Seeing my friends all writing their year-end summaries, I decided to look back on my own year too. Though this feels more like reading logs from a corrupted hard drive.

Below is an "incident report" organized chronologically.

Got a New Roommate (Pretty Happy About It)

When college started in 2024, I rented my own place off-campus and lived alone—I never even set foot in the dormitory. This inevitably made me "the person who dreads group projects the most" in class, because I didn't have a dorm room and didn't know or keep in touch with most of my classmates. I only had contact info for my counselor, class assistant, class president, and a few instructors—my social life was basically zero! PE class was pure social torture for me, since 60% of the time was free activity, and nobody would talk to someone invisible like me.

For classes, I'd ride a shared e-bike from home to school (about 1-2km, under 10 minutes), then head back after class. At noon I'd eat alone at the cafeteria, and on mornings without classes I'd grab food near home or just eat out at a restaurant.

This went on for half a year until February, when an online friend I met in a chat group decided to come to Hefei to stay with me. Since he was in his internship period and basically idle without job hunting, he traveled 1,400km from his small county town to find me. I spent half a year with him—having someone around, someone to cook, someone to go out with—it was a pretty happy time.
(At one point I even tripped and fell flat on my face in front of the school, scraping myself and bleeding. He went to buy band-aids and rubbing alcohol for me, which really touched me.)

The Maimai Group's Fallout (Regret, But Nothing I Could Do)

It started like this: our group had about 30 people. Everyone helped each other out—if someone wanted to check in for a stamp or something, they'd just ask in the group if anyone was at the arcade, and if so, they could send the QR code directly to the group. The atmosphere was really harmonious. Until one day when I asked if anyone could help me check in because I wanted to get the 30-day consecutive check-in title. Someone said "Send the code!"

So I sent it and didn't think about it anymore, until that person in the group told me, "I got 97 on your Purple Kamui and Purple April Rain." I thought he was joking because even when helping others check in, you shouldn't mess up their scores. Turns out when I asked again, it was real. I was so angry I cursed him out in the group. The whole group turned into chaos—some accused me of overreacting, saying he was just helping me check in and made a mistake. But I didn't pay much attention because I was furious and probably not thinking straight. Looking back, it was actually a wise choice. Later he apologized and I accepted it. But after that, the group went cold and nobody talked anymore. Some time later, the group was disbanded. The end.

Since it was a local arcade group, even though nobody talked anymore and the group disbanded, when we'd run into each other offline, everyone would smile and play as usual—it's just that the relationship could never go back to what it was.

Old Roommate's Departure, New Roommate's Arrival (Barely Surviving)

Time flew to June, and my old roommate, unable to find suitable work in Hefei, proposed going south for further education, planning to study for another half year or so. I had no reason to stop him, so I agreed. He also promised me at the time that he'd come back to find me after finishing his studies.

After he left, a classmate of mine learned that my roommate had gone to study and suggested I break my lease to find a new place closer to downtown with him. But my contract still had two months left. Still, to have someone around, I gave up those two months of rent.

So in July I practically packed up my entire life and moved into a place to share with him. According to our agreement, he'd do the housework and cooking while I'd be the "young master." I'd pay 65% of the rent plus rice, flour, grain, and oil for cooking; we'd split the rest equally.

This lasted until October when my new roommate and I couldn't stand being jobless while still paying high rent, so we forfeited the deposit and moved out.

Met a "Kindred Spirit" at the Arcade (Foreshadowing for Later Tragedy)

One day while at the arcade, I met this friend. As we chatted, I felt we were quite like-minded, so we exchanged contact info.

From then on we talked about everything and went to the arcade together almost every day. Until he told me he had his own account on the [DATA EXPUNGED] platform, so I went to follow and support him. Then gradually I also started running my own account on [DATA EXPUNGED].

What Happened After Meeting [DATA EXPUNGED] (Null)

After meeting [DATA EXPUNGED] on [DATA EXPUNGED], [DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED]

[DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED]

[DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED]

[DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED]

[DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED][DATA EXPUNGED]

Friend Flew to Shanghai to Help Me Heal (The Only Happy Time During That Period)

In my original plan to meet [DATA EXPUNGED], I was planning to visit an expo in Shanghai afterward (MankaLive Rhythm Game Carnival 2025 in Shanghai). But after what happened, I wasn't in the mood for any expo anymore. I had even bought ysk's autograph session ticket, the kind where you could play together.

When one of my best friends heard what I'd been through, he didn't care about the short National Day holiday or the expenses—he just decided to buy a plane ticket and fly to Shanghai to accompany me at the expo. So during that time, we wandered around Shanghai together, ate at Saizeriya, and played at arcade venues like Rekka and Tiantian. Although you couldn't tell from my face how happy I was, if he hadn't resolutely flown over to be with me, I might not have made it back from Shanghai alive, and I wouldn't have the determination to change myself that I have now.

On the day of MankaLive, we went in to check out the expo and buy merch. There was also an arcade machine to play inside. Although it was a brand new machine fresh from the factory, probably due to unstable voltage, the screen often had touch issues.

In the end, I successfully got ysk's autograph by playing together (I won't post photos or the process since I don't look good, plus my expression management completely broke down at the time).

The final haul was also quite impressive.

Year-End Chaos (Dejected)

After returning from Shanghai, I was completely devastated and suddenly didn't know what to do with my life. With no one around to keep me company anymore, I had no choice but to return to my hometown and continue living alone.

However, after the [DATA EXPUNGED] incident, I also made up my mind to work on some of my fundamental flaws. My level of self-discipline has changed so much that my family barely recognizes me anymore.

At the same time, I also renovated my website—essentially picking it back up, giving it a refresh, and continuing to run it. Writing more articles, researching and exploring more unknown territories, instead of throwing myself headfirst into socializing.

Summary

2025 only had a good start for me—the latter half was absolutely terrible. I suffered the biggest [DATA EXPUNGED] of my life, leaving extremely severe psychological trauma and hitting a new low in my understanding of human morality.

But it was precisely this pain that gave me the strength to completely shed my old shell and rebuild myself. When I stood up again among the ruins, I chose not revenge, but reconciliation with a completely new attitude. After all:

A true strong person is not one who never gets hurt, but one who can still gently embrace the world while bearing their scars — mintdesu