This ID is a bit feminine. Jason Bennett had often thought that this online friend he’d been teaming up with for so long might be a girl, but Jason Bennett couldn’t be completely sure. Nowadays, unless you actually meet someone in person, you can’t be certain of their gender online. In fact, even if you do meet them, you can’t fully trust that their gender is real, can you?

Society these days is just too complicated!

Jason Bennett didn’t really care whether Emily White was male or female. After all, you always need a partner to play games. Even though this partner wasn’t his most in-sync teammate, Jason Bennett and her had a special kind of understanding.

“Waiting for me?” Jason Bennett sent a message over.

“Yeah, I knew you’d definitely be online at this time on Saturday. I just knew you were a student.” The other side replied quickly, as if she really had been waiting for him.

“Let’s get started. Let’s try to hit 2000 points this weekend.” Jason Bennett didn’t say much more and got straight to the point.

“Sure.”

League of Legends is a tower-pushing game. Each side has five players, and the goal is to destroy the enemy’s Nexus.

You can think of it as two opposing cities, with three roads between them. Both sides send out evenly matched soldiers, and the players are the generals. The generals battle each other, and after killing the enemy generals, whoever destroys the enemy city’s core wins the war.

The game is divided into normal matches and ranked matches.

Normal matches are where the system randomly matches you with teammates and finds opponents for practice.

Ranked matches are more formal, because your wins and losses are recorded. The higher your score, the more it proves your skill. It’s a straightforward way to measure strength.

1900 points in ranked is where high-level players compete. Players like Eric Carter at most just play normal matches.

Only players who are level 30 and have at least 16 champions can play ranked.

Eric Carter and those guys from Class Three don’t even qualify for ranked, so you can’t blame Jason Bennett for not wanting to mess around with them—their skill levels just aren’t on the same tier.

When Jason Bennett and Emily White played, they always went bot lane. Jason Bennett played support, and Emily White played the main physical damage dealer (ADC for short). The two of them worked together like partners in crime, unbeatable in the bot lane.

They played two games in a row, both wins, and both Jason Bennett and Emily White broke into the 2000-point bracket.

Reaching 2000 points in ranked is seen as a watershed of skill. Anyone who can cross that line is a top League of Legends player. For a senior high school student to reach this level is truly astonishing.

“I’ve got something to do, gotta go.” After the second game, Emily White said to Jason Bennett.

“Not playing anymore?” Jason Bennett asked, puzzled. Usually, the two of them would play late into Saturday night and still want more. It was rare for Emily White to suddenly stop playing today.

“Yeah, I don’t have time to play on Sunday either. Let’s play again next week.” Emily White said.

“Alright, then I’ll just play some normal matches by myself.” Jason Bennett said.

“You could play ranked by yourself too.” Emily White messaged.

“Without you, I’m afraid I’ll get dragged down.” Jason Bennett replied.

“So you’re that dependent on me? Actually, our teamwork isn’t that great yet. Sometimes I can’t keep up with you.” Emily White knew Jason Bennett played support really well, and sometimes she really couldn’t keep up with him.

“Hehe, why don’t you get a mic and we can use voice chat?” Jason Bennett teased.

“Hmph, I know what you’re up to. I’m worried that if my rough uncle voice comes through your headphones, you’ll immediately block me.” Emily White said, a bit playfully.

“Hehe.” Jason Bennett chuckled.

Jason Bennett didn’t care about Emily White’s gender, but if she really was a girl, wouldn’t that be a happy thing?

“Alright, alright, I’ll go buy a mic. Next week we’ll voice chat.” Emily White said.

Really going to voice chat? Jason Bennett wondered if he’d heard wrong!

He’d actually known Emily White for a long time. They’d chatted on QQ for ages, and later she brought him into League of Legends. Even though everything about her online presence seemed female, since she’d never agreed to video or voice chat, Jason Bennett always felt a bit uneasy, worried the other person might be a crusty old man.

But now, the moment of truth was finally coming?

Would it be a gruff uncle with a mouthful of swear words, or a sweet, pure loli voice? Next week would tell. For some reason, Jason Bennett felt a little excited.

“I’m off.”

“Okay, bye-bye.”

The three characters of Emily White’s name dimmed. For some reason, every time her QQ avatar and game ID went dark, Jason Bennett always felt a bit of loss.

After she left, Jason Bennett didn’t play normal matches. Instead, he logged into another account with a different number.

To be honest, he really didn’t like playing normal matches. As someone who’d once been a professional esports player, battles that were too casual just felt boring.

He had just logged in and was about to click on solo ranked when suddenly the phone rang.

No one else was home, so Jason Bennett had to answer it himself.

“Luosheng?” the voice on the other end asked.