His suggestion immediately drew a strong reaction from the others.

“You bored out of your mind again, Kai?” Old Mei said.

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

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

“Oh, give me a break. Think about the round we played last year. None of you asked a single normal question,” Old Guan said.

That made Yan Zhikai lose face a little. “Fine. You guys are just scared your dark history’s gonna get dug up, right? I get it. Do you really need that many excuses?”

“Whoa, Kai, that’s some blatant provocation.” Old Mei’s grin turned sleazy again.

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

Fu Bai followed up, “Who’s exposing whose dark history isn’t so certain. Looks like you forgot the fear of getting hit with my triple-question combo last year.”

“That might not be the case this time. So are you playing or not?”

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

“It’s not like I’m the one asking that kind of stuff.” Yan Zhikai shifted toward the bedside, clearing out a big space in the middle of the bed. “How about we ask the others? Peng Xiaoxiao, are you in?”

Peng Xiaoxiao sat right down beside Wei Zhanpeng. “Truth or Dare? Sure! This game’s really fun!”

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

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

“Whatever.”

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

Yan Zhikai pulled out the deck Old Mei and the others had used yesterday and waved it in front of Old Mei. “Any more objections?”

Old Mei still had that grinning face. “Bring it on.”

With that, the others agreed too. Everyone crowded onto one bed and formed a circle. As Yan Zhikai started shuffling, he explained the rules.

“If we’re playing, let’s make it interesting. One deck, nine people. I’ll deal one card to each person, then we all reveal at once. Lowest card loses, highest card wins.”

“It’s pure luck. The real point of this game is the punishment round anyway, so keeping the win-loss part simple is fine, right?”

He gave them two seconds to process that, then continued.

“As for the punishment, let’s do something different. Normally, the loser chooses Truth or Dare, right? We’re changing that. The loser has to pick Truth first, and they can’t refuse to answer.”

He paused, then added, “Of course, some idiots like asking idiotic questions. You all probably know exactly who I mean.”

“So if someone really can’t answer, they can give any answer they want. Now for the Dare part. Everyone else judges whether the loser’s answer was real.”

“Take out the loser and winner, that leaves seven people, right? If more than four think it was fake, then the loser has to do a Dare.”

“The Dare is also set by the winner. Don’t deliberately give some brain-dead task that can’t be done. But on the other hand, the loser has to try their best to complete it. Sound good?”

“No problem at all!” Old Mei stared at Fu Bai with a sleazy grin. “Heh heh, just wait. I’m gonna play you to death.”

“Damn, big talk from you, Old Mei.” Fu Bai widened his eyes and spoke in an exaggerated tone. “Just don’t let me catch you later. I’ll make you kneel on the floor and sing Conquered.”

Off to the side, Peng Xiaoxiao suddenly leaned close to Shu Yuxin’s ear and whispered, “It’d be a waste if those two didn’t go perform comic duet.”

“...Yeah.” Shu Yuxin agreed.

Yan Zhikai ignored the two of them and turned to Shu Yuxin instead. “What about you? You okay with that?” Then he added, “If someone gets bored and asks you private stuff later, you can skip straight to Dare if you don’t want to answer.”

“Wouldn’t that make it boring?” Peng Xiaoxiao waved a hand and laughed openly. “Just treat me the same as you guys.”

“Oh? You said that yourself.” Old Mei suddenly chuckled and waggled his brows at her.

Peng Xiaoxiao: “...”

Did he seriously not have even the slightest self-awareness as a gentleman?

A proper gentleman.

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

Yan Zhikai shuffled the cards several more times, then let everyone inspect the deck once. After they were satisfied, he dealt the first round.

The others didn’t waste time. As soon as everyone had their card, they flipped them over.

The result came out quickly. Old Mei won the first round, and Wei Zhanpeng lost.

“Heh heh heh, Old Wei. Ready to receive judgment?” Old Mei held his card and smiled with extreme sleaziness.

Wei Zhanpeng tossed his card into the pile in the middle. “No.” Then he quickly added, “Alright, your Truth question’s done, next round. Kai, deal!”

Old Mei froze for a second before reacting. “Fuck, you think you can just muddle through like that?!”

“Yeah, Old Wei, that’s no fun,” Fu Bai chimed in.

“What did I do?” Wei Zhanpeng kept trying to argue his way out. “Hey, you guys never said what kind of question Truth had to be. Old Mei did ask me a question just now, and I answered honestly. Why doesn’t that count?”

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

Wei Zhanpeng instantly wilted. “Fine, fine. Old Mei, ask again, okay?”

“Ahh~ now that’s more like it.” Old Mei wore an expression like, now that’s my boy.

“...Just don’t ask some idiotic question.” Wei Zhanpeng couldn’t even be bothered to snap back anymore.

Old Mei flicked the card in his hand aside and grinned. “Am I that kind of person? Alright, here goes. Ahem—may I ask: when did you realize the fact that you’re an idiot?”

Wei Zhanpeng let out a sigh. “Again? Didn’t Old Guan already say not to ask idiotic questions like that? Seriously, it’s not fun.”

“Cut the crap. You can’t answer, can you?” Old Mei leaned closer to Wei Zhanpeng with a wicked grin. “So, are you picking Dare or not?”

Wei Zhanpeng nodded aggrievedly.

“Good!” Old Mei burst out laughing and pointed at the floor. “One hundred push-ups! Please!”

“One hundred?! Are you trying to kill me?!” Wei Zhanpeng yelped on the spot.

“Fine, fifty then, okay?”

Wei Zhanpeng still looked like, are you kidding me?

“Alright, alright, twenty-five. Twenty-five should be fine, right?” Old Mei sounded like he’d just lost a hundred million.

Wei Zhanpeng looked like he still wanted to argue, but Yan Zhikai finally spoke up. “Twenty-five. Stop pushing it.”

“Right, can’t go any lower than that.” Old Guan also laughed and agreed.

Wei Zhanpeng secretly glanced at Peng Xiaoxiao, then climbed off the bed like a man accepting his fate. “Damn it. Asking this kind of idiotic question is seriously no fun.”

“Fine, then don’t ask idiotic questions later. Play seriously, okay?” Even Yan Zhikai seemed unable to watch anymore, so he added that.

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

Twenty-five push-ups really wasn’t much. Even a hardcore shut-in could finish them without pressure when fully fed and in peak condition.

This round served as a demonstration for everyone else, and it also helped heat up the atmosphere. Like I said before, Old Mei and Fu Bai were especially good at that.

Setting other things aside, in a group of nerds playing Truth or Dare when they still weren’t all that familiar with each other, people like them were absolutely necessary.

With those two around, the mood got livelier the more they played. Everyone loosened up more and more. Even someone as introverted as Shu Yuxin started messing with other people without any mental burden.

And if even someone as reserved as Shu Yuxin could let loose and mess with people, then there was even less need to mention someone like Old Mei, whose sleaziness had no bottom line.

Once the atmosphere fully warmed up, the content of their Truth questions slowly started to drift.

For example...

“Hey, Old Jiang, I’m asking now.” Old Mei looked at the highest card in his hand this round, clearly pleased with himself.

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

“Ahem, alright, my question is—are you still a virgin?”

Jiang Zixuan froze.

“Hey, this is Truth. If you lie, we’ll be able to tell.” Seeing that, Old Mei hurriedly piled on the pressure.

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

The whole bunch instantly started hooting.

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

Jiang Zixuan had glanced at Shu Yuxin because he knew she was aware of that bit of his history, so he’d been weighing whether to tell the truth.

But in this group’s eyes, that glance definitely took on a different meaning, especially with how close the two of them had been acting.

At first, Shu Yuxin didn’t even realize what they were making a fuss about. With the way her thinking still hadn’t fully adjusted, her first reaction was that this was just virgins teasing a non-virgin bro.

But after a few seconds, she suddenly noticed that these people kept throwing glances at her too. At that point, as long as her EQ wasn’t in the negatives, she could figure it out.

“What the hell are you people thinking?! This has nothing to do with me!!” Shu Yuxin immediately started explaining with a baffled look on her face.

How was she catching stray bullets just by being a bystander?

But while the person involved was in a hurry to explain, Old Mei and the others—the real bystanders—didn’t care whether it was true or not. They had just finished hooting, and the next second they were already changing the subject.

“Come on, come on, Kai, next round! Deal, deal!”

“Yeah, hurry up and deal! We’re waiting!”

“Deal the cards, Kai!”

...

Shu Yuxin felt like her stomach hurt a little.

To other people, this situation might’ve seemed pretty normal. But to her, it was basically like getting a “gay” label slapped onto her for no reason at all.