Pursuing Her Best Friend after Confession Failed-Chapter 44 - 43: The Cultural Bureau, Truth or Dare?
Facing everyone’s gaze, Li Yuan smiled. He recalled a little game they had played for self-introductions during a university class trip in his past life; it was a pretty good icebreaker.
"Since fate brought us all together, a simple self-introduction wouldn’t do us justice," he said. "We’re all cultured people, so how about we play a ’cultural game’?"
Zhong Tingyue’s interest was immediately piqued. She looked at Li Yuan with her beautiful eyes and asked curiously, "A cultural game? Li Yuan, how do you play?"
Ding Shanshan and Xu Tingrou also stared at him with great interest, waiting for his explanation.
"Yes, yes! We’re intellectuals, so we should play an intellectual’s game. Simple self-introductions are so boring," Zhou Tianyu quickly chimed in. After all, he had scored dozens of points above the top-tier cutoff on the college entrance exams to get into Daxia University. He was naturally quite talented and wasn’t the least bit daunted by such a game.
Yi Jing and Liu Jia also looked interested. Everyone sitting here had been the pride of their respective high schools, after all. A cultural game? Who would be scared of that?
Li Yuan smiled and began to explain the rules. "The rules are simple. Each person introduces their name using a phrase—it can be an idiom, a classical quote, a line from a modern poem, whatever you want. It’s completely freestyle. We’ll have one of the guys give a clue, and one of the girls will guess. If you guess wrong, you get a small penalty. If you guess right, you can make a small request... What do you all think?"
Li Yuan had tried this kind of self-introduction game in his past life, and it was always very memorable. They were all cultured, high-achieving students, so they were quite receptive to this kind of activity.
The group immediately understood the rules. It was just a creative way to introduce themselves! Hardly a challenge at all. Everyone had their own take on their name. Even if their parents hadn’t put much thought into it, that didn’t matter—you could always give it a beautiful meaning yourself!
Zhou Tianyu asked excitedly, "Li Yuan, who starts?"
Li Yuan smiled. "You all know me, so I’ll sit this one out and be the referee. Each guesser gets three chances. Ladies first, so let’s start with this young lady here."
He looked at Xu Tingrou, signaling for her to begin.
With easy grace, Xu Tingrou pondered for a moment. This was the first time she had ever played a game like this. "My name has three characters, so I’ll use three lines to describe it. Each line contains one part of my name."
"’Granting you a lifetime of splendor!’"
"’An old farewell on the pavilion road!’"
"’Sorrowful parting in the willow’s tender embrace!’"
After hearing this, Li Yuan’s smile widened. He glanced at Yi Jing and Liu Jia, asking, "Who wants to guess first?"
Liu Jia and Yi Jing both looked away, clearly a bit socially anxious. This was especially true for Liu Jia, whose face was already tinged with red. Just as he’d admitted, the fledgling got shy around girls. Zhou Tianyu also remained silent, stealthily glancing at Zhong Tingyue, waiting for her to speak.
For a moment, the atmosphere grew awkward. Li Yuan tapped Liu Jia with his chopsticks and said testily, "You start!"
Liu Jia steeled himself and stood up, carefully considering the three lines Xu Tingrou had spoken before offering his guess. If the first line is the surname, it’s either ’Xu’ from "Granting" or ’Hua’ from "splendor." It’s probably the first one.
"Miss, is your surname Xu?"
Xu Tingrou nodded. "Correct! My surname is Xu."
Liu Jia looked at the last two lines, unable to make a definitive connection. He cautiously ventured, "Are the other two characters... ’road’ and ’willow’? Is your name Xu Luliu?"
Xu Tingrou smiled and shook her head.
Li Yuan smiled. "Don’t give up. You have two chances left."
Liu Jia rapidly racked his brain. "Xu Changrou?"
Xu Tingrou shook her head again. "Incorrect."
Li Yuan chuckled slyly. "One last chance! If you get it wrong, you’ll have to accept the penalty, you know!"
Beads of anxious sweat formed on Liu Jia’s face.
"I’m starting the countdown! Ten, nine, eight... four, three..."
A few seconds passed. Just as Li Yuan was about to finish his countdown, Liu Jia hurriedly blurted out another name. "Xu Tingrou, is that right?"
When Xu Tingrou heard him say the correct name, her expression visibly froze for a second. She then gave a slight nod. "You got it right, Senior. My name is Xu Tingrou. It’s a pleasure to meet you."
Liu Jia grinned widely. "Hehe, I barely made it."
Li Yuan looked at the two of them. "A bet’s a bet. The winner gets to make a small request." He then added, "Friendly hint: you can choose Truth or Dare!" Li Yuan quickly explained what "Truth" and "Dare" were.
"Xu Tingrou, which will it be? If he asks a question you don’t want to answer, you can use the ’girl’s pass’!"
After a moment’s thought, Xu Tingrou made her choice. "Truth."
Hearing her choice, Liu Jia didn’t dare ask anything too difficult, since they had only just met. "I’d like to ask... do you have a boyfriend?"
The question was simple but perfectly appropriate. Li Yuan secretly gave Liu Jia a thumbs-up. Although Xu Tingrou’s looks weren’t on the same level as Bai Weixi’s or Zhong Tingyue’s, she was quite pretty in her own right, especially with her height of nearly 1.7 meters. With a little makeup and styling, she would be very presentable. Add her academic credentials to the mix, and she was quite a catch. At the very least, she was more than a match for Liu Jia.
Xu Tingrou gave Liu Jia a deep look, her face blushing slightly as she replied, "No."
"Alright, first round’s over. Now it’s the guys’ turn to give a clue and the girls’ turn to guess," Li Yuan announced. He pointed at Zhou Tianyu. "Your turn!"
Zhou Tianyu had already decided how he would introduce himself. His gaze flickered toward Zhong Tingyue as he adopted a profound tone. "I’ll use three idioms to introduce the origin of my name."
"’The Battle of Muye!’"
"’A sky as clear as if it were washed!’"
"’A majestic and dignified bearing!’"
"Which of you lovely ladies would like to answer?"
Though he addressed both of them, his gaze remained fixed on Zhong Tingyue, clearly hoping she would be the one to respond.
Before Li Yuan could even speak, Ding Shanshan piped up, "I’ll answer!"
Zhou Tianyu was utterly crestfallen. He was deeply disappointed but couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
Ding Shanshan smiled. "I’m guessing your name is Zhou Tianyu. Am I right?"
Zhou Tianyu was stunned and blurted out, "How did you guess it on the first try?"
Ding Shanshan seemed quite taken with him. "Hmph, that wasn’t hard at all. The Battle of Muye established the Zhou Dynasty. ’A sky as clear as if it were washed’ obviously refers to ’Tian,’ the sky. And the idiom for ’majestic bearing,’ ’Qiyu Xuan’ang,’ is even more obvious—it gives us ’Yu’!"
"Wow, you’re good!" Zhou Tianyu conceded, privately wondering, Was my clue too easy?
Li Yuan asked, "A bet’s a bet. Truth or Dare?"
Zhou Tianyu hesitated for a moment. "I’ll choose Truth, too."
Ding Shanshan covered her mouth and giggled. "Okay, here’s my question!"
"Go ahead!"
"What’s your zodiac sign?"
"What? My zodiac sign?" Zhou Tianyu was dumbfounded. Is the question really that simple?
"Yep, your zodiac sign!" Ding Shanshan confirmed.
Zhou Tianyu breathed a sigh of relief. A zodiac sign isn’t some big secret. It would have been way more awkward if she’d asked if I’d ever had a girlfriend.
"I’m a Sagittarius!"
"A Sagittarius? Okay, that’s a great sign!"
Upon hearing his answer, the smile on Ding Shanshan’s baby face grew even wider. Her eyes twinkled as she stole occasional glances at Zhou Tianyu, seemingly lost in thought.
Zhong Tingyue watched the game unfold, her eyes stealing glances at Li Yuan’s smiling profile. If it were him, how would he introduce himself? she wondered.
