His proposal immediately sparked strong reactions from the others.

“Are you bored out of your mind again, Kai?” Lao Mei said.

“Who even plays this trash game anymore? You’re seriously aging backward, Kai,” Fu Bai added.

“I think it’s pretty interesting. This is one of the few team games we can play without electronic devices,” Zhang Houlin said.

“Oh, give it a rest. Think about the round we played last year—you guys didn’t ask a single normal question,” Lao Guan said.

That was when Yan Zhikai couldn’t keep his face anymore. “Fine. You guys are just scared your dark history will get exposed, right? I get it. Do you really need to make up so many excuses?”

“Oh, Kai, that’s some provocation you’re using there,” Lao Mei said, his grin turning sleazy again.

“Isn’t that the truth?” Yan Zhikai shot back.

Fu Bai followed up, “Who ends up exposing whose dark history isn’t so certain. You seem to have forgotten the terror of being triple-questioned by me last year.”

“Well, this time that might not be the case. So—are you playing or not?”

Lao Guan wiped his phone screen. “As long as you don’t ask those stupid brain-dead questions.”

“It’s not me asking those kinds of questions,” Yan Zhikai said as he shuffled closer to the bed, clearing out a large space in the middle. “Then let’s ask the others. Peng Xiaoxiao, are you in?”

Peng Xiaoxiao sat down next to Wei Zhanpeng. “Truth or Dare? Sure! That game’s fun!”

“What about you guys?” Yan Zhikai looked at Shu Yuxin and Jiang Zixuan.

Shu Yuxin poked Jiang Zixuan’s arm. “Are you playing?”

“Whatever.”

“Alright then.” Shu Yuxin nodded and found an empty spot by the bed to sit down. “We’re in too.”

Yan Zhikai took out the deck of playing cards that Lao Mei and the others had used the day before and waved them in front of Lao Mei. “Any objections now?”

Lao Mei was still smiling casually. “Sure, let’s do it.”

With that, the others also agreed one after another. Everyone piled onto the bed and formed a circle. As Yan Zhikai began shuffling the cards, he explained the rules:

“Since we’re playing, let’s make it interesting. One deck, nine people. Everyone gets one card, then we reveal them together. Lowest card loses, highest card wins. Pure luck. The focus is on the punishment anyway, so keeping the win–lose part simple is fine, right?”

After giving them a couple of seconds to process, he continued, “Now for the punishment—we’ll do it a bit differently. Normally, the loser chooses between truth or dare, right? We’ll change it. The loser must first choose truth, and they’re not allowed to refuse to answer.”

He paused, then added, “Of course, some idiots like to ask idiotic questions—you should all have some idea who I’m talking about. So if you really can’t answer, you can give any answer you want. Then comes the dare part. The loser’s answer will be judged by everyone else. Excluding the loser and the winner, that leaves seven people. If more than four people think the answer is fake, the loser has to do a dare. The dare is set by the winner. No impossible brain-dead demands—but on the flip side, the loser has to try their best to complete it. Fair?”

“No problem!” Lao Mei looked at Fu Bai with a sleazy grin. “Heh, just you wait—I’ll mess you up later.”

“Oh wow, big talk there, Lao Mei,” Fu Bai said dramatically, widening his eyes. “Just don’t let me catch you later, or I’ll make you kneel and sing ‘Conquer.’”

Peng Xiaoxiao suddenly leaned over to Shu Yuxin and whispered, “It’s such a waste these two didn’t go perform traditional comedy together.”

“…Yeah,” Shu Yuxin agreed.

Yan Zhikai ignored the two of them and turned to Shu Yuxin. “What about you guys—does this work for you?” He then added, “If someone asks you annoying personal questions later and you don’t want to answer, you can just go straight to dare.”

“Then wouldn’t that make it boring?” Peng Xiaoxiao waved her hand and laughed openly. “Just treat me the same as everyone else.”

“Oh?” Lao Mei suddenly chuckled and raised his eyebrows at her. “You said that yourself.”

Peng Xiaoxiao: “……”

Did this guy have even the slightest sense of being a gentleman?

A real gentleman.

Shu Yuxin naturally didn’t care much about that sort of thing either. Once she agreed to the rules, the game officially began.

Yan Zhikai shuffled the cards several times and even let everyone check them. Once he was satisfied, he dealt the cards for the first round.

No one dragged their feet. As soon as everyone had a card, they flipped them over.

The result was clear right away. The winner of the first round was Lao Mei, and the loser was Wei Zhanpeng.

“Hehehe, Lao Wei, ready to accept judgment?” Lao Mei held his card and smiled in an extremely sleazy way.

Wei Zhanpeng tossed his card into the pile. “No.” Then he quickly added, “Alright, your truth question’s done. Next round, Kai—deal the cards!”

Lao Mei froze for a second before reacting. “The hell? You think you can just brush it off like that?!”

“Yeah, Lao Wei, that’s not cool,” Fu Bai joined in.

“What did I do?” Wei Zhanpeng kept trying to argue his way out. “You never specified what kind of question counts as truth. Lao Mei just asked me a question, and I answered honestly. Why doesn’t that count?”

Peng Xiaoxiao tilted her head. “Honestly, that’s just cheating.”

Wei Zhanpeng immediately wilted. “Alright, alright. Lao Mei, ask again, okay?”

“Ah~ now that’s more like it.” Lao Mei looked pleased, like a parent proud of a teachable child.

“…Just don’t ask some brain-dead question,” Wei Zhanpeng muttered, not bothering to argue anymore.

Lao Mei flicked his card onto the pile and grinned. “Am I that kind of person? Alright, here goes. Ahem—question: when did you first realize the fact that you’re an idiot?”

Wei Zhanpeng sighed. “Here we go again. Didn’t Lao Guan already say not to ask stupid questions? Seriously, it’s not fun.”

“Cut the crap. You can’t answer, can you?” Lao Mei leaned closer, grinning wickedly. “So—are you choosing dare?”

Wei Zhanpeng nodded resentfully.

“Alright!” Lao Mei burst out laughing and pointed at the floor. “One hundred push-ups! Go!”

“One hundred?! Are you trying to kill me?!” Wei Zhanpeng yelled.

“Fine, fine—fifty, then?”

Wei Zhanpeng still looked like he was being messed with.

“Alright, alright—twenty-five. Twenty-five should be doable, right?” Lao Mei sounded like he’d just suffered a huge loss.

Wei Zhanpeng looked like he wanted to argue more, but Yan Zhikai finally spoke up. “Twenty-five. No more bargaining.”

“Yeah, can’t go any lower,” Lao Guan added with a smile.

Wei Zhanpeng glanced secretly at Peng Xiaoxiao, then resigned himself and climbed down from the bed. “Damn it. Asking stupid questions like that is really pointless.”

“Alright, let’s not ask dumb questions anymore. Play seriously, okay?” Yan Zhikai added, clearly a bit fed up as well.

As everyone voiced their agreement, Wei Zhanpeng got down on the floor and started his push-up punishment.

Twenty-five push-ups wasn’t much. Even a hardcore shut-in could finish them without pressure when well-fed and at full strength.

Wei Zhanpeng’s round served as a demonstration for everyone else and also helped warm up the atmosphere. As mentioned before, Lao Mei and Fu Bai were especially good at hyping things up. Whatever else aside, in a group of socially awkward nerds playing Truth or Dare—especially when they weren’t all that close—having people like them was necessary. With the two of them around, the atmosphere only got hotter as the game went on. Everyone became more relaxed, and even someone as introverted as Shu Yuxin started messing with others without any psychological pressure.

And if even Shu Yuxin could let loose and mess with people, then someone as shamelessly sleazy as Lao Mei was bound to go even further. Once the atmosphere fully heated up, the content of the truth questions gradually began to shift.

For example—

“Alright, Lao Jiang, my turn to ask,” Lao Mei said smugly, holding the highest card of the round.

Jiang Zixuan tossed his card aside and smiled helplessly. “Go ahead.”

“Ahem, okay. Here’s my question—are you still a virgin?”

Jiang Zixuan froze.

“Hey, it’s truth. If you lie, we’ll be able to tell,” Lao Mei quickly pressed him.

Jiang Zixuan glanced subtly at Shu Yuxin beside him, then shook his head. “No.”

The group instantly erupted into cheers.

Peng Xiaoxiao’s eyes went wide as she stared at Shu Yuxin for quite a while.

That glance Jiang Zixuan had made was because he knew Shu Yuxin was aware of his situation, so he was weighing whether to tell the truth. But in everyone else’s eyes, that glance took on a completely different meaning—especially given how close the two of them were.

At first, Shu Yuxin didn’t even understand what they were making a fuss about. With her not-yet-fully-shifted way of thinking, she initially assumed it was just the usual teasing between virgins and non-virgin bros. But after a few seconds, she noticed that people kept glancing at her, and as long as her emotional intelligence wasn’t in the negatives, she immediately got it.

“What the hell are you guys thinking?! It has nothing to do with me!!” Shu Yuxin immediately started explaining with a baffled expression.

How did she get caught in the crossfire just by being a bystander?

But while the person involved was eager to explain, the real spectators—Lao Mei and the others—didn’t care about the truth at all. As soon as they finished cheering, they immediately moved on to the next topic.

“Alright, alright—Kai, next round! Deal the cards!”

“Yeah, hurry up! We’re waiting!”

“Deal the cards, Kai!”

……

Shu Yuxin felt a bit of a stomachache.

To others, the situation might have seemed normal—but to her, it felt like she’d inexplicably been slapped with a “gay” label out of nowhere.