CH 66.3

Song Shiyu attended a wedding banquet with his parents, where the groom was the son of one of the friends of his parents.

Be it in terms of career or appearance, Song Shiyu was usually dubbed as ‘other people’s children’, but he found himself outdone by others on a single aspect in this gathering.

He was still unmarried and without a girlfriend.

Wedding banquets were a networking session too. After a few drinks, the guests started moving around the room to chat with one another. Song Shiyu greeted a few of the elders and toasted them. It didn’t take him long to get tipsy. 

He wasn’t a strong drinker. His father refrained from alcohol and his mother only drank red wine. With such genes, he could only reach the level of an average person no matter how he trained his tolerance for alcohol. 

To make things worse, the alcohol served in this wedding banquet was the potent Five Lake White Wine.

It took only a few cups for his face to redden and his head to spin.

Mrs. Song excitedly nudged him and asked, “Why is your face reddening? Are you interested in that lady from earlier on?”

Song Shiyu waved his hand, feigning that he was succumbing to the alcohol and couldn’t hear her properly. 

Mrs. Song made use of this opportunity to call some of Song Shiyu’s peers over. She told them to drag him over to the table where those from the younger generation were gathered. 

Song Shiyu thought that both sides were equally terrible, but he decided to go with the side where he wouldn’t have to face constant pressure for marriage. He did command some influence amongst his peers, thus he wouldn’t face as much pressure from them. 

So, his cousins lifted him up and dragged him away from the elders’ side. Barely a few tables later, one of them secretly whispered, “Is Song Shiyu really drunk? I want to play a prank on him…”

Song Shiyu retracted his hand from that person’s shoulder and directed a graceful smile at him. 

The cousins glanced at one another before bursting into hearty laughter. Under the influence of alcohol, they boldly pushed Song Shiyu toward the table where those of their age group were gathered. 

This bunch of people were bored out of their minds, but they couldn’t leave the wedding banquet without their parents’ approval. So, they decided to entertain themselves with a game of ‘Truth and Dare’. 

The slightly tipsy Song Shiyu was pushed into one of the seats. 

Someone shouted, “I’ve dragged Song Shiyu over! Let’s start a new round!”

Song Shiyu: “…”

A guy beside him quickly explained the rules, “There are forty dice in the ashtray. You have to choose a number, shake the ashtray, and pick out all the dice with your number on it before passing it to the next person. If there aren’t any reflecting the number you chose, you’ll have to pick between ‘Truth’ or ‘Dare’.”

After quickly going through the rules, the guy made a sly attempt to pass the ashtray to the person left of Song Shiyu, only for it to be intercepted by Song Shiyu.

There were sixteen people sitting on the table, and those who went later had a higher chance of getting punished. It was obvious that the guy was trying to make him go last so as to increase his chances of invoking the penalty. 

Song Shiyu loosened his tie and spoke with a gentle smile, “Allow me go first. It’s my first time playing. If I get the rules wrong, you’ll be able to correct me right away.”

He declared his number to be ‘3’ before shaking the irregularly shaped ashtray. Of the forty dice, there were eight of them that showed ‘3’. He took out those eight dice before passing the ashtray to the next person.

“Is that how you play the game?” he asked. 

The others reluctantly nodded their heads before continuing the game.

Sometimes, even the sharpest of minds couldn’t triumph over sheer bad luck. The other fifteen players safely overcame the trial posed by the Die Goddess, including the guy who explained the rules to Song Shiyu. 

“The Goddess of Luck is shining on me!” shouted the guy in relief.

He took out one of the two remaining dice that reflected a ‘6’ before merrily passing the ashtray to Song Shiyu. 

Song Shiyu looked at the single die left on the ashtray. 

A one-sixth chance, huh?

“1,” Song Shiyu declared. He shook the ashtray with a beautiful flick of his wrist before placing it down on the table. 

One of the curious spectators craned his neck over and loudly announced the result, “It’s a 2!”

A wave of excitement rippled across the table.

“Truth or Dare!”

“It has to be a dare! We wouldn’t really know if he lies after picking Truth!”

Someone shoved a pile of penalty cards toward Song Shiyu and said, “Pick one!”

“Pick one! Pick one!” the crowd started chanting. 

Song Shiyu had no intention of being a sore loser in front of so many people. It was just that his head was growing heavier with each passing moment. He rested his heavy head on his arm and casually picked out a card from the pile. He examined its contents with narrowed eyes.

“Oooh, he has to confess to the person he likes through the phone! … Eesh, that isn’t fun at all. Don’t we all already know who she is?”

“Doesn’t make a difference. He still has to make the call. It’s the rule!”

“Call her, call her! You aren’t a man if you don’t call her!”

Song Shiyu was forced by the crowd to whip out his phone. He scrolled down his list of contacts to the ‘J’ section. Without any hesitation, he tapped on a name and made the call. 

A person beside him immediately shouted, “You called the wrong person! Ji Xinxin’s name is the next one!”

Those words jolted Song Shiyu awake from his mildly intoxicated state. He quickly tried to hang up the call, only to realize that the person on the other end had already rejected his call. 

“It doesn’t count, we need to do it again! Brother Shiyu tapped onto the wrong name, right?”

Song Shiyu quietly lowered his gaze for a while before finally tapping down on Ji Xinxin’s name.