racking his brains to praise, “Actually, this name, you know, has a certain noble flair beneath all the complexity.”

Ethan Young, holding back the urge to kick Henry Howard from one end of the hallway to the other when he saw him on Monday, joined the guild war with the idiotic name “╰→Addicted to Missing Youヤ”.

Luke Carter had been class monitor for two years and brought his natural leadership into the game. He hadn’t practiced his skills much, but just getting everyone to march in formation took over half an hour.

“No matter how good our skills are, we have to show our momentum. When we enter, we have to crush them,” Luke Carter shouted passionately in the voice chat, “Warriors at the front, mages behind, healers at the back, keep your positions neat. I’ll count down three, two, one, and everyone moves forward together—”

Over twenty people marched in a 4x6 formation in the game.

At the edge of the formation, a warrior named “╰→Addicted to Missing Youヤ” stood motionless, his character model’s eyes even showing a hint of indifference.

Luke Carter kept repeating “three, two, one,” and in the chaos, Henry Howard shouted, “Lao Xie, move!”

Ethan Young turned on his mic: “If you shout again, I’m logging off.”

The other class named their guild “The whole Class 3 are my grandsons”, and at exactly nine o’clock, a huge crowd gathered at Broken Heart Cliff.

Honestly, this so-called fight didn’t take much skill. There were just too many people—it was a total free-for-all.

But when Class Three’s 4x6 formation, missing just one person, marched out in perfect order, the other class was still shocked.