It is that time of year again, and naturally the annual retrospective cannot be omitted. Let us see how much I can finish before 11:59 p.m. (

One thing worth mentioning: I gave my experiences in the Puzzle Hunt community this year their own article. On one hand, I feared I would hit WeChat’s character limit and leave no room for anything else. On the other, judging from the feedback I have received all year, not many people around me are particularly obsessed with this subject. The video made its earth-shattering debut during the puzzle team’s TPAPWRAPA livestream on the 29th, then appeared on Bilibili together with the companion article. If you are interested, please follow Zhuge Tianyao on Bilibili. Thank you!

Since Bilibili has come up, let me repeat the annual-summary material I posted there, as tradition demands. First, I successfully reduced the number of days on which I watched videos, plummeting from last year’s astonishing 352 to a mere 350. Cause for celebration. (

As a viewer, I naturally watched more Chinese vocal synth content than anything else, so the Weekly Chart team swept the rankings for my creators of the year. For details, please consult the chart anniversary retrospective in Diary 105. There is a Bilibili article too!

As a creator, I also successfully passed one hundred followers this year. I even did it twice. The work I am proudest of is naturally Gold Medal Puzzle: You Want Me to Make This?. Next year I will keep working hard and strive to kill every viewer with increasingly deranged projects. (

My number of geocache finds also passed one hundred this year. From PD’s Inverted Triangle last year to the GC25 anniversary Locationless Cache Find 25 Around You (Without a 3 in Front), my 2025 geocaching journey has reached a satisfying conclusion. Once I learn to drive next year, my efficiency will surely rise by the day.

Yes, I obtained an American driver’s license. As I said before, less than a week passed between beginning the online application and receiving the license. Even including new glasses—the prescription was not far from the one I had in ninth grade; online classes really were to blame—the total came to under RMB 5,000, which was quite reasonable. More importantly, the driving school put me behind the wheel on nearby neighborhood streets in the very first lesson. You really do learn quickly through practice.

And then, of course, I came to America for university. I probably will not be able to return for several years. This year I left Asia for the first time and visited Oceania and North America. I have also found geocaches on three continents, which sounds instantly more impressive when phrased that way.

Earlier entries have chronicled my life at LETU, and I have recently been preparing to organize that material on my website, though it probably will not be accessible from mainland China. In one sentence: the people here are genuinely wonderful, and this is an excellent place to begin!

Rewind the timeline to June, before I left. My parents and I took a graduation trip west to Xinjiang. What about my brother, who still had school? We abandoned him. A chance meeting on the road became a meeting of kindred spirits. All the material is still piled on my hard drive, so please look forward to it!

Before that came my studies in Beijing and Weihai. Looking back, Beijing was not bad at all, apart from never knowing where my next meal was coming from. It is a vast city, and only when I was about to leave did I realize how many places I had never visited. Leave something for the imagination. The future awaits!

My time in Weihai was comparatively full, though I still need to find an opportunity to finish the caches hidden after I left, haha.

Oh, and the obvious Beijing highlight: I used my salary to see Liu Qian’s touring magic show. By extraordinary luck, I claimed the final slot to sign the Magic Pot, and later found my own handwriting in the high-resolution event photos. Whoa. It still feels like a dream.

I continued following Medium⁵ this year and witnessed the arrival of three new AI voicebanks: Yongye, Haiyi, and Muxin. I did not, however, take a single step forward in tuning. Never mind. Once Synthesizer V AI improves in the future, tuning will become an even better brainless gacha simulator. Why improve myself when I can wait for technology to improve instead?

This year, I finally received the next Paranoia installment, Tenfold Farewell. I watched Dystopia appear from nowhere and ascend into legend with ten million views. I marveled as wave after wave of enthusiasm carried My Sorrow Is Made of Water. I understood why Pinky Swear is called the weekly chart’s resident hooligan. Please Don’t Take Me Away carried me away. The title Notes of a Hollow Man made me crave fried chicken. I reflected beneath the irony of Convert’s Zeal, lingered in the tears of Nine-Light-Year Universe, sighed with emotion through Idealism Patient, and found release in the openness of Toward Mountains and Seas.

At the same time, I discovered many hidden treasures among composers, arrangers, lyricists, and producers. At last, my view was no longer confined to the official team’s rigid frame. A hundred flowers blooming is the healthiest ecosystem of all!

This year I entered the world of puzzle games and tried a great many of them. After playing classics such as The Witness, Cypher, The Room, Baba Is You, and Gorogoa, I discovered that Rusty Lake had actually been treating me kindly. I still never managed to download Animal Well. I bought Viewfinder at its historical lowest price, only for Epic to give it away a few days ago. I am the sucker.

This year I finally played Silksong. How fortunate I am. This year I failed to see Terraria 1.4.5. Critical hit, plus four. This year I played Witch Trial of the Magical Girl. Sherry-chan kawaii, daisuki! At the end of the year, I fell into Wuthering Waves. Gacha games, I have returned! (Last year: I will never play another gacha game. This year: delicious.)

Naturally, I remained faithful to Minecraft. After successfully completing the legendary CTM map Final Paradox, I am now leading my brother through a second run. I marvel at the brilliant boss design while the garbage mobs enrage me into unconsciousness. By the way, the person I dragged along now uses my account on all the major servers. I hear everyone on Discord calls him “FlareSky.” My identity has been stolen. (Not really.)

At our Hunt captain’s forceful recommendation, I caught up on Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End this year. The anime left me wanting more, so I moved on to the manga. This year finally brought the announcement of a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part 7 anime, though I expect nothing from David Production. At a friend’s fervent recommendation, I watched It’s MyGO!!!!! and was then successfully served an enormous disaster by Ave Mujica.

I also continued watching tokusatsu. Who is Arc? Who is Omega? What? The sixtieth anniversary is bringing a new Ultraman Zero movie? Then I have no choice but to watch it. The spectacular crash in the latter half of Kamen Rider Gavv shattered my worldview and knocked me unconscious. As for Zeztz? I wish it luck. This year I finally revisited the turn-of-the-millennium Nebula Award masterpiece Kamen Rider Kuuga, led there by Pingzi, and cried for the vivid people and lives within it.

This year, my grandpa left us…

This year, I changed, and yet perhaps I did not change much at all. Looking back at the words I wrote, I sometimes feel as though I am asking, “Who is this person?” Fortunately, I recorded the journey. Perhaps, much farther in the future, I will be able to reach an accurate answer.

But life has never come with an answer key.